Here are the highlights of some of our favorite outreach events this season:
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Board Games Day Fundraiser This is one of the most fun fundraising events we've done this year. We got an opportunity to let our community know about what we do with FIRST, while spending an afternoon playing board games! Those in attendance were very generous, we appreciate their support! |
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Spring Break Camp at UBC We had a fantastic time at our mock FLL Spring Break camp. The children who signed up were very enthusiastic about robots, eager to learn how to program, and very interested in FIRST. If we could just do this more often.... |
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St. Patrick's Market Together with our friends, team KSS One of Khalsa Secondary School, we spend a day at the Lulu Island Winery chatting with people about FIRST, showing FTC and FLL robots to families, and fundraising for the upcoming World Championship. |
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Fundraiser Donut Sale Thank you once again to SaveOnFoods and the community at UBC families and Wesbrook Mall for coming out and buying donuts from us. We were able to do so much this year thanks for fundraising events like this one where the community participates. |
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FLL and FTC Demo @ UNA Family Day Event
We had a wonderful Family Day event at the Wesbrook Community Center in UBC. This is one of our favorite community service activities ever - since we get to share the mission of FIRST and play with robots all day! There were over 100 kids in attendance, and we got to talk to a lot of parents. Team Robotics Raiders from Delview also came with us - It was a great way to spend the day off. |
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FTC Demo Matches at FLL Qualifiers - February 2023
We thought it would be a good idea to run practice matches at the FLL qualifiers, rather than simply do a demo of our robot. So we invited teams Mustang Warriors, Mustang Jr, and KSS One to join us on the playing field. We played a couple of matches, chaotically narrated by one of the FLL Head Referees - who did an amazing job on the spot. It was a win-win - families got to see the FTC robots in action, and our teams got to hang out and practice! |
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Volunteering at FIRST LEGO League Vancouver Qualifiers - February 2023
Talk about full circle! Some of us started FIRST when we were in grade 4 through FIRST LEGO League. We have so many wonderful memories of those fun tournaments and championship events, the excitement of the LEGO robot challenges, how nice the referees and judges were to us, and how overall it was such a great experience. As part our motto this year to "Pay It Forward", our team signed up to volunteer in various roles in the event. It was such an amazing experience! A big shout out to judge Lulu, field resetters Noah and Jacob, referees Masiha and Kyoungjoo, game announcer David and volunteer room care Soomin. As a bonus, the teams we mentor did so well, we're so proud of all of them. Two of those teams, Team Forces and Team T-Rex Technicians advanced to Championships, which is an extra bonus. Also, two more teams formed, unbeknown to us, as a result of our Summer CanCode initiatives, and both also advanced. We look forward to volunteering again! |
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Workshop at Acadia Park - January 2023
We kicked off the year with our Pay It Forward initiative - We returned the neighbourhood where we lived during our early years in FIRST, and held a free open house session on FIRST robotics programs for the community. The aim was to share about our experience in FIRST and to introduce children grades 3 and up to FIRST Lego League. For those of us graduating this year, this incentive gave us the opportunity to offer FIRST to kids at the same age we ourselves were when we started. We’ve come full circle! ♥️ |
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Training the coaches One of our goals this year is to help others who want to engage childen in the world of STEM through FIRST. So we had a training session with students from LA Matheson secondary who will be running their own FLL teams from the community. |
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Outreach to other teams - September 2022 - present
From lending parts, to jumping on a discord call, or paying an in person visit, we have interacted with several teams in our province. And that is the way of FIRST, where gracious professionalism permeates every interaction with other teams. We give the robot matches our best shot, to the best of our ability, all the while making sure teams around us are also learning and able to compete to the best of their ability. We pride ourselves in doing OUR OWN WORK, owning our process, thinking through each iteration. In this respect, we are able to offer a lot to teams around us, because we've learned a ton from hands on experience and a lot of trial and error. We cheer each other when awards are won, we commiserate with each other when we hit programming road blocks. In the process, we not only become better prepared for STEM careers in the future, but we also make amazing friends! |
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Bringing FIRST to PT Night in Vancouver- October 2022
One of our aims this year was to help a school in Vancouver start a couple of FLL teams. We attended the school's Parent/Teacher night and answered parent's questions about FIRST. - One of the parents recognized us on the FIRST poster next to us. We had not paid attention to it! - Now we can say we are the official poster-child for FIRST in Vancouver! 4 New Teams were formed - 2 of them competed at the Vancouver Qualifiers, and 1 of them advanced to the Championships |
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Starting + Mentoring new FTC team at Delview Secondary - September 2022 - ongoing
Our team also reached out to students, administration staff and teachers to form a new FTC team at Delview Secondary. We meet with them twice a week, and this experience has given us the opportunity to peer-mentor another team in our League. From robot parts, to fundraising, engineering documentation, and all the know-how-to's of FTC, we are committed to help them do well and have their best rookie year ever! A big shout to Mr. Johal for being their teacher sponsor, Mr. Brown for allowing them use of the woodwork room, and one of the parents, Ms. Petra, who has stepped in to help us coach the team. We are glad they'll be joining us at Championship! |
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Outreach - Train the FTC Trainers - Sept - Oct, 2022
Our team visited a nearby school to help their 2 FTC teams learn how to mentor/coach a few FIRST LEGO League teams this year. We have done similar workshops for teachers, and were happy to help these FTC teams learn how to run FLL teams. It was a privilege use our combined experience and throughout the season see them helping out their own FLL teams. Another instance of coming full circle for us and pay it forward. Go Mustangs! |
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FIRST Tech Challenge Lower Mainland Kickoff Event - September 2022
Our team hosted the FIRST LEGO League Kickoff event in this year, with a ton of new and returning coaches, teams and their families. We were responsible for leading a workshop on the importance of Core Values, and had two more info sessions on Innovation Projects and Program Building. We recognize a few of the Students prom previous workshops we've ran, which makes us very proud of o our efforts to let others know about FIRST. FIRST LEGO League Lower Mainland Kickoff Event - September 2022 We also helped at the FIRST Tech Challenge Kickoff and held our own sessions on Engineering Documentation and Fundraising - we had a few teams in attendance. |
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Team Forces welcomes new members - September, 2022
A big welcome to our two new team members this year: Jacob (gr 9) and Rayan (gr 10). Jacob brings to the team an eagerness to learn and offers his artistic talents to make our team better. Rayan is interested in photography, but also would like to learn about programming. Their first tasks were to come up with a capping element for endgame, and to go through the programming tutorials available on FTC Sims. |
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Fusion 360 tutorials for FTC teams - August 2022
One of our goals this year is to help other teams do better with their design process by using computer aided design software, like Fusion 360. Our very own David recorded this series, specific to rookie teams, and posted it both on youtube as well as on our BC FTC Discord server. The first series on Fusion 360 has 4 tutorials on installing, basics of CAD, importing files of parts, and joining objects. You can find these tutorials on our youtube channel. These tutorials were also shared with international teams at the FIRST Global Challenge this summer. |
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Newcomers to Canada CanCODE - August 2022
The kids worked through a maze navigation challenge which taught them about programming motors and sensors. We had them using an ultrasonic distance sensor to detect the walls of the maze so the robot would know when to turn. Language was sometimes an issue, as a few kids did not speak English. Two of us speak Persian and try to connect with the Persian speaking kids when needed. As with many of our workshops, all the students were heavily invested in their work by the end of the camp and did not want to leave. The camp was yet another success, proving to us that children all around are interested in robotics. We take pride in our ability to inspire young children to get excited about STEM, and hope that they will pursue it further. That is why we also exposed the children and parents to FIRST programs in the hope that they will continue in this field. |
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First Nations kids CanCode - July 2022
We hosted another LEGO robotics CanCode camp at the Musqueam Community Center for First Nation kids in grades 3-7. We gave the students prebuilt robots so kids could focus on block coding. Students worked in pairs on a space themed challenge mat similar to those found in FLL . All students seemed to be excited to try everything, however there were some who were distracted. It was such a privilege to work with these kids, they were respectful and kind. Some students had difficulties, but everyone did their best. We look forward to the next time we can visit them again! |
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Fundraising for New Parts - June 2022
We held a very profitable Krispy Kreme fundraiser event in our neighbourhood at UBC to raise money for the new season while telling people about FIRST. We were also able to share info about FIRST to a ton of families and scout out for any potential future members for the sustainability of the team. We sold more than 250 donuts within the 3 hours we were there. What seemed like a risky idea turned out to be one of our most successful fundraising events. With the connections we’ve made with the Save On Foods and people of the community, we hope we can continue this beneficial event semi-regularly. |
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All Girls CanCODE-
June 2022 We had an amazing time at the Strathcona community center running a Girls only programming workshop thanks to the CANCode government initiative. The participants' ages ranged form 6-13, and the room was packed! The focus was on the basics of block programming, as the girls programmed LEGO robots to compete in friendly obstacle course races. We are so proud of the girls for how hard they worked and their determination to succeed. When small issues arose the girls were quick to fix them with the guidance of our team members. |
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North Delta Family Day Parade - June 2022
We had the opportunity to participate in the Delta Parade. The parade is an event held in North Delta in which various groups, organisations, and communities can showcase themselves. By participating in this event, we had the chance to spread the word about FTC and inspire young kids to explore the STEM environment. Family Day Festival - June 2022 Half of our team walked in the parade with our robot on a float and handed out flyers while the rest of us invited teams 16031 Parabellum and 18841 KSS One to set up a stationary info booth. At our booth, we showcased our robots and answered people's questions about FTC and FIRST in general. We had a great turnout at the booth, and an amazing time engaging with people interested in robotics, and hanging out with our FIRST friends! |
