Outreach is a crucial component of FIRST Tech Challenge. Below, you can see some of the ways that we have spread FIRST, STEM, and robotics to our greater community.
Once again, at our school carnival, we ran a booth, with a fun and interesting game, where we made a partnership with another team, and demonstrated our robot. We distributed flyers convincing people to join FIRST, also raising awareness about FTC, and we even gave an insight into the dedication required to start your own team. We attracted more people than last year, increasing FIRST's popularity.
We introduced robotics to more than 20 underprivileged kids, who were awaiting surgery at the Texas Children's Hospital, by building multiple robot kits, and distributing them. These children might not have had interest in STEM, if they weren't exposed to it.
Our team held a seminar, introducing RoadRunner, a pathfinding trajectory, how to install it, and explained the different methods that were part of the library. We also helped rookie teams, and helped the FIRST community build a better season.
We have helped almost every team in our league with various issues, one of them being the Robotic Radicals. We helped this team with their robot, downloading Android Studios, and troubleshooting technical/hardware.
Our local elementary school holds an annual family carnival, CCFFN. We created a mini robot soccer game where students could have fun while learning about robotics.
Our team gave a presentation at Quail Valley Middle School, about how to do well for the season, and demonstrated the various mechanisms of our robot. We mentored various kids new to FTC, on how to start a team, and the basics of PowerPlay.
We visited the West University Elementary School, and showcased our robot, along with our goals for the upcoming season. This inspired hundreds of younger kids into pursuing a STEM career, and even helped jumpstart a robotics club there.
Logos Lions: The Mane Show, were another team in our league, and we met with them online, discussing strategy, and autonomous/structural problems.
During our weekly team meetings, we invited members of our community over to our home pit to demonstrate our robot and introduce them to what we do.
We explained the basic rules of PowerPlay, gave useful tips for gameplay efficiency, and helped them perform better in the driver-controlled period of the competition.
In our most recent season, a team of seventh-graders joined FTC, called the Nano Trojans. Since they were new, we helped show them the ropes of the competition and helped support them to place second in our league.
Dr. Neil Doshi holds a PhD in robotics from Harvard University, and he was crucial in helping us troubleshoot certain aspects of our robot using his technical experience through virtual meetings.
Our local high school, Dulles, held an event for young students interested in STEM. We set up a mini-challenge for the attendees and thereby introduced them to FIRST and robotics.