FTC Robotics Team Heads to State Championship

FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) robotics team "Techie Titans" from Reston-based Nova Labs Robotics competed this season on Nov 11 and advanced to State Championship as one of the top teams from the tournament. It received the “Think Award” in the tournament for best documenting the Engineering Design and Build process. The team has competed at national level (East Super-Regional Championship) in both of its past two seasons as one of top teams from Virginia.

The team consists of 9 highly energetic team members from grade 8 to 12, from 6 different schools in Fairfax and Loudoun County. The team is divided in multiple subgroups - Robot building, Programming (Java), Electronics, CAD, Outreach, and Fundraising. The team meets on every Saturday for 4-6 hours. In addition to building and programming robot for tournament, the team is also very active in local community to spread the knowledge of STEM in local community. It is affiliated with Reston-based non-profit, makerspace NOVA Labs, which is involved with building 3D printer to Drone.
FTC is one of the robotics programs from FIRST (firstinspires.org), an international youth organization that inspires young people to be science and technology leaders. FIRST offers the largest robotics programs in the world. It has programs for various age groups from grade K to 12 (FLL Jr, FLL, FTC and FRC). FTC is for students in grade 7 to 12.
Team “Techie Titans” will compete in Virginia State Championship on February 24, 2018 at Richmond, VA. They will be working hard in the next few months to advance to national level (Super-Regional Championship) again this year.
The team is sponsored by several leading organizations, and it received over $4,000 grant last season from Boeing, Rockwell Collins, Booz Allen Hamilton, and United Therapeutics to cover the cost of robot building and participation in tournaments. This year, their fundraising goal is $7,000 and has received $4,500 grant so far.