Blizzard Outreach Events
Speaker Series
We are in the process of conducting a speaker series focusing on different fields of engineering! The speakers are industry professionals to college students, talking about their passions in engineering. The point of these seminars is to help middle to high school students find what interests them in the STEM field and what they possibly want to do in the future! Flyers for upcoming seminars are posted on our Instagram, ftc_blizzard, so make sure to follow us! We also post recordings of our seminars on our Youtube channel, @blizzardrobotics! Make sure to subscribe!
Santa Clara County Fair Showcase
We presented our robot at the Santa Clara County Fair in July. We got to display our robot and represent FIRST as an FTC team. We set up a mini field with game elements and people got a chance to control the robot with the controllers. There were several interested elementary school students and we introduced them to FLL (First Lego League) and they got a chance to look for available teams near them.
Halloween Showcase
In 2022 and 2023, our team held a showcase during Halloween, where we left our garage open and displayed the current year's robot. We educated kids about basic circuitry and FIRST principles. Last year with the POWERPLAY FTC challenge, we set up a game, where kids had to put as many cones as they could on the poles in 15 seconds. This year, we focused more on this year’s robot from the FTC challenge, CENTERSTAGE. Kids were taught how our robot works mechanically, from the intake flaps to the outtake mechanism lifted by linear slides. Both years, kids were rewarded with treats after going through the entire robotics experience. Numerous kids showed interest in robotics and wondering how they could get started, they were introduced We finally rewarded the kids with treats after the robotics experience. Last year, we had a turnout of around 200 kids, with this year being around 250-300 kids!
CA school of deaf
We got a prestigious opportunity to present at the California School of Deaf in Fremont and educate our local community about FIRST principles. We attended their annual showcase and displayed our robot for the FTC challenge CENTERSTAGE
India Outreach
Last year, a team member traveled to AGN Matric Higher Secondary School and APPU Arrivaalayam Senior Secondary School in Salem, Tamil Nadu, India, where he presented to over 1,000 students about the FIRST program and the fundamentals of robotics The rest of our team joined from Fremont on a zoom call and talked about simple machines, circuits, and the mechanical and software aspects of FTC The schools were inspired by our efforts and started an FLL team for interested students
Library outreach
Last season, our team went to Fremont Main Library and hosted a robotics workshop, where we taught 30 kids about simple machines, basic circuitry, and the FTC challenge, POWERPLAY. Some kids signed up after showing interested in our team’s values during the Halloween showcase, and hope to join any future workshops This year, our team hopes to make library workshops weekly and spread robotics to as many kids as possible!
Mentoring
Mentorship is an important aspect of our team's values, for in our rookie season, we relied on mentorship from other FTC teams. As a result, we want to give back to our FIRST community in every way we can. We mentored FTC teams locally and globally, such as San Jose, Texas, and Australia! We also started an FLL team in our community with a group of kids who showed interest in our community.