Northern California Newsletter

June-July, 2012

Hi Everyone,

Summer is upon us and lots of activities are in the works. The big news is the opening of "The Play Space" in San Jose, CA. I attended the open house on June 16th. This is the only place outside of Manchester where all 4 FIRST programs can be found under one roof. A big thank you to Playing@Learning for their hard work and drive to make this a reality. I hope each of you has the opportunity to visit this wonderful place in the near future. What's next - it's time for off-season events and planning for next season.

Teri Benart - FIRST Senior Mentor

St Louis Championships - What an amazing experience to

be part of the Championships in St. Louis. I am sure that all the teams that attended had a great time and enjoyed the event. Listed below are the Claifornia

Teams that participated in the finals and those that wone awards. Congratulations to following Championship finalists and award winners.

California Finalists:

Curie Division Champion - Team 207 Metalcrafters,

Hawthorne High School, Hawthrone, CA

Curie Division Finalist - Team 254 Cheesy Poofs, Bellarmine

College Prep, San Jose, CA

Newton Division Finalist - Team 330 Hope Chapel Academy

High School, Los Angeles, CA

Curie Division Quarterfinalist -Team 971 Mountain View

High School, Mountain View, CA

Archimedes Division Quarterfinals -Team 973 GreyBots,

Atascadero High School, Atascadero, CA

Curie Division Coopertition Award - Team 1266 Devil

Duckies, Madison High School, San Diego, CA

Galileo Division Semifinalist - Team 1323 Madera High

School, Madera, CA

Newton Division Quarterfinalist - Team 1662 Jim Elliott

Christian High School, Lodi, CA

Galileo Division Quarterfinalist Team 1671 Buchanan High

School, Clovis, CA

Curie Division Quarterfinalist -Team 1678 DaVinci

Academy, Davis, CA

Newton Division Semifinalist - Team 1717 Dos Pueblos

High School, Goleta, CA

California Championship Awards:

Championship Finalist – Team 207, METALCRAFTERS,

Hawthorne High School, Hawthorne, CA

Creativity Award Sponsored by Xerox – Team 1717,

D'Penguineers, Dos Pueblos High School, Goleta, CA.

Excellence in Engineering Award Sponsored by Delphi –

Team 973, Greybots, Atascadero, CA.

Excellence in Design Award (3D Animation) Sponsored by

Autodesk – Team 192, GRT, Gunn High School, Palo Alto,

CA.

Imagery Award in honor of Jack Kamen – Team 1266, The

Devil Duckies, San Diego, CA.

Website Award – Team 115, MVRT, Monta Vista High

School Cupertino, CA.

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Important Upcoming Dates:

The following California Offseason Events are scheduled and

will be utilizing the field that is now part being permanently

housed at Play Space here in Northern California. The events

will leverage the Rebound Rumble game:

Date Location

Sept 14-15 PowerHouse Science Center (Sacramento) –

Oct 12-13 CalGames (Woodside

Oct 19-20 Battle at the Border (San Diego)

Oct 26-27 LA Robotics Fall Classic (LA)

Nov 9-10 Madtown Throwdown (Madera)

IMPORTANT NOTE: FRC Field usage must be requested

and approved by either Jim Beck and/or Ken Mitchell. The

FRC Field is property of FIRST and as such requires the

appropriate approvals for usage.

Open House at Play Space - June 16, 2012

If you need help in anyway, please don't

hesitate to contact me. I can be reached at (831) 818-

1347 or email at tbenart@usfirst.org.

The Jr.FLL will start up in August with the SUPER

SENIORS(SM) Challenge. Teams will learn about simple

machines as they build a model made of LEGO® elements

with a motorized moving part and create a team Show-Me

Poster to represent their findings. For more information

about this exciting new challenge for ages 6-9 check out the

following sites:

http://www.playingatlearning.org/JFLL/index.html http://www.juniorfirstlegoleague.org/2012-super-seniors-

challenge.html

Congratulations to the following Northern

California Teams that participated in the

following invitational's:

Brazil International Championship March 2-4:

Warriorbots Valley Christian Schools San Jose, CA Representing USA

FLL World Festival April 25-28: Toga Robotics Redwood Middle School Saratoga, CA representing East Bay LegoNauts Lawson Middle School Cupertino, CA representing Peninsula Robotatouille Folsom, CA representing Capital BotWorks San Jose, CA representing Silicon Valley

Florida Open Championship May 4-6:

RoboRangers Cupertino, CA representing NorCal Region LEGOLAND California Open Championship May 18-20 Food Guardians San Ramon, CA representing East Bay Androids Palo Alto, CA representing Peninsula BEBO Weimar Hlls School Meadow Vista,CA representing Capital The Brickheads San Jose, CA representing Silicon Valley

FLL has opened registration for the 2012 Senior Solutions season registration. Teams can register wityh FIRST at: https://gofll.usfirst.org/ The actual challenge will be announced on August 28, 2012. For more information see the following site: https://gofll.usfirst.org/pages/schedule A big thank you to all of the FLL, FTC and FRC teams that participated in the Maker's Faire May 19-20 in San Mateo. Great showing and participation from our FIRST Family.

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Upcoming FLL/FTC Events:

FLL Challenge announced - August 28, 2012

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The NorCal FTC teams that competed in St.

Louis Championships are listed below: Team Name Location 3509 PHOENXTRIX Folsom (Inspire Award - 1st place) 524 Boss Bots Moraga (Captain Winning Alliance) 4529 Antipodes Pacifica (Inspire Award - 2nd place) 4963 Nova Folsom (Inspire Award at Northern Nevada Championship) 4238 Robo Chicken Gator El Dorado Hills Flys of Papayaland (Winning Alliance Captain at Las Vegas Championship)

Congratulations to all of the FTC Teams.

Registration for the 2012-2013 Season open up in

May. For further NorCal FTC Championship

results please use the following link:

http://www.norcalftc.org/

_____________________________________ If you have an event or article that you would like to share - please email me and I would love to put it in our monthly newsletter - Thank you, Teri Benart- Senior Mentor - NorCal - tbenart@usfirst.org

I have included a gallery of photo's from the

PlaySpace Open House on June 16th. I hope all

of you have the opportunity to visit this

incredible place. Jill Wilker and Mark Edellman

from Playing@learning are open to suggestions

for use, hours and general ideas for making this

location a place for all FIRST teams to utilize.

Please don't hesitate to contact either of them at:

info@playingatlearning.org or (510)656-8664.

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