A large part of what we do is mentor community-based competitive robotics teams and coaches at the elementary, middle school and high school levels through the FIRST family of programs. At each level, kids create robots to play the game which is announced annually. By having experienced kids mentor other kids. students grow their skills and knowledge. By having experienced adult coaches mentor other adult coaches, the adults serve with great confidence and competence and and as a result more kids can participate in effective STEM programs.
We also develop and conduct hands-on STEM programs for Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts and other youth organizations to inspire kids to learn more.
FIRST Tech Challenge Teams
FIRST Tech Challenge is for students from grades 7-12. Presently we sponsor five FTC teams in the Kansas City area, three in the Northland and two in Johnson County on the Kansas side of the city. Our teams are comprised of public-schooled and home-schooled kids. And in total 62% of our team members are female.
- Astromechs FTC 3409 is the oldest FTC team in Kansas City and qualified for World Championships six of the last eight years and was the MO-KS Inspire Award winner in 2017-18 , 2018-19 and 2019-20 seasons! They were on their way to World Championships when the event was cancelled due to the COVID-19 Pandemic
- Cobalt Colts FTC 6547 has been to World Championships the last two years and was on the Championship (winning) Alliance at the 2019 World Championships in Houston! The Colts also qualified for World Championships for 2020 but the event was cancelled.
- Galactech FTC 5227 was reactivated in 2018-19 and went to MO State championships in their rookie season in 2018-19. Galactech returned to MO State Championships in 2020 and qualified for World Championships but were most disappointed to miss their first
- Heavy Metal Honeybees FTC 16135 is an all-girl rookie team in North Kansas City, MO.
- Probots FTC 16446 is also an all-girl rookie team in Overland Park, KS. They were an award winning FLL team in previous years. This team qualified for MO State Championship in their rookie 2019-20 season.
Learn more about FIRST Tech Challenge here
FIRST LEGO League
In this program for kids ages 9-14, students use LEGOs and a LEGO Mindstorms EV3 to build a robot to play a game. They also complete a science-fair like project which matches the theme for a given season. For the 2019-20 season, we have two teams meeting in the Northland in Kansas City: The Astromechs FLL 25094 and the Northland Engineering Research and Design Squad (NERDS) FLL 47838. Click here learn more about FIRST LEGO League. The NERDS were the winners of the Core Values Inspiration Award and the Astromechs FLL performed well all around at their Qualifier and have advanced to the Kansas City Regional FLL Championships in January 2020.