Corporate Sponsorship Opportunities
UW-Stout has chosen to host this robotics tournament since we view this as an exciting opportunity to get kids interested in engineering, science, and technology careers. FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is a non-profit organization that inspires kids by creating sporting event style robotics tournaments. Developed by Dean Kamen, the inventor of the Segway, and Woodie Flowers, MIT Professor of Mechanical Engineering, there are now three robotics tournaments for kids to participate in. FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) is a company sponsored tournament for 15-18 year olds. VEX is a new robotics tournament for 13-18 year olds and is still in a pilot phase for 2005 and is a joint venture with Radio Shack. FIRST LEGO League (FLL) is for 9-14 year olds and is a joint venture with LEGO. We have chosen to begin our involvement with the FLL level and hope to increase that to the VEX level in the next couple of years.
In 2005, UW-Stout was named as an official regional FLL tournament site. We had 16 teams compete on Saturday, December 3. The tournament theme was Ocean Odyssey. In 2006, we again held a regional site and again had 16 teams compete. In 2007, we held our third FLL Regional with 23 teams cometing.
In FLL, teams design, build, and test LEGO Mindstorms autonomous robots to accomplish as many of the theme related missions as possible during a 2 1/2 minute timeframe. The teams are also judged on their presentation of a problem resolution to a research topic of their choosing, their teamwork (as observed by a team activity), and their technical innovation and robustness of the robot. All of this is demonstrated during the full day of judging and tournament competitions at the regional tournaments. The upcoming challenge theme is "Cimate Connections: Building A Global Game Plan."
To successfully make kids aware of this exciting robotics tournament and have a great and energetic tournament venue, we could use your help in sponsoring this event. To host this tournament, a tournament budget of $2500 is needed. You can assist us by helping to offset these costs and thereby give your company a prominent spot in promoting engineering, science, and technology awareness of 9-14 year olds in our region. We will insure your corporate sponsorship is noted in all publication materials related to the Stout FLL Regional Tournament and will have a prominent sponsorship sign notation on the day of the event.
To sponsor this event or to see a demonstration of the tournament competition missions, contact Dan Bee via email: beed@uwstout.edu or call him at (715) 232-5247. We look forward to working with you in developing our support of US FIRST in this region of the State of Wisconsin!