Project Overview

FIRST is a worldwide organization that promotes stem learning for youth. FIRST Tech Challenge, or FTC, is a robotics competition for youth in 7-12 grades. FIRST announces a challenge with specific objectives and rules, and the teams get a few months to build a robot to complete this challenge. The teams then compete with other teams in their region to try to get the most points, and the winning teams can move on to super-regional or world competitions. I will be mentoring and coaching an FTC team for my project. This will include teaching the team about the engineering design process and helping them with their designs, using power tools to make things for the team (because safety), and teaching the team engineering techniques and good structural design, as well as simple things like keeping the team on track. I will begin working on my project in August 2018, and the project will last until at least January, but possibly up to April or May, depending on how well the team does. I hope to help the team members to become better engineers and have a good experience with the FIRST program, while learning leadership and communication skills for myself. This is a program I already have experience with, having participated in this competition in high school, so I have a good idea of what coaches do for the team, and what teams typically need help with.
For this project, I will record what happened at each meeting. This will be things like what we talked about, what the team completed, and the length of the meeting. I will also post how the team did at each of their competitions. Things like how the team scored, what place they got, and what awards they got, as well as a description of that award, if they get one. I will also post images of the robot, particularly when a lot of progress is made. I may include pictures of the team members, if that's okay with them.