Hi,

I'm writing in search of a few volunteers to help out with the Botball
program being held here in the DC area starting next weekend.  If you are
not familiar with the Botball program go to the following website for
details:

http://www.botball.org/

In particular, Botball is run by KIPR (the KISS Institute for Practical
Robotics - a non-profit organization whose motto is Keep It Simple Stupid)
with the primary goal of educating America's youth through robotics and
building the future Engineers and Scientists of tomorrow.

On this coming Friday, Saturday and Sunday (March 9th, 10th and 11th)
there will be a tutorial for all of the high schools participating in the
Washington DC Botball tournament.  Several volunteers are needed on each
of those 3 days (details below).  After the tutorial weekend, all of the
schools participating in the Botball program have approximately 6 weeks to
build their robot(s) - mentors are needed during that 6 week period
(details below).  Finally on Saturday, April 21st all of the DC area teams
come together to compete - volunteers are once again needed (details
below), as well as spectators who wish to see all the fascinating
creations made out of Legos and wires.

If you know of anyone else who may be interested in this, please feel free
to forward this e-mail on to them.

Botball Tutorial -
   volunteers with Lego, Handyboard and/or Lego RCX experience needed
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
When -  Friday, March 9th    8:30am to 5pm (or any 3+ hour block therein)
        Saturday, March 10th 8:30am to 5pm (or any 3+ hour block therein)
        Sunday, March 11th   8:30am to 2pm (or any 3+ hour block therein)

Where - George Mason University in Fairfax Virginia
        (carpooling will be arranged if requested and if possible)

Duties - I will be giving a tutorial on Friday and Saturday to approx.
         30+ teachers.  The tutorial will have a fair amount of hands on
         exercises (ranging from learning how to connect the handyboard
         to building a small Lego robot and programming it).  Volunteers
         are needed to help give as much one on one help as possible
         during this tutorial/workshop (mainly helping individual
         teachers when problems arise so that the whole group can
         continue working at an uninterrupted pace - so basically the
         volunteers duty is to help troubleshoot).

Contact Person - myself (jmaybury@umd5.umd.edu)

If you are interested in volunteering Friday, Saturday or Sunday please
e-mail me stating which day(s) and time(s) you can help out and whether
you would like to carpool or not.

Mentoring
   volunteers with Lego, Handyboard and/or Lego RCX experience needed
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
When - Starting Friday March 9th (or any-time thereafter) and going through
       April 21st.

Where - at a local school near you (or as close as possible).

Duties - mentors will be paired up with a single school and should
         help the students with their botball project - mainly providing
         guidance and technical support.  The time commitment varies and
         a mentor could provide e-mail support, or preferably in person
         support.  A mentor could go out to the school once a week, or 3
         times a week depending upon their availability and the number of
         times the school gets together each week.
         Please note: Mentors do NOT build robots - this is a project for
                      the high schools students to do and learn from.

Contact Persons:  Kate Hawken  and
                  Jim Green 
  In particular Jim Green will help pair up Maryland schools with mentors
  and Kate Hawken will help pair up Virginia schools with mentors.

  If you are interested in being a mentor please contact Jim (if you are
  in MD), or Kate (if you are in VA).  When you contact them, include a
  short bio about yourself (name, where you go to school, occupation,
  etc.) and if you know of a school participating (see the botball webpage
  for a list) that you would like to work with, let them know.

Botball Tournament!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
When - Saturday, April 21st from ?? to ?? (TBA - see the webpage listed
                                                 above)

Where - George Mason University's Patriot Center.

Duties - spectators - just come out and watch and have a good time!
                      (admission is free to all)
         volunteers - just come out and help and have a good time!
           (help setup game boards, reset game boards between rounds,
            help out with the "pit" area - where students work between
            rounds, help clean up at the end of the day, get a free
            t-shirt, see exciting Lego robots up close battle it out
            playing Botball).

Contact - myself (jmaybury@umd5.umd.edu) - let me know if you are
          available and interested in helping out on that day and I will
          contact you with further details as they become available.

Thanks and if you haven't yet, check out the Botball webpage:

http://www.botball.org/

Sincerely,

--
James Maybury                           
Undergraduate Program Coordinator            <1119 A.V. Williams Building>
Department of Computer Science                     
University of Maryland                                 
College Park, MD  20742