Robotics Team 3865-IN State Finals
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My name is Jenny Engstrom and my husband, Stephen, and I are two proud parents of the Riley/NewTech Robotics Team 3865! Our son, Matthew, is one of the Drivers of the robot of the Riley/NewTech Robotics Team 3865, formally named “Not Your Average Roboticists". Riley and NewTech are the 2 high schools that make up Team 3865.
Two weeks ago, our team won District Finals in Kokomo, IN and just today at Purdue University, they were informed that they qualified to participate in The Indiana State Finals! This is huge for a small urban team who hasn't made it this far before!
After the two competitions they just had, our local YMCA does not have any more funding to send their Robotics Team 3865 to the Indiana State Finals on April 2-4, 2015 (this is just 2 weeks away)! The figures I was given to calculate for the State Finals event is a substantial $7,000!! That means each of our Robotics students would need to raise $350 each in order to pay the required registration fee of $4,000 which will need to be submitted by 2-3 days before the actual State competition (only 9 days away). In addition to the event registration fee, the remaining $3,000 will cover all the travel/hotel/food expenses for 3 days. That seems to be an unattainable amount of money for each of our children to raise in such a short amount of time. Many of our kids have families that are considered “low-income” and do not have private funds to cover these costs.
My husband and I want so much to do more for our kids on the NewTech/Riley Robotics Team, which is funded by our local YMCA. They founded the first Robotics team here in South Bend, IN; which is Team 3865. We need to find ways to fund these 20 amazing high school kids so they will be able to compete in the State Finals for the first time.
We are so proud of where the Robotics program is heading, especially since technology and engineering are so prevalent in our time! I hope and pray that this letter of my most heartfelt pleas have been heard! We have very little time to work with, but I believe we can do this!! We can only do this with faith and hope and with the help of our community! Thank you for reading what’s in my heart for this team, this would be the first year they would compete in the State Finals.
Two weeks ago, our team won District Finals in Kokomo, IN and just today at Purdue University, they were informed that they qualified to participate in The Indiana State Finals! This is huge for a small urban team who hasn't made it this far before!
After the two competitions they just had, our local YMCA does not have any more funding to send their Robotics Team 3865 to the Indiana State Finals on April 2-4, 2015 (this is just 2 weeks away)! The figures I was given to calculate for the State Finals event is a substantial $7,000!! That means each of our Robotics students would need to raise $350 each in order to pay the required registration fee of $4,000 which will need to be submitted by 2-3 days before the actual State competition (only 9 days away). In addition to the event registration fee, the remaining $3,000 will cover all the travel/hotel/food expenses for 3 days. That seems to be an unattainable amount of money for each of our children to raise in such a short amount of time. Many of our kids have families that are considered “low-income” and do not have private funds to cover these costs.
My husband and I want so much to do more for our kids on the NewTech/Riley Robotics Team, which is funded by our local YMCA. They founded the first Robotics team here in South Bend, IN; which is Team 3865. We need to find ways to fund these 20 amazing high school kids so they will be able to compete in the State Finals for the first time.
We are so proud of where the Robotics program is heading, especially since technology and engineering are so prevalent in our time! I hope and pray that this letter of my most heartfelt pleas have been heard! We have very little time to work with, but I believe we can do this!! We can only do this with faith and hope and with the help of our community! Thank you for reading what’s in my heart for this team, this would be the first year they would compete in the State Finals.
Organizer
Jenny Ratkay Engstrom
Organizer
South Bend, IN
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