Team 247 reaches out to our community in many ways. We are involved in the Holiday Parade every year, where we carry banners; put up and tear down caution tape, and have the oppurtunity to interact with our community. Helping out allows us to talk to people attending the parade about who we are and what our team is about. We also participate in Berkley Days, an annual city fair. We set up a display of our awards, a pit, and give demonstrations of past robots.

Our team recently participated in Camp Invention, a summer day camp program for elementary school students. The camp encouraged students' interest in science and engineering. Team members volunteered at this camp as student mentors, helping campers with their projects. Camp Invention teaches the elementary schoolers that engineering is not only fun, but is also needed to solve many everyday problems similar to the ones they did at camp.

Although there are events that we host annually, there are also several events that are new to the team. This year, we introduced three outreach programs that our team put together to spread the message of FIRST. Skating with Da Bears was an event held in the Berkley Ice Arena. We used the ice arena's second room to show people how our robot worked. While there, team members skated on the ice, and visitors viewed our display. Many kids got to drive our robot and were invited to our presentation during Freshman Orientation in fall. Another new event this year was Bears on the Water. Pairs of attendees had to work togethter to build a cardboard boat. At the event, the boats were raced in a tournament. The excitement of the event drew much outside participation. The latest outreach program of the year was a Laser Quest lock-in. Team members and mentors alike stayed up from 12 midnight to 6:00am playing Laser Tag. Members of the team sold tickets to people in the community.

Our outreach efforts are essential in spreading the message of FIRST. These events form permanent links between us and the community.