*!NEW RINOS SITE LAUNCHED! CLICK HERE!*

What is RINOS?

The FIRST Rookies In Need of Support (RINOS) program was started by us to help teams get developed and on their path to success. Our goal is to recruit and develop, to our greatest ability, new teams for the NJ FIRST organization. You will discover that RINOS has a number of teams waiting and willing to help new teams through their first season and that all of us are happy to help out in any way we can.

What do we offer?

1. Team Mentorship- RINOS teams will happily work with our local rookies to help them through the first season. We offer visitations to rookie schools to help get your meetings started. Longer term mentorship is also available. Ideally we would assign an experienced first alumni to advise new teams in first season operations.

Every team could use someone to talk to sometime. The RINOS leaders have the experience you can draw on. Feel free to use us as your team needs. We can help you plan the fund raisers, team activities, chairman’s award writing, etc.

2. Button Machine Loan- Most FIRST teams trade buttons at our events as a gesture of camaraderie and goodwill. The RINOS group has a button machine available for use by rookie teams on a 2 week loan basis. Please e-mail us for details.

3. Off Season Events- After the regular FIRST season the local teams run off season competitions to allow teams to train new members and get further use from their machines of the prior season. These competitions are open to all for a low tournament registration fee and are available at a nearly monthly basis. The RINOS Prerookie program loans machines to prospective new FIRST teams so they can play in these off season events.

4. RINOS calendar- Check out http://www.nycnjfirst.org/ for the latest news on the NYC & NJ FIRST Regional and NJ RINOS activities.

Who do I contact for more information?

For more information, feel free to contact Wayne Cokeley, Raider Robotix Team 25 Head Coach, at smwonder@comcast.net .

Where can I find the manuals for Rookies and Mentors?

Click here to view the RINOS Team Development Manual for Rookies (Adobe Acrobat PDF Reader Required).

Click here to download the RINOS Team Development Manual for Mentors (Adobe Acrobat PDF Reader Required).