Radical Tech is at it again

Last night, Facebook helped me realize that this weekend (okay, technically it started Thursday and just goes to Saturday) is the FRC Greater Kansas City Regional weekend for Radical Tech. Okay, let me back up.

While I was at the Missouri Academy, one of my roles was being the mentor/adviser to the FIRST Robotics team. FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) lives up to its name by overseeing world-wide (primarily nation-wide, but not exclusively) robotics competitions to get students excited about the STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering, & Mathematics). The different parts of the "FIRST Family of Events" are designed for different age groups of students, from elementary school to high school. When I got to the Missouri Academy, the team was just doing FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC), which is the final "stage", but I got the team involved in FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) as well.

(Side note - I could probably spend multiple hours explaining FIRST & my experience and never fully feel accomplished, so I'll try to keep it concise while still explaining things.)

I stayed as the robotics adviser for all five years at the Missouri Academy and it got to be one of my favorite parts of the position. Just like the entire position itself, being the robotics adviser was a hodgepodge of tasks and responsibilities. There were logistics with competitions, purchasing supplies, keeping the exec board on track, and even things like running the team Twitter during competitions. (In fact the one thing I wish I could change about my time in Missouri was putting more effort into passing this information along, since I definitely dropped the ball.)

The FIRST schedule typically fell in line with FTC being in the fall semester/early spring semester, and FRC being mid-spring. FRC is definitely the more established program, which translates into more teams, more robust games, and a grander feel at competitions. The comparison I loved to use was the movie Dodgeball. Think of Dodgeball, but where the people tell robots to throw balls around instead of themselves. In terms of Radical Tech - that's our team name by the way. I should have said that earlier. Whoops. *cough* In terms of Radical Tech, we would use the fall semester for FTC and get everyone acclimated to robotics and making this machine a reality. Then in the spring, we could kick it up a notch with the more intense competition.

So, the new adviser posted a couple days ago that the team was preparing for competition, and I had a rush of old robotics memories. Yes, the competitions were tests of willpower and determination, but they were also a blast and a time to really focus in on making this robot excel, rather than also studying for a test, and working on this other club thing, and so on and so on. Like I said, working with Radical Tech came to be one of my favorite parts about being at the Missouri Academy.

The FRC competitions like to have online streaming, so I was able to watch portions of today's competition. I did see my old team perform well, and I even interacted with whoever is running the Twitter now. I recognized some of the students from the team photos, but at the same time, I know that bringing new students to this competition can be a very powerful motivator for future seasons.

Would I go back in time and stick around the Missouri Academy for another year? Not necessarily. There are things I miss about it, but I know this year has been a time for me to grow and be challenged in a good way. Even if it was a bit of a fumble, it was time for the torch to be passed onward. Still, it's nice to see the team carry on with other familiar faces and teams and think about how I had a part to play in the team's history.

Today is day 6 of Teen Tech Week, and, uh... yeah. Pretty clear way how I'm keeping that in mind. Go Radical Tech! Today specifically is also World Sleep Day, so I'm going to go celebrate that now too.

DFTBA