This Page Serves as a Quick Guide to how to get your Requirements Done to get your travel paid for!! Upcoming events are noted to make it easy to complete your Requirements!! All of these requirements are detailed in the Team Handbook, and any documentation in the handbook superceeds anything written here. This is just intended as Quick Guide on how to complete your requirements.
Preseason Team Meetings
Attend all of the team meetings you can, we provide information on all the upcoming events, and its a great time to meet your teammembers and learn about FIRST.
Preseason Subteam Participation
You must be involved with at least one sub team. Students may be involved in as many as they want, but have to declare a Main Subteam by 10/1. They have to attend 50% of the main subteam’s meetings.
Build Season Work
Students must obtain a minimum number of hours for build season. During that 6 weeks, students can put in time building the robot, putting together awards submissions, building the field components, preparing for Rally, or preparing spirit items. Putting in around 10 hours of work each week usually gets the students to their total hours. Note that Homework hours are included in this time, and are designed to make sure students are getting work done in addition to FIRST. Homework sessions will provide access to knowledgable adults and tutoring as needed.
Community Service
Each student is required to put in a certain number of community service hours, AND attend a certain number of events (so one 10 hour event does not cover the entire requirement). Additionally, students must participate in robot demonstrations. If there are not enough demos, organize one! All Juniors & Seniors of the returning team are required to organize a demo.
Upcoming Community Service:
Penfield Food Shelf: Bring in 8 bars of soap before 10/3 for 1 comm service credit.
Stuff a Bus: 11/17 Community Service Event up to 3 hours, 1 credit
FLL Tournament: 12/3 Volunteer for the FLL Tournament and get up to 5 hours and 1 comm service credit.
Fundraising
Patron Drive: All Students are required to participate in the patron drive. The patron drive will be kicked off at the Tuesday Meeting on 10/10. Students are encouraged to get all of their patron drive activities done before winter break. Once build season hits, things are often too hectic to easily fufill the requirement
Participate in Fundraisers: All students must participate in fundraisers. Fundraisers are what help our team raise money for student, chaperone, and non-Harris mentor travel. If enough funding is NOT raised, deposits or payments will be higher, regardless of requirement fufillment. So if you see a fundraiser that we can do, let us know and you can set it up. All returning students are required to help organize a fundraiser.
Current Fundraisers:
BonTon Coupon Books: To Benefit our FLL sponsorship. All Sales are due by 11/10. Any student selling 10 books gets credit for 1 fundraiser.
Entertainment Books: Sell 5 Entertainment books at $25 each for 1 fundraiser credit.
Pizza/Candy sales: Starting in October, the team will be selling pizza & candy after school. All students are required to help out for one day of this activity.
Promotes One Activity
One of the vital ways to be successful in spreading the word about our team and making the community aware of us, as well as advertising fundraisers and other events is to be on top of promotions. Promotions can be as simple as developing one catchy flier and distributing it around the school, Harris, and the town. Other ways can include video announcements, TV broadcasts, web based announcements, etc. In order to get credit for promoting an activity, a student MUST advertise the activity to a reasonable population AT LEAST one week in advance of the event.
Participates in One FLL Activity
FLL is an important part of our team and of Rochester this year. As our team is supporting 13 FLL teams, it is vital that all of us help by participating in an FLL activity. This can be by helping at one of our camps, the FLL Kickoff, the December Tournament, or by mentoring or becoming a master mentor for an FLL Team.
Family Brings One Meal for Build Season
In order to keep the team well nourished during the build season, we ask that every family bring one meal for build season. It can be as simple as ordering pizza or bringing a large dish of ziti, or as complex as desired. Drinks and paper products must be brought at some time during the season, and deserts are always appreciated!! One of our parents will be coordinating dates prior to build season. Stay tuned!
Parent Attends Info Session & One Team Event
Parent Info Sessions are being held on 9/27 and 10/4. ALL students must have a parent, guardian or family member attend one of these info session. As families are a big part of helping us do everything we do, we also require that a family member attends one of our events. It can be a team meeting, demo, community service, Ruckus, or any fun team activity. Remember this has to be done prior to the end of build season, so chaperoning our trips DOES NOT COUNT!
Pass Test on 2006 Game
While FIRST is about more than the robot, we feel it is very important for our students to understand and know the rules of the game. By week 2 of build season, students can start taking the test on the game (and tools), and can keep taking the test until they are able to successfully pass it. This must be complete prior to the end of build season.
Interview Engineer/ Robotics Report
As interviewing and speaking with other engineers is an important skill for the real world, we ask that all students interview and engineer and write up a one page report on the engineer. Students that cannot do the interview may do a report on a robotics related article as approved by the team leader. This is an easy assignment to get done ahead of time, so start now!!
Student Eligibility
School Eligibility is vital to being involved in any PHS club. 1511 feels strongly that all students should focus first on education. Any student declared ineligible by the school rules cannot participate in the team. Any student on probation is highly encouraged to focus on school and NOT the team. Additionally, students must sign & abide by the Extracurricular and Athletic Code of Conduct in order to be eligibile.
Acceptable Behavior
We expect all team members to treat eachother with respect. FIRST often boasts to act in manners that "would make your grandmother proud". So that means no PDA's, no playing computer games at meetings, no fights, no talking back to adults. In all, acting in a fashion to make everyone have a fun and enjoyable time on the team.
Registers on 1511 Forums & Chief Delphi Forums
Register for our forums at: www.penfieldrobotics.com/forum
Register for Chief Delphi Forums at: www.chiefdelphi.com
Both of these pages are great resources for finding out everything you need to know about our team and about information from other teams.
Application Due 9/26
The Student application must be submitted by 9/26. Any students who have not turned in the application by 9/26 will NOT be allowed at any team meetings or events until the application is turned in. So starting with the meeting on 10/3 don't show up if you havent turned in an application!
Contract Signed & Submitted by 10/10
Similar to the Student Application, the Student Contract appears at the end of the team handbook. The contract states that you have read and understand the team handbook, and that your parents have as well. You will be bound by these rules, so please read it before you sign!
Welcome to the digital home of Rolling Thunder, FIRST Robotics team 1511. The team is from Penfield High School in Penfield, New York and mainly sponsored by Harris Corp. To find out more about the team and FIRST, please visit the About Us page.
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