-We have established a long term partnership with Discovery World Museum. We created an exhibit for their grand opening which included a Lego challenge table and robot, a full size Vex field where visitors could run multiple Vex robots, and our FRC Aim High robot. We included several visual displays that explained the FIRST competitions and handed out literature. Teammates manned the exhibit for the entire opening weekend to conduct the hands-on activities and to explain the program and what it means to them. On Friday evening we were included in the pre-opening Formal Gala where we presented to the VIP’s. The museum was impressed with our presentation and expressed an interest in having us be more involved in their robotics education programs. The team was featured on evening news and on the Discovery World web site. We ran our hands-on exhibit at Discovery World Museum again the following month.

-We are helping them create and maintain a permanent interactive Robotics Exhibit that includes a full field Vex challenge, parallax robots and more. We built and help maintain multiple robots that can be run by patrons.

-We presented a half-day hands-on session at Discovery World Museum as part of their summer robotics camp program. We introduced the students to FIRST FLL, Vex, and FRC.

-One of our student members developed and taught 2 robotics workshops at the Discovery World Museum, using Lego NXT with an emphasis on programming and integrating sensors. She is working with the museum on other educational programs.

-Our team leader presented at the sySTEM convention about robotics education. He also sits on the advisory board of 2 Project Lead the Way High Schools, and is encouraging a third to adopt the program.

We completed “Deans homework from the 06 championship, ” to meet with our congressperson to discuss FIRST“. We met with Congresswomen Gwen Moore. She was interested in our explanation of the FIRST program, and was happy to hear about all that we have done as a team to promote interest in science, math, engineering, and technology. She also enjoyed running our robot.

-We worked with Mayor Barrett to have an official Proclamation made declaring December 3rd , 2006, Robotics Day in the City of Milwaukee.

-We completed “Dean’s homework” from the 07 kick-off to write letters to our politicians to inform them about FIRST and to invite them to our WI Regional. Each team member wrote to Senator Russ Feingold, Senator Herb Kohl, Congresswoman Gwen Moore, and Governor Jim Doyle.

We founded and mentored FLL team #706, A Little More Robotics, The Bubble Rappers, who won the First Place programming Award at the Mukwonago Regional and were recognized for their Gracious Professionalism. This was a Rookie team made up of students from 8 different schools that otherwise would not have an opportunity to be on an FLL team.

-We helped mentor 2 other Rookie FLL teams, one from the Davis Boy’s and Girl’s Club and the other from the Milwaukee Academy of Science.

We ran the Milwaukee Vex League (which we founded in 05) with team 1675 and MSOE. It including training seminars and a challenge called “King of the Rings”. We expanded from 5 teams in our first year to 10 teams this year. We web cast the game kick-off so teams in other areas could start their own leagues. This lead to an 18 team Tournament in Oconomowoc, where we provided volunteers. We co-hosted the second annual Milwaukee Vex Invitational Tournament called “King of the Rings” at MSOE, and sponsored by WIRED and Rockwell Automation. 32 teams participated this year, compared to 21 teams last year.