Hot San Jose Nights
This year, Team 668 showcased their robot at this event, raising recognition of FIRST Robotics. Many children and adults were attracted to their robot demonstration and were interested in learning more about it.

Helping to Train Teams and Teachers
Team 668 helped organize and provide a two-day workshop using SolidWorks CAD software. There were 35 attendees from teams as far away as Vallejo.

Thanks to Dave Alpert, GoEngineer, and Santa Clara University we were able to offer the two-day training for a minimal cost of $50.00 per attendee. We also provided scholarships for five attendees. Everyone there found the training to be very useful, even for those who might be using another CAD program. Many of the attendees were from rookie teams and were very happy to have the opportunity to attend the training. Attendees designed many different parts and assemblies that helped them understand how they might use the software in the design of their own robots.

In addition to teaching and assisting rookie teams, we partnered with Santa Clara University to teach a class to teachers in our district about integrating robotics into their curriculum. Using our example, they can now teach their own students with this hands-on approach. One of our own team members and mentors even taught a class for programming and C to be used with the NXT brick.

Starting and Mentoring New Teams
This year Team 668 is assisting Valley Christian High School with their robotics team for their school.

We helped to start and mentor a new FRC team at Prospect High School in San Jose. We were able to give them a working robot chassis to use in our local off-season event, California Robotics Games. This gave them a taste of what the coming season would be like but with some idea of how a team must function during the build cycle.

We also mentored a rookie team from Junipero Serra, Gunderson, and Santa Teresa High Schools.

Volunteering at FIRST Events
We volunteered at the Northern California Regional FIRST Lego League (FLL) qualifying tournaments, providing judges and event support staff for the Championships. The team has provided judges, inspectors, and staff support for the FIRST Tech Challenge. We have hosted the Northern California FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) championship, lending our facilities, volunteers, and support.

Last year Team 668 participated in many community events.

A Successful Toys for Tots Drive — In December 2008 the team participated in the Toys for Tots event at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds for the first time. We demonstrated the robot as part of the entertainment at the event and helped to organize over 100 volunteers from nine FRC teams, both student and adult volunteers. Being part of this event supports our goal of reaching out to a wider population of students and their families to encourage their participation in FIRST Robotics. It was a complete success and we have volunteered every year since then and intend to participate again in 2011. Since then, the team has recruited 5 other robotics teams who now offer their support.

Community Participation 2008-2009 Season
BAE Systems Diversity Fair — We were invited by one of our sponsors, BAE Systems, to show our robot at their Diversity Fair.

Society of Engineers Auto Show — We were then asked to participate at the regional Society of Automotive Engineers show where we demonstrated our robot and presented information and videos about FIRST.

Local Car & Motorcycle Show — We were off to a local car and motorcycle show where we were asked to set up a booth to again demonstrate our robot and provide information about FIRST.

Carnival at Pioneer High School — After that we were asked to provide a demonstration and booth for a local Church carnival at our school. This turned out to be a lot of fun as there were many young children and their parents who were interested in finding out more about robotics and similar programs at their local schools.

RoboDevelopment Trade Show — Another exciting event was when we were asked to participate in a trade show for robotics, RoboDevelopment. We received the invitation from National Instruments to come and demonstrate the Beta Test platform. Again we were able to provide information about FIRST and had many questions from different suppliers about how they might support FIRST robotics. We gave them local and national contact information.

We are very excited to be able to branch out into other areas that might prove to bring new sponsors into the FIRST community along with additional funding for regional events.