Last week, over 50,000 people gathered in Houston, Texas, for the FIRST Championships. 974 student robotics teams from 59 countries competed and exhibited across FIRST programs, and many FIRST® LEGO® League, FIRST Tech Challenge, and FIRST Robotics Competition teams earned honors for design excellence, competitive play, research, business plans, creativity, and teamwork.  Indiana had 15 teams across all programs.

FIRST Championship – Indiana teams, students, and coaches do the Hoosier State proud!

FRC Teams advancing to the playoffs from Indiana

  • 461 West Side Boiler Invasion – Galileo – 1st See Alliance –  Divison Champions
  • 4272 Maverick Robotics – Daly Divison – 3rd Seed Alliance
  • 3940 CyberTooth – Newton – 2nd Seed Alliance Captain
  • 7457 suPURDUEper Robotics – Hopper – 8th Seed Alliance

FTC Teams Awards

  • 9864 Jug Rox Robotics – Ochoa Division – Connect Award Finalists
  • 19366 CTF – Jemison Division – Connect Award Finalists

FLL Challenge – Awards

  • Lauren Gaskill – Mentor/Coach Award – Sunny Delight

FLL Explore – Awards

  • Nathan and Nicole Coulombe – FLL Explore Volunteers of the Year

New Theme – FIRST IN SHOW

This spring, summer, and fall, as you plan impactful community outreach, consider reaching out to:

  • local community theaters
  • art Galleries
  • music Venues
  • movie theaters
  • drive-in movie theaters
  • dance Studios

Also, as you plan outreach, consider – what your goal is.  Here are some ideas:

  • Get contact information from people to do sponsorship presentations.
  • Invite people to a future open house event back at your shop to recruit mentors and sponsors.
  • Find out where visitors to the event are from and help them start a team next season.
    • Do you need resources from FIN?  We can help get you information that you can hand out about starting a team.
    • Make your own flyers about mentoring and sponsoring for visitors to take with them.
    • Create easy-to-use QR codes and short Google forms to collect sponsorship leads.
  • Invite high school students from nearby schools without FIRST teams to attend an off-season event with you.

Outreach Opportunity

We are looking for some teams at any level to staff a FIN booth and bring some robots to show off at the Broad Ripple Art Fair on Saturday, May 20th, and Sunday, May 21st.

Please get in touch with Chris Osborne – cosborne@firstindianarobotics.org as soon as possible if your team can help spread the word of FIRST and show off your robots.  (event will be on grass)

Student Board Application Closing

Students interested in applying for the 2023-2024 FIN Student Board of Directors need to complete the application by Monday, May 1st at 6PM Eastern.

https://forms.gle/1uBXCGpB7zzLiwQu7

FIRST HQ Systems Update

FIRST Dashboard Maintenance May 8-17: From May 8-17, the FIRST Dashboard will be undergoing scheduled maintenance, and Thinkscape access through the FIRST Dashboard will be unavailable. To access your materials while the dashboard is unavailable, please follow these instructions before May 8 to update your Thinkscape profile and reset your password. Once your account is reset, you can log into Thinkscape directly to access your resources.

Connect with other Coaches

Would you like to connect with other teams and coaches?  Have you thought about working together to mentor each other or get together from some summer scrimmaging, etc.?  JOIN THE PLAYBOOK!  Click here – https://playbook.firstindianarobotics.org/course/index.php?categoryid=2

Set up an account, and we can put you in your region.  You will have access to FRC, FTC, and FLL teams in your region.  Share fundraising ideas, do joint outreach events.  Collaborate on starting new teams.  The opportunities are endless.  Sign up today!

Good Luck, FLL Challenge Teams!

Good luck to the following FLL Challenge Teams who are heading out to off-season invitationals around the US!

Champion’s Award Finalist – 39473 Tech-Nically – Carmel
Champion’s Award Finalist – 46910 Electrifying Engineers – Granger
Both Tech-Nically & Electrifying Engineers will move on and compete at the FIRST LEGO League Razorback Open International May 18-21.
Robot Design Award Winner – 24984 CKS – South Bend
CKS will move on to compete at the Worchester Polytechnic Institute Open Invitational June 9-11
Team 18067, Holy LEGOs Batman, will compete at the Western Edge Open May 12-14.
Team 9426, RoxStars, will compete at the American Robotics Open on May 13

FTC Twitter Account Closing

@FTC_Indiana twitter account will sunset on May 1st at the end of the day.  Please follow us on @firstinrobotics

Look who the FIN staff found while in Houston— Dean Kamen!.