Team 66 - Willow Run Robotics

The Ypsilanti Heritage Festival Robotics Tent: Headed by team 470, Alpha Omega Robotics from Ypsilanti High School, Team 66 and many other teams have for many years assisted and put on demonstrations at the annual festival in August. Over the years the tent has grown in both the number of teams it invites from Southeast Michigan, but also in the variety of content. For the 2006 festival, the tent had not only the large scale FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) robots, but also the small scale VEX robots, and the LEGO Mindstorms robots, including the latest NXT version of the Mindstorms Robotics line of kits. Passers by, and especially young children, were invited to play with the VEX robots, and numerous games with the FRC bots were played as large crowds gathered at the tent. 2006's demonstration was among the best ever for the above reasons.

Demo at the Ypsilanti Federal Credit Union; Michigan Avenue; Downtown Ypsilanti: not only recieving over $100 in donations and selling baked goods, Team 66 amused many people at the Credit Union. Many questions were fielded to the members there who answered them graciously, spreading the FIRST word.

The Ypsilanti Chamber of Commerce: Team 66 has been at two of the Chamber's First Tuesday Breakfast meetings over the past couple of years. The first meeting was to recieve the Chamber's prestigious 2005 E3 (Excellence in Educational Endeavors) Award. The entire team, including GM mentors, and the robot with banners, were there to accept the award. New coach Scott Heister spoke on behalf of the team upon recieving the award. In December of 2006, Team 66 returned to explain to the Chamber their recent successes in regards to the Chairman's award win at the Great Lakes Regional and in hopes of recieving sponsors.

W4 Country and Toys 4 Tots: On December 22, 2006, Team 66 woke up early in the morning and joined W4 Country (102.9 FM Radio) in their Crusade for Kids and helped them gather toys for needy families for the Holiday Season. 'Bubba' did sit down with many of the team's members and talked with them on air about FIRST and non-FIRST topics, such as fixing Bubba's satellite reciever. ;)

Willow Run Community School Board Meetings and Bake Sales: For almost every board meeting, members of Team 66 have been selling baked goods at the 1st and 3rd Thursday board meetings for the Willow Run District, not only raising money, but also spreading the word about the team and its mission.

2005 and 2006 University of Michigan Sports Concessions: Team 66 for the 2005 and early 2006 seasons of UofM Football and Basketball ran one of the many concession stands at the stadiums, not only raising money, but also making the team's presence and mission known to hundreds of thousands of people across the Ann-Arbor/Ypsilanti area.

Post Superbowl bottle drives: Every year after the NFL's Superbowl, Team 66 has gone out to local neighborhoods and asked for donations of left over bottles and cans. This has turned out to be one of Team 66's biggest fundraisers for build season and often proves to be another great way to spread the word of the team in the local community, house by house.

www.first-teams.com: go see our logo in the top right hand side of the collage of FIRST team logos.

Various other forms of spreading the word: Team 66 is constantly looking for great ways to spread the word of FIRST in its surrounding community. If you would like to help us in that mission, please visit the contact us section of the page on ways of reaching Team 66.