Skills- SLC 3

What?? You mean there is more??  Yes there is!!

 

1)      We are in need of help on some of our state only contests and this is my time to ask for assistance!!  Not sure why finding people for these contests is so difficult.

a.       Bridge Building – 10:00 Thursday morning at Century Link.  We could use 4-5 people to qualify the bridges and then test them with our Stress Analyzer.  There is a formula to follow – this is not a difficult contest but 3-4 people would make this a short order.

b.      Metric 500 – Ed Mills of Blair has agreed to coordinate this contest.  This will start around 10:00am on Thursday and we have some Dream It Do It members who are supposed to assist with this contest.  Not sure if I really think 3-4 of them will really show up to help – they are supposed to.  Maybe have 3-4 advisors/board members on standby.  We can leave it with the DIDI group at lunch time or close it down for lunch.

c.       Mousetrap Vehicles – Thursday evening at the DoubleTree – we need about 4 people to make this work and be done by 8:30pm.  This is a speed contest with a run through for qualifying in the tournament.  A bracket then needs to be set up to find our champions.  I would really like to be able to make up a bracket, but with all of our state only contests, we really do not have an idea how many will actually show to compete.  Registration says 41 total mousetrap vehicles, we hope to have at least ¾ of those show up.  Judges will need to set up the track( stored in Flanagan room) then break it down and take it back to Flanagan room.

d.      Research and Development – 3 teams of two.  This contest really needs one STEM minded person to judge these engineering marvels.

e.      Our judges for the National T-Shirt design are now not available on Thursday evening.  I am going to see how many actual entries (35 registered from 6 schools) we get and one of three things will happen.  If we don’t get many entries, which we have not received very many as of Sunday evening, we will have an interview process and I may ask two active advisors who do not have any entries to sit in on these interviews or we may just vote on these finalists at the advisor luncheon or we give this to the delegates to vote on also.  I have witnessed this t-shirt design contest at nationals and from what I have seen so far, only a couple have put any thought into the designs.  This is an interview on the national level and in order to get a fair shake at nationals, you need to really think about what your design means and how you came about the design.

f.        Nationals – There will not be a lot of time to ponder whether or not your Champion/s will go on to Louisville to compete June 20 – 24.  Our conference is one of the later conferences this year, that means nationals will be expecting our registrations about May 2.  

a.       Conference registration is $150.00 per/person

b.      Hotel rates seem to have gone up this year – same hotel Hyatt Regency! S/D - $140 night, T/Q - $156/night.  NOT sure if taxes are  included in these prices or not.  I have not had time to communicate with our Hotel Representative, but I will have that information right after SLC.

c.       We  have again contracted with navigator for four buses.  We are going with 56 passenger buses this year and have been guaranteed to have nicer buses than last year.  I learned from some of the negotiations I did last year, cheaper is not necessary better.  I hope to have the four buses start from four different points again to accommodate where our Champions hail from.  Costs for the buses could range from $140/person to $180/person.  Schedules will be similar to last year.

g.       On Thursday Morning at SLC, from 9:00 am – 10:30 we will have a B/I VIP session at Century Link.  Several of our board members will be on hand to share with industry what we are all about.  Tim Lawrence will also be there to present and will be a great asset for us this year.  If you have a Business/Industry member you have invited to this conference, let them know about this session.  It will be held in the VIP Suite at the Century Link in the preconference area/entryway of Hall C.

h.      You and your students will be responsible for getting the Bridges/plans and Metric 500 vehicles/plans to the contest sites by 10:00am.  We will not be collecting them at registration.  Make sure you attach the ID sheet that is on the State Only contest rules to both of these items.