Schedule

From Stern to Success: Team 5112's Guide to Team Structure & Organization

Location: Keynote Hall

Team structure and organization can be one of the most important parts of driving student success. When you create a structure that student team members can take ownership of, then the focus becomes the overall operation of the team, not winning competitions and awards. A team needs to adapt and evolve from season to season, and so does the organization of the team. Making adjustments doesn’t mean it was poorly thought out or a failure, but rather, means the exact opposite.

Ready, Set, Race!

Location: Session Room 2

Form a team, build a racer from the parts provided, and race with other teams on the racetrack! Sounds too easy…wait, there’s a catch! A workshop for everyone, from toddlers to CEOs! This workshop will involve not much talking, very little sitting around, a lot of doing and fun! Robo-racer is one of four Engineering in a Nutshell workshops conducted by ALARM. We want to share our really popular and EI award winning workshops with all teams. See you at the race-track! 

Forging Futures: The Transformative Impact FIRST Has on Career and Life Journeys

In this presentation, Robin Saitz, former Chief Marketing Officer and Executive Advisor to Rockwell Automation, will explore the meaningful impact of FIRST on students’ personal and professional development, showcasing how early engagement in STEM fosters essential skills, builds networks, and opens a wide variety of career paths.  Through personal stories and real-world examples, Robin will demonstrate how FIRST participants are enabled to navigate and succeed in evolving fields and life. 

Learning from Failure

As engineers, we are always trying new things and that means we are going to fail.....a lot. Failure is part of the engineering process. The important thing is to learn from it and keep trying! We are going to talk about some real world engineering fails, what we can learn from them, and how we can become smarter because of them.

Learn like a Human!

Location: Session Room 1

Join Hang to learn about his research focusing on enabling robots to learn from non-experts. His prior work has explored human feedback dynamics and new interaction modalities. See how he improves robot learning by integrating human feedback, human demonstrations, and large language models.

Mechanisms and Design

Location: Keynote Hall

Lean about how to design robots and what makes an amazing design from two FRC veterans and current FRC mentors. Take a deep dive into the art of what makes a great robot, and learn how to become an even better team.

Moderator: Carly Buchanan

Panelists: Iris Yang, and Doug Williams

Location: Keynote Hall

Learn about how FIRST can influence and effect careers. Hear stories about their experiences with FRC and how it helped them after graduating high school.

Agile in FRC: How to do twice the work in half the time

Location: Session Room 1

Agile/Lean methodologies, inspired by Toyota, offer strategies to boost productivity and efficiency in teams. We reveal how we applied Agile principles to streamline processes, increase efficiency, and achieve more in less time. Attendees will learn practical techniques for organizing tasks, fostering collaboration, and adapting to changing requirements. Discover how Agile methodologies can transform your FRC approach, helping you navigate competition challenges with agility, resilience, and unparalleled success.