Overview
One of our goals as a team is to connect with our community through STEM.
We do this by participating in various Outreach events, where we demonstrate one of our robots, bring some fun engineering activities for the kids to participate in, and talk about what we do as a part of FIRST. Many of our team members enjoy volunteering at these events, and we love showing our community the results of our hard work!
If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions regarding Outreach, please send us an email at [email protected]
If you're interested in learning more about how we run our program, check out our Outreach Resources and Outreach Guidelines.
Summer Camp:
We are pleased to announce that we will be hosting another summer camp in June! Stay tuned for more details!
STEM Nights:
This previous fall and winter we hosted several STEM Nights at the Crossroads Community Center! We really enjoyed seeing everyone getting involved in STEM, and they were a great experience for our team members as well. However, as we begin our build season in January and February, we're going to have to take a break from these events. We're hoping that we will be able to continue our STEM Nights some time in the spring of 2020. Please check back later for more information or send us an email.
Upcoming Events:
Puesta Del Sol STEM Night (February 12th): We'll be at Puesta's STEM night to show off our competition robot and talk about Robotics at a high school level.
Phantom Lake Science Fair (April 2nd): We will be demonstrating our robot and a few other aspects of our team at Phantom Lake Elementary School's Science Fair!
Cherry Crest Family Engineering Night (May 20th): We'll be at Cherry Crest Elementary School to help with a couple of activities and show our robot to attendees.
Previous Events:
Some examples of our team's previous Outreach work include:
Bellevue Artsfair: We've really enjoyed running a booth at Bellevue Art Museum's Kidsfair these past couple of years. During the weekend event, we demonstrate our competition robot, give kids the opportunity to drive little Lego Mindstorms robots, and even create art with our special ArtBots! It's always a great opportunity to get involved in the community!
Science fairs: We have participated in multiple Bellevue School District elementary school science fairs, including Lake Hills, Woodridge, Spiritridge, and Eastgate. For many, we have attended for over five years! At these events we get to show our robot to a crowd of amazed students and parents. We also inform many parents about FIRST and how kids at all grades can participate in it.
Boys and Girls Club: This previous summer, we partnered with the Boys and Girls Club to run STEM activities at their summer camps. The kids were divided into groups of three or four, and given instructions to build a Lego robot using our Mindstorms kits. They were then able to race each other through an obstacle course and customize their robots as much as they wanted! It was super fun for everyone there!
Sammamish STEM Fair: 2019 was our fifth year participating in our high school’s STEM fair, an annual fair where employees of STEM organizations and experts in their fields gather to stimulate interest in high schoolers and the local community about their respective fields. Leading up to the fair, many of our members helped organize and run the STEM Fair. During the event, we demonstrated our competition robot and were even able to hang out with the University of Washington’s robotics team!
Sammamish LEADS: This summer of 2020 will be our fifth year involved in LEADS, a program that all current or new students of the Bellevue School District high schools are invited to attend. Last year, our team ran the seven-day summer program where we helped students build and program sumo robots. At the end of the week they competed in a round robin tournament. Many of the students in this program end up joining our team!
Summer Camp: 2019 was our first year hosting a week-long robotics summer camp for third through fifth graders! It was a super fun and rewarding experience, and everyone learned a lot.