“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead

 

IndianaFIRST was created to provide mutual support to fellow Indiana FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) teams in 2001. As an association, they had their first meeting at Donatos Pizza in Kokomo. At the annual meeting in 2011, the association made an official vote to disband and created IndianaFIRST, Inc., a non-profit organization, with the specific goal of moving to the district model of competition. We will prepare a blog post that provides more in-depth details about the history of IndianaFIRST, how it started, became a nonprofit, and more. 

 

Between 2011 – 2014 An extensive number of passionate FRC community members laid the groundwork for IndianaFIRST to transition to the FRC District Model of Competition for the 2015 FRC season. The success in the first three years of the District model allowed IndianaFIRST to partner with the local FIRST Tech Challenge community to start a multi-year merger between the two organizations, giving IndianaFIRST the chance to impact more students. A blog post covering the history FTC program in Indiana is being written to document the program’s growth! To understand the history of the FTC program in Indiana, please click here. This past summer, even more students became part of the IndianaFIRST family as the organization became the Program Delivery Partner for the FIRST LEGO League Junior program.  

 

As the Executive Director of IndianaFIRST, I want to thank each and every volunteer, mentor, student, sponsor, and community member who helped us advance the FIRST Robotics Competition, FIRST Tech Challenge, and FIRST LEGO League Junior programs. 

 

With great excitement, I would like to invite you to the next chapter of FIRST in our state. 

Please continue to our next blog post so we can introduce you to FIRST Indiana Robotics.

We’d love to talk more and hear your ideas! Tell us how you want to shape FIRST Indiana Robotics and build a robotics community that prepares young people for life.

  • Are there projects you’d like to see the community engage in?
  • Would you like to coordinate a team social?
  • What does/should it mean to be a part of FIRST Indiana Robotics?

Renee Becker-Blau will be available for an in-person meeting on Sunday, January 5th and Chris Osborne and Renee will be on a Zoom Meeting on Tuesday, January 7th. Visit our Event Page for more details about the meetings. 

Renee Becker-Blau
President of FIRST Indiana Robotics