Anyone who’s been paying attention in recent years knows I’m a fan of high school robotics—the sports teams of engineers and programmers. The first of the year is the “build season” for the teams, when the annual competition reveals the game and rules, and the schools have six weeks to build a robot to play the game.

It’s amazing what these teams can accomplish in six weeks, and right now we’re in six or so weeks of tournaments, which take place on the weekends (typically Friday and Saturday), and if you’re so inclined you can watch these matches on the livestream for the Pacific Northwest here.

One of the big things these teams need (and there are a total of four now in Central Oregon) is money, to help pay for trips to the tournaments and other things. Hence the fundraisers I posted in the last couple of months with Chipotle and MOD Pizza and others. Well, now McMenamins Old St. Francis School is helping out with their “Friends & Family Night” fundraiser on Tuesday, March 20, which will benefit both the Mt. View High School team (High Desert Droids) and Summit High School team (Chaos Theory).

To that end, I helped the teams with a press release that went out today, which I’m now posting here!

Here’s the press release that went out today in its entirety:

On Tuesday, March 20, McMenamins Old St. Francis School is hosting a Friends & Family Night fundraiser in support of Mountain View High School’s High Desert Droids and Summit High School’s Chaos Theory Robotics team. Each year, the school teams build a robot to compete in the FIRST® Robotics Competition, in a series of regional tournaments against other teams to perform challenging tasks on a special playing field.

In addition to designing, building, and programming the robot, the students perform community outreach, develop the marketing and “brand” for their team, sharpen teamwork skills, and most importantly, raise funds to support their efforts and travel to tournaments to compete with other high school teams from around the globe.

McMenamins Friends & Family Nights provide an opportunity for the community to help support the High Desert Droids and Chaos Theory, and it couldn’t be easier: on Tuesday the 20th, visit the Old St. Francis School Pub after 5:00 p.m. and McMenamins will donate 50% of the evening’s total sales from 5:00 p.m. to closing to the teams.

About FIRST Team 753 – High Desert Droids

FIRST Robotics Team 753, known as the High Desert Droids, has been bringing engineering and science opportunities to our local youth since 2002. We are thrilled to have both home-schooled and traditional students from around Central Oregon as members of our team. The students collaborate to build one team robot that will compete with other groups from around the globe. We have about 30 team members who are excited to build amazing robots! Learn more at http://www.team753.com/, check out our Facebook page, and view last year’s robot in action.

About FIRST Team 5468 – Chaos Theory

We are Summit Robotics – a high-school robotics team in Central Oregon. We give students the opportunity to develop hands-on, real-world skills in engineering, programming, business, and more. Our FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) Team, 5468 Chaos Theory, is part of the Pacific Northwest District and has competed with teams from around the world. During FRC build season our members put in hundreds of hours of hard work and dedication to build the best robot we can. Off-season it is our mission to expand the influence of FIRST throughout our community, giving people life changing opportunities in STEM fields and more. Learn more at https://summitrobotics.com/ and at our Facebook page.

So on Tuesday the 20th, anytime after 5pm, be sure to head over to McMenamins and get dinner, or appetizers, or drinks, or whatever, and you’ll be helping support these great teams. (Remember too, this only applies to the main pub restaurant.)