About Us
About Us
We are a FIRST® Tech Challenge team based out of Waverly, Iowa, and we attend Waverly-Shell Rock High School. This is our seventh year as a part of the FTC program, and we hope to stick around for many more!
Roles
In the team, everybody has their own role and part to play. While everyone has their own specialty, everyone has a general idea of what goes on within each subteam. Below are descriptions of these different subteams.
Fundraising
Before we can do any of the fun things, we have to have the money first. We ask companies, local businesses, and individuals to sponsor us and write them thank you notes and regular season updates as a token of our appreciation. We also have different rewards for different tiers of sponsors.
Designing
Our design team is deeply integrated with our build team, as both are focused on the physical robot. However, the design team takes the information of what challenges the game presents and turns them into ideas for the build team to try to physically prototype and test. The design team is also in charge of the CAD modeling of our robot.
Programming
Our programming team uses the coding language Java to make two different types of programs: autonomous and tele-op. Autonomous programs run entirely by themselves at the push of a button, and tele-op (or driver-controlled) programs respond to inputs on a video game controller to move the robot.
Building
Our building team puts together the physical robot using different types of components. They spend a lot of time making decisions about how to optimize the robot and actually assembling the various pieces.
Notebooking
While each subteam writes a journal throughout the season about what they are doing, the notebooking team makes sure that all of the individual journals cohesively fit together to tell the story of our robotics season.
Outreach
The outreach team focuses on the non-robot side of FTC: getting involved in our community. This team plans events, emails potential contacts, and organizes ways for us to get out and make a positive difference in our surrounding community.
Connections
The connections team is much like the outreach team, except that the outreach team creates opportunities to teach others about STEM while the connections team seeks to bring in STEM professionals to teach us. Our connections with engineers, college professors, and many other professions give us new insight and knowledge about engineering, teamwork, and gracious professionalism.
Media
The media team updates this website, as well as our primary social media account on Instagram. You can follow us there and check us out on YouTube! Click on the images to see our accounts.
Having Fun
Evidently, we're very good at this.
