INTO THE DEEP 2024-2025 Outreach Activities

Black Tigers #11192, Bolt.m3 #22801, Alphabots #16369

During November 2024, we met virtually with three very experienced teams based in Israel, Kazakhstan, and California, respectively. We were able to learn what FTC is like in different regions of the world. Our team’s different outreach events and robot design were influenced heavily through these meetings.

PROMISE PROGRAM

To promote FIRST to different groups of people, we worked with the PROMISE program to share robotics with people with mental disabilities, mainly autism. We introduced our robot and basic FTC concepts, such as Gracious Professionalism and collaboration. We also allowed them to drive our robot and demonstrated how to use a claw mechanism. Our team reached 20 students between the ages of 5-18.

FLL FTC Summer Camp

Over the summer, multiple students from our team taught FLL and FTC week-long summer camp classes for students K-12, introducing the core values of FIRST. The FTC students learned basic skills, such as building with a Barebone robot, programming using Blocks and designing on Onshape. More advanced students were taught using OnBot Java and more advanced designs on Onshape. The FLL students were taught to complete missions and code with Spike Prime. We were able to reach 29 students over the course of the summer.

FAA Hangar #6

To enhance our knowledge of STEM capabilities, we visited the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) Aircraft Hangar #6 on 8/23/24. This experience provided a meeting with real-time engineers, and additionally supported interests and career ideas for our future. We were able to see several aircraft, interact with workers, and learn how the FAA operates air traffic control and promotes transportation safety. Throughout this event, we learned how STEM can benefit the lives of others.

Photo Album

FLL FTC Summer Camp

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FAA Hangar #6

Photo Album

Goddard Space Flight Center

CENTERSTAGE 2023-2024 Outreach Activities

Goddard Space Flight Center

In this outreach visit, we worked alongside NASA engineers and had a tour of the Goddard Space Flight Center, located in Greenbelt, Maryland. Additionally, we saw them constructing and assembling their newest space telescope (Nancy Grace Roman Telescope). This Guided us towards future career options and expanded abilities in STEM and engineering.

Scrimmage at Comcast

In this outreach activity, we saw unique techniques from several different teams, including 23975, 17080, and 21587. We were educated on how they achieved success. Their robots helped us to generate more ideas and mechanisms to improve our robot.

AI lesson w/ Dr. Song Luo

At this outreach activity, we learned how AI was important and how we could incorporate the functionalities into our robot, such as Apriltag detection and sensors. This lesson aided us by exhibiting technology advancements and how AI plays a crucial role in everyday lives

Bake Sale at Rockville Plaza

This bake sale helped us to interact with the community and helped us fundraise. We raised more than $300 to support our team and supplies. We shared our mission and inspired locals with innovation throughout the day.