School's in session

Can you believe it, time to put on those new back to school shoes.

I spent last week in Denver at the AUVSI show. Talk about some cool careers. We need to bottle some of that stuff and show others what's going on in the world of robotics and unmanned vehicles.

Anyway, we're clearing the final hurdles to release the new game September 11th. We think you'll be pleased.

Going though some of the stuff from the summer I came across this pic. Inspirational no?

What HAVE you been doing?

All,

Thankfully the FTC "off season" is almost over. What's been going on you ask? Lot's of Game Design final details. Dean got a sneak peak at the game a week ago and loved it. Of course that also resulted in a few tweaks - but what better guy to tweak the game than Dean right?

It seems we've also been attracting a lot of attention here in Manchester. The number of folks coming through FIRST has been really high. Just this morning I bumped into Dave Patterson from Alaska, not the person you'd expect to just drop by. No, he was not wearing his kilt. In addition to Dave, John Deere, Senator Shaheen, various film crews, and a big group of international media has streamed through in just the last couple weeks. Looks like we're reaching that tipping point with regard to people "getting" it.

We've also been traveling. This week Nancy Paul is on her way to Pittsburgh Kansas for the LEGO North America annual meetings. I just got back from Rockwell Collins and John Deere headquarters last week and I head to the AUVSI conference in Denver later this week. If any of you are in Denver feel free to stop by and say hello. I am moderating a talk on "The Value of Robotics Competitions" on Friday the 27th. (You may already have an idea of where I stand on the issue...)

Thanks to the folks at Rockwell Collins for their generous support of all FIRST programs and particularly as the title sponsor again this year for FTC. They were kind enough to host me at their annual breakfast where I got the chance to talk "FIRST" to over 400 attendees. Pretty good turnout for a 7:00am meeting!

After the meeting I was able to tour Rockwell's Virtual Reality Lab. Really cool stuff. They can take assemblies, model them, and actually get inside them to see how it all comes together - all before finalizing the design. Amazing - another example of a cool engineering/technology based career. People say the photo below is my best angle...



So - what's coming up? The next big thing is the game announcement. We'll reveal the game Saturday, September 11th. Look here for hints - let's see if anyone can figure it out. The hints should start coming later this week.

Hard to believe it's already time to kick off another season!

See you out there,
Ken