Union High School Robotics Club

Hey everyone, hope you're doing well! We were introduced to a new and fantastic outreach opportunity not too long ago, the Women in STEM event at Heritage High School in Vancouver, WA. The event took place on Saturday, March 24th and was centered around girls participating in tech-based activities and workshops, as well as getting to know local tech companies and organizations such as our own. We had several opportunities to give a short presentation on our robot, this year's FTC challenge, opportunities for scholarships and firsthand experience, club and team dynamics and everything else that goes into robotics.  There was also time to hang around in the commons area and demonstrate the robot in action, and  talk to passersby one-on-one about how awesome robotics is! ARKI (our affectionate name for this year's robot) got an overwhelmingly positive reception from most of the nearly 500 people who attended the event, and many of the girls had a great time co...

Hey everyone, hope you're doing well! We've certainly been keeping busy over the past few weeks in preparation for our Geared Up event that took place the evening of Friday the 23rd, which was intended to let potential new members from feeding middle schools as well as those already at Union know about our club, what they could take part in and how their talents could be valuable to the Union Robotics Club. The event kicked off with a fantastic-looking display set up by a few of our members, complete with all the awards our FTC team, Geared Reaction #6559, has won over the years. We then gave a brief overview of every aspect of the club, including build, programming, outreach and marketing, scholarship opportunities, classes to take in high school and each of our favorite things about robotics. There was also plenty of food to choose from, including chips, sandwiches, fruit and vegetables and cookies (which disappeared pretty quickly!). After the presentation had con...

Hey everyone, hope you're doing well! As you may already know, the FTC State competition for Washington concluded on February 11th, and here are the best details! The team was anxious to compete (like always), and as such spent most of the night preparing for the event at their hotel. The hotel staff were even nice enough to let them set up the field and run tests on their robot in the lobby during check-in! At the competition we won the majority of our matches, starting out slower but starting to pick up the momentum as time went on. Our outreach members also spent some time getting to know some of the local teams there, which definitely pays off! After all was said and done, Geared Reaction ended up in 13th place, which is pretty respectable when you consider there were around 50 teams there in total. That's about the top 25%! Unfortunately this means that we won't advance to Super-Regionals, so our season is effectively over (unless we can secure a spot in the W...

You know what they say, the best things in life are free! As you probably know, we hosted our very first Tutors for Technology camp yesterday, January 29th from 9 to 12 am free of charge. We had a grand total of 15 kids aged 4th-7th grade show up, and they all appeared to have a great time! The session consisted of splitting the kids up into 7 groups, each with robotics-specific names such as Tetrix (our part supplier) and Java (the language we use to program the robot). 4 of these groups worked on the building activity (creating wheelbases) while the other 3 programmed several Sphero orb robots. They switched halfway through so that everyone got a chance to try everything. For the wheelbase building, we had the kids construct them out of spare parts, and we were really impressed with their final creations! They then tested them on a ramp in a contest to see who's would go the furthest. One even drove so well that it sped under the railing and crashed 20 feet...

As you probably know, when your club/team is focused on a subject as deep and complex as robotics, you're going to need some way to fund all the raw materials, electronics and other miscellaneous items that will be needed to create something great. This is why it's good news that there are some extremely generous companies out there that are willing to support us financially. In order to meet the qualifications for one of the grants currently available to us, our challenge is to convince you that the dangers of driving distracted are overwhelming and can cause ruined lives and permanent injury. Imagine a dark Saturday night in a once-quiet suburban neighborhood. A student, with their friends, laughing away the night with happiness and bliss. They’ve each just stepped out of a house, ablaze with bass-heavy music and flashing strobe lights. A party, complete with friends, food, and alcohol, has been raging in a classic suburban neighborhood. These students just lea...

Hey everyone, I've got some exciting news if you are located in the Camas, WA area and you've been wanting to truly learn what robotics is all about! We've decided to host an educational session on January 29th during President's Day Weekend in order for anyone who's interested to get an inside look at what we do and maybe pick up a new skill or two! It will be from 1-4 PM and be completely FREE of charge! The session will be called Tutors for Technology, and we've also set up a website with more information at  tutorsfortechnology.weebly.com , so go check that out if you're interested! ONLY 24 SLOTS AVAILABLE IN TOTAL, sign up ASAP! Thanks for reading, and we hope to see you there!