Rotary Rounds May 24, 2017
The invocation was given by yours truly while our song leader was Wally Cole. John MacFarlane introduced as his guest Reverend Ed Morgan, formerly a member of our club. Lois Josefson introduced as her guests Dana Klevgaard and Alex Cabrera. We had three Student Guests, Rylan Hanson, Neil Haylor and Braden (?). President Katie put on a red nose in honor of Red Nose Day on May 25th, showing us a video that discussed the effort to vaccinate children, provide clean water and increase literacy. There is a challenge to support Red Nose Day (they were available for purchase at Walgreens for one dollar), with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation matching every dollar raised through June 15th. Katie challenged us to go to the Fergus Falls Noon Rotary Facebook page the next day to see the challenge she is going to put on it in this regard.
The invocation was given by yours truly while our song leader was Wally Cole. John MacFarlane introduced as his guest Reverend Ed Morgan, formerly a member of our club. Lois Josefson introduced as her guests Dana Klevgaard and Alex Cabrera. We had three Student Guests, Rylan Hanson, Neil Haylor and Braden (?). President Katie put on a red nose in honor of Red Nose Day on May 25th, showing us a video that discussed the effort to vaccinate children, provide clean water and increase literacy. There is a challenge to support Red Nose Day (they were available for purchase at Walgreens for one dollar), with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation matching every dollar raised through June 15th. Katie challenged us to go to the Fergus Falls Noon Rotary Facebook page the next day to see the challenge she is going to put on it in this regard.
There was a Rotary Minute based on last week's Rounds and then we launched into brags and fines. Keith Olson honored his mother, Elaine, for being one of the first female funeral home directors licensed in the state and, for that matter, the country, she now celebrating her 60th year of licensure. Mike Westergard's daughter is back home doing her rotations locally and they are now enjoying the new home they built. Mary Pettit was proud of her son who graduated with a master's degree in classical base, a daughter who completed her first year of nursing school and she and Bill celebrating their 34th wedding anniversary. Josh Heggem was leaving with his extended family on a trip to Florida. This writer reported on missing last week because he spent a week with his three children on the Superior Hiking Trail, and the trip didn't cost him anything. Wally Cole reported on his son-in-law doing a chiropractic internship, graduating in May of 2018. Bonnie Denzel congratulated our program for their accomplishments and Bob Russell promoted hosting our incoming exchange student from Mexico.
Program: Fergus Falls High School Robotics Team – the Otterbots..JPG)
Coach: Bill Swanson, Darren Hanson, mentor, Aaron Damen, mentor, Taylor and Tyler Jorgenson, mentors. A special thanks to Principle Monke for his support!
High School robotics competition takes place under the auspices of the organization For Inspiration & Recognition of Science & Technology (FIRST). Regional, State, and local competitions are held and there are over 230,000 participants in over 2,000 events world-wide. It is a varsity sport with 208 high school teams in Minnesota.
Each year, a different “game” with various technological challenges is crafted and the rules sent out to all the teams. Teams have 6 weeks to build a robot based upon their understanding of the rules and strategy to score points in the shortest time.
The Otterbots robot was named Aunt Jamima (?). Their first competition was a scrimmage in Nevis where they were able to fine tune their robot and strategies. In a Regional competition in Duluth, they placed 2nd out of 120 teams. This got them invited to the State competition where they place 9th out of 36 teams. They were also invited to the World Competition held in St. Louis where they competed against 400 teams from 9 countries. This has been the team’s most successful year and with all underclassmen!