Welcome to the SUBMERGED sea-son! I look forward to diving deep into another year with you as we o-fish-ally kicked off the new challenge today!

When you register a team located in Michigan with FIRST, you are automatically a part of the FIRST in Michigan (FIM) team family! There is no additional registration required until October when event registration begins. You will receive emails from FIRST and from me throughout the season. As long as you read my emails, you will have all the info you need about events, grants, and more!

Remember that in Michigan, FIRST LEGO League Explore is exclusively a K-3 program and FIRST LEGO League Challenge is exclusively an upper elementary program (grades 4, 5, and also 6 if it is part of your elementary school – and also 3rd graders who are ready to move up.) Teams must be properly aligned in order to be eligible for Michigan grants and to participate in FIRST in Michigan events. If you have middle school students who would like to participate in robotics, please reach out the Tammy Damrath at tammy@firstinmichigan.org for more information about FTC teams. And if you haven’t looked into our Preschool program, FLL Discover, please reach out to Heidi Ferguson for more info at heidi@firstinmichigan.org.

If you find that you need more space for students (teams are capped at 6 for Explore and 10 for Challenge, though less students than that often makes a better experience!) please reach out about starting additional teams!

MICHIGAN RESOURCES

These four important pages have all the information you need to run a Michigan FIRST LEGO League Challenge team each year:

• Resources page – annotated, organized list of links to everything for running a team and this season
• Events page – important pages linked at the top to help you register for an attend an event
• Run-a-Team page – step-by-step guide to running a team from registration to attending an event
• Grants page – information about all grants available to new or returning teams

EBLASTS