Robotics Experience

In the summer of 2024, I decided to join Epic Labs Robotics, a robotics team consisting mainly of Muslim participants. There were 3 teams under this branch of FTC (First Tech Challenge): Expedition, Odyssey, and Adventure. I was placed on Team Expedition.

Before joining, however, I had to take an interview in which they inquired about my experience with robotics or programming. Due to the course on programming which I had taken the summer before, along with my fondness for Scratch—a simplistic block-coding program designed for kids—I was able to impress the judges and land a spot on the team. 

There were multiple different subteams on each team, including Building, CAD (Computer-Aided Design), Marketing, Programming, and QA (Quality Assurance). Before being placed on a subteam, we were all given introductory classes on CAD (using the Fusion 360 application) and programming.

 A few weeks later, I was assigned to the Marketing team. While the other subteams worked on the physical robot and its programming, the Marketing subteam participated in outreach activities and sought sponsors for our team. We presented our robot and its different functions to companies such as Apple, Collins Aerospace, and Microsoft. We also mentored younger kids from diverse schools, including Harmony and QCA. Another one of our tasks was to create a portfolio for the competitions, along with arranging fundraising opportunities, such as bake sales.  

Along with Marketing, we were given the option of assisting the other subteams when they needed help. We typically spent three hours in a different room, creating presentations and cold-calling companies to sponsor us, and the next hour or two down in the lab, helping with the robot and wherever else was needed. 

As the competition drew closer, we all spent more time in the lab, working on the robot and perfecting the portfolio and the presentations that would be presented to the judges along with the robot. I specifically was one of the people who assisted with the robot’s programmed pathway, along with the code that the robot was supposed to follow during the Autonomous period of the competition. Sadly, we didn’t make it past regionals during the competition. I believe that if we had stuck to one plan for the robot and only made improvements on that idea, instead of creating entirely new ideas for each tournament, then we could have succeeded.

This experience was truly one that has benefited me in many ways. It gave me a much more hands-on experience in robotics and engineering. I enjoyed interacting with professionals from diverse fields, working with the robot and creating the code necessary for it to run during competitions, and acquiring all of the skills that I didn’t have before. I will forever be grateful for this opportunity to learn more in this field.