A team of eight students from Merritt Island Christian School (MICS) were a bundle of nerves as they competed, for the first time, in the FIRST Lego League (FLL) qualifier at John F. Kennedy Middle School in Rockledge, Florida. The Cougar Bots Jr., as the team of fourth- and fifth-graders call themselves, were just one of the new For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) teams supported through a grant from the Ground Systems Development and Operations (GSDO) Program at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
“They did very well and ended up placing first in Robot Design. We couldn’t have done this without the generosity of GSDO,” said Connie Haggland, MICS teacher and robotics advisor.
NASA inspires and educates future scientists, technologists and engineers by engaging them in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) activities and learning opportunities. Among the different ways to meet the challenge is to provide grants for educational programs.
GSDO did just that by providing $25,000 in grants to support some existing FIRST teams and help create several new teams in Brevard County. GSDO also provided guidance and support to the teams.
The FIRST Robotics mission is to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders, and engage them in exciting mentor-based programs that build STEM skills, inspire innovation and help foster self-confidence, communication and leadership.
GSDO helps teams in three of the four FIRST programs: FIRST Lego League (FLL), FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) and FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC).
“GSDO recognized the need to foster student teams in Brevard County based on the low number of FTC teams in the area,” said Jennifer Levitt, GSDO FIRST Robotics lead. “With the grants, we enabled the start of 10 new FLL teams and five new FTC teams.”
This year’s FLL challenge focused on Trash Trek. Young children were challenged to think like scientists and engineers, and build, test and program an autonomous rocket using LEGOS to solve a set of missions in the Robot Game.
Teams of seventh- through twelfth-graders participated in the FTC challenge. They designed a robot, learned computer programming assisted design and competed against other teams at local and regional level events. FTC teaches students the value of hard work, innovation and creativity.
During the 2014-2015 season, GSDO provided 41 grants to sponsor 35 new and existing teams in Brevard County. The grants helped cover registration and competition fees, new team robotics rookie kits, commercial off-the-shelf products and supplies.
The new teams included students from public schools, private schools, home schools, Boys and Girls Clubs, and Boy and Girl Scouts of America. Levitt said nine FLL teams proceeded to the state competition level, and one FTC team proceeded to the state competition level. One FRC team, the Bionic Tigers, from Cocoa High School and Trinity Episcopal High School, won the FIRST Buckeye Regional competition in March at Cleveland State University in Ohio.
GSDO plans to continue its outreach and support to Brevard County students with $50,000 in grants for the 2015-2016 FIRST Robotics season. GSDO also will provide funds to help support the FIRST Robotics regional competition at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, Florida.
“We plan on building a family of robotics teams that we can support,” Levitt said. “Encouraging students’ interest in STEM activities is very important to GSDO.”
GSDO’s efforts also included visits to schools to share its message and provide outreach activities to get students involved in what NASA is doing. Levitt said they hope to visit all of the teams that received grants and update them on how GSDO is getting ready for the launch of NASA’s Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft on Exploration Mission-1 in 2018.
For more information about the FIRST competitions, visit http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/frc
For more information about GSDO, visit http://go.nasa.gov/xlK2xK