February 2020 | Issue 2 – Volunteer Newsletter

DONATE

VOLUNTEER

SPOTLIGHT

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Teamwork Makes the

Dreamwork! Thank you

Lorna, Scott S, & Scott B!

Lorna Kropp has been a pillar in the FIRST LEGO League community across Eastern Washington for nearly 20 years. She started as a teacher, bringing FIRST programs to her students and has been an integral part in bringing FIRST programs in schools and other districts. In addition to coaching multiple FLL and FLL Jr. teams annually, she has been a FIRST Washington volunteer coordinator, helping to bring adults into the FIRST programs. Thank you Lorna!

Congratulations to our FTC Volunteer of the year, Scott Smith!! Scott helps to run our FIRST Tech Challenge league events down in the Olympia area as their head referee but of course, he doesn’t stop there. His events are on Saturday’s so it is not uncommon to see him refereeing for another league on Sunday. Additionally, he was the volunteer coordinator for 3 of our FIRST LEGO League competitions. This past January, he ran one of our championship events one weekend, ran one of our FLL Semi-final events the next weekend and then volunteered as head referee for our state event the 3rd weekend in January, but had an FTC team competing at that event! Somehow, he finds the time to coach BOTH FTC and FLL teams while being such an uber volunteer. Thanks for all you do Scott, it is because of people like you that we are able to give these amazing students such a great experience!

Congratulations to our FLL Volunteer of the Year, Scott Bradley! Scott has been involved with FIRST for 15 years in Florida and Washington, both as a coach and an Event Volunteer for FIRST LEGO League. Since coming to Washington, he has been a judge and this season has taken on a new role as a judge advisor in addition to coaching a FIRST LEGO League team. He not only has been a fantastic asset as a judge advisor, filling this role at 3 of our events this season, but he has also helped out in writing software to help the judge advisors with the new criteria this season. One of our FLL judge advisor liked the software so much he asked Scott to adapt it for FTC. Thank you Scott for all your help this season, and for helping us make this program great!

THANK YOU

LEGISLATORS

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We can’t do it alone!

Thank your State legislators on Thursday, February 13th, which is our 2nd Annual Legislator Invitational. FIRST Washington has a great partnership with the State of Washington to help financially support our public schools teams, 4th – 12th grade. For many of our teams, this is the largest donor you have supporting your team.

Now is the time to turn on your appreciation by having each of your team members, both students & adults to drop a quick note of appreciation to their state lawmakers. To find your state lawmakers (1 Senator & 2 Representatives) go to https://app.leg.wa.gov/DistrictFInder/ and fill in your address.

CONGRATULATIONS

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Good Luck to all FIRST LEGO League & FIRST Tech Challenge Teams Going to World Championship!

A huge congratulations to the following teams going to Houston for the world championship!

FIRST LEGO League

Team 19650 LEGO Superheros – Spokane

Team 2188 The Uncommon Denominators – Sammamish

Team 31774 The Cryptic Cookies Bits ‘n Bots – Seattle

FIRST Tech Challenge

Team 417 S.K.I.D (Space Koalas in Disguise) from – Woodinville

Team 3491 FIX IT – Victoria, BC

Team 5953 Roarbotics – Auburn

Team 8802 Negative Resistance – Seattle

Team 11138 Robo Eclipse – Bellevue

Team 12611 TechNova – Renton

Team 14343 Escape Velocity – Bellevue

2ND ANNUAL FIRST WASHINGTON ROBOTICS LEGISLATOR INVITATIONAL

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Thursday, February 13th

3:00 – 5:00 pm

Legislative Building, Columbia Room

Olympia, WA

FIRST ROBOTICS COMPETITION –

PNW DISTRICT

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2/28-3/1 Snohomish, 3/5-3/7 Spokane, 3/6-3/8 Auburn,

3/19-3/21 Yakima, 3/20-3/22 Bellingham, 3/27-3/29 Auburn,

4/1-4/4 Cheney

TOPBOTS –

SEATTLE &

SPOKANE

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Seattle – April 22

Spokane – May 1

TOPBOTS EVENTS

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Team Building Opportunities!

Hey FIRST team members and volunteers: We have so many coaches, mentors, and volunteers who work for industry and we need your help! We have a new fundraising event, April 22nd in Seattle and May 1st in Spokane, TopBots, Anyone’s Robot Challenge and now is the time to build your corporate team! This is going to be an awesome corporate team building opportunity! Just about every company seeks interesting and fun team building activities and this is a creative and new one. Help spread the word by getting your company to form at least one team!! More information see: http://firstwa.org/TopBots

REMINDERS

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Thank you for volunteering!

Many events that still need help in Washington & Oregon. Please visit www.firstwa.org for more information!
Bring your reusable FIRST Washington water bottle to events!
Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, & Twitter
Share your thank you to your state legislators on social media! Post one of your favorite photos of your FIRST experiences and tag your state lawmakers thanking them! Please use these tags to help amplify your appreciation: @WASenDomocrats, @WAHouseDems, @WASenateGOP, @WAHouseGOP

AWAY FOR THESE EVENTS? CONTRIBUTIONS HELP. WE KNOW YOUR COMMITMENTS MAY PREVENT YOU FROM ATTENDING. WHAT BETTER WHAT TO SUPPORT OUR PROGRAMS THAN MAKING A DONATION!

CONSIDER MAKING A GIFT TODAY!

CLICK HERE!

FIRST Washington | firstwa.org