FTC Summer Institute
For high school and middle school teachers and their students interested in learning about the FIRST TECH Challenge Program
About FIRST and FIRST Tech Challenge
FIRST® is an international organization dedicated to inspiring students ages 4-18 in STEM through a family of robotics programs.
What is FIRST Tech Challenge?
FIRST Tech Challenge teams (2-15 members, ages 12-18) are challenged to design, build, program, and operate robots to compete in a head-to-head challenge in an alliance format. Participants call it “the hardest fun you’ll ever have!”
Guided by adult Coaches and Mentors, students develop STEM skills and practice engineering principles (like keeping an engineering notebook), while realizing the value of hard work, innovation, and sharing ideas. The robot kit is reusable from year-to-year and can be programmed using a variety of languages, including Java. Teams also must raise funds, design and market their team brand, and do community outreach for which they can win awards. Participants have access to tens of millions of dollars in college scholarships. Each season concludes with Super-Regional Championships and an exciting FIRST Championship.
FREE Virtual FTC Training
FIRST Robotics Canada is providing a special FREE summer program to show teachers how to build and code a basic robot.
This program is for Ontario teachers of students in middle or high school. Sessions will run from on Tuesday nights from 5 pm (ET) to 6 pm (ET). Sessions run from July 6th to August 31st, 2021. Teachers will be taught by our staff and volunteers how to build an FTC robot and how to program it to complete some simple movements. It will set you up with the basics to run your own FIRST Tech Challenge team in the future. You will then spend a couple of hours with your students afterwards reviewing with them what you learned from us.
If you have questions, please contact Dave Ellis at david.ellis@firstroboticscanada.org
The Workshops
What you will receive
- Learn how to build and code a basic robot
- 9 one hour weekly sessions with guided instruction from a FIRST Canada Instructor
- 5 robot kits (value $7500)
What you will need to participate
- Access to Zoom
- Access to a computer
- 3 hour commitment per week – 1 hour training with FIRST Canada & 2 hours with your students
- Recruit 4 students to participate in the program
- Interest in starting a FIRST Tech Challenge 2021-2022 team