The Goddard School is an early childhood education provider with more than 500 franchised Schools in 37 states and hundreds of markets, including the Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Houston, New York City, Philadelphia, Portland, and St. Louis markets.

Our purpose was to inspire the young and introduce them into the field of STEM. This was a very rewarding experience for both our team and the students that we met. These young students were very excited to learn what we had to share and by the end of the day they all were interested and determined to participate in robotics.

Steiner Ranch Elementary is located in Austin, Texas in Leander ISD. This is one of the five elementary schools that feed into our high school. We were very excited to participate in their annual STEAM Night as we were given a wonderful opportunity to make a lasting impact on our community.

We were able to meet with over 100 students and their families and share our experience in FIRST and our knowledge in the fields of STEAM. This was very impactful because this was the first time in almost two years that the students were able to participate in a hands-on activity such as this due to the pandemic. 

River Ridge Elementary is another one of the five elementary schools in LISD that feed into our high school.. We were very fortunately given the opportunity to participate in the monthly pep-rally, displaying presentations and demonstrations.

With over 500 students attending across a span of six different grade levels, our impact on our community shined with students, teachers, and even the principal reaching back out to us for more information on how to start an FTC team at their school.

At TSMC we talked to Ichiro Lin, an engineer who explained that the company is pushing a concept of digitalization and trying to make everything an Standard operating procedure, using AI to make it more efficient and to reduce human error and bias. This inspired us to use machine learning to teach a computer to develop the optimal cone placement (game strategy) to score the maximum number of points in  telep-op. 

We talked to Sydney Yeung, the CEO of GSS Energy. He taught us about the design process that they use to manufacture such complex motor vehicles. He stated that there are 5 steps to this process: Research, Ideation, Engineering, Prototyping, and Manufacturing. He explained how each step is vital to the design process, especially prototyping. Therefore, we applied this design process to our manipulator and prototyped several different claw designs before deciding on the best one.

Mr. Huang, the Vice President and Spokesperson of Realtek, taught us the importance of teamwork and the efficiency of an assembly line process in the modern-day tech industry. No person on earth can design a computer chip from start to end. Having a team is much more efficient and increases more creativity than an individual. We were able to incorporate this into our team structure by implementing a modular design so that different sub-teams could work on different parts all at once improving efficieny.

When we shared our problem with the wearing of plastic gears in our swerve module, Paula Clares, an additive manufacturing engineer suggested that we try metal as an alternative to the plastic filament. They explained how they often use metal in the industry for products that need to withstand a lot of force or weight.

At Canyon Ridge Middle School, we met with 30 students who are involved in the Gateway program (a STEM class) and had an interest in robotics. We shared what we do as a part of FIRST and FTC to help inspire a passion for STEM and to encourage them to pursue these fields in the future. The students also had an opportunity to drive around our robot through a maze.