By Mark Edelman | Director of Programs
Thank you your support of The Play Space - A Youth Robotics Makerspace!
Just wanted to give you all a short update to let you know all that has been happening!
The last few months have been crazy! In a good way!
Over the last few months, The Play Space served as a preparation and staging area for an incredible 31 total FLL events and 12 FTC events. The Play Space was a crazy beehive of activity, with equipment getting prepped, going out to tournaments and coming back to be prepped for the next event!
Two of the FIRST LEGO League qualifying tournaments as well as two of the FIRST Tech Challenge qualifying tournaments were hosted at The Play Space. With your support, we served a total of 64 teams totaling more than 600 students at fun, exciting robotics tournaments at the building and a whopping total of 650 teams and more than 6000 students across the entire Northern California region.
January's focus shifted to the preparations for our 3 FLL District Championships. the 132 teams that participated were amazing! It always suprises us how much the kids can accomplish when they are given the right challenges!
Currently, Playing At Learning is prepping for our final two events of the season, the NorCal FTC Regional Championship and the FTC West Super-Regional Championship. The NorCal Championship will be held at Logan High School in Union City on Feb. 22nd and will bring together the top 42 teams from Northern California.
The FTC West Super-Regional will be Mar. 27-29 and will take place at the Oakland Convention Center. 72 teams from 12 states will be participating. The event promises to be a lively, exciting weekend.
On a different front, FIRST Robotics Competition team 2489, The Insomniacs from Fremont has taken up temporary residence at The Play Space. They lost their prior workspace due to downsizing at the sponsor's site. We were glad to have The Play Space as a resource to help this team of eager students be able to continue their work. The team is agressively working towards their Feb. 17th deadline and looking forward to competing at the Sacramento Regional Mar 19-21 and the Silicon Valley Regional Apr. 2-4. The team is comprised of approximately 40 students from 4 Fremont high schools! They work every day of the week with an incredible energy and enthusiasm!
Without The Play Space as a safety net for the team, it is possible that they would not have had a workspace for the season, possibly jeopardizing their ability to participate for the season!
In the background, while all the competition planning has been going on, we have also been getting ready for another summer of robotics summer camps. We are setting up the schedule and looking forward to a new crop of students!
As always, we continue to be challenged in raising sufficient funding to add staff and programs and truly appreciate the support you have all shown us so far this year!
With your continued support we are managing to keep the lights on, keep the doors open and keep the kids working towards a better tomorrow!
Thank You
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