The Richmond FIRST Regional

Coach Medina and Coach Miller took a couple of us to the FIRST Regional in Richmond. It was the first time that we had the opportunity to go to "the pits", interact with a FIRST team during competition, and see victory and defeat. Our mentor, Tatiana, is part of the team. FRC is a different game than FLL. There are three winners, not one and teams must work together, even if they face each other in the next round.



Coach Miller worked with Team Awkward Turtle because their programming coach left during the season. He worked with the programming team to support them as they wrote the code that drives the robot. As a result, he learned all about the "FRC game". His impression was that "FRC teaches some really good values. Teams help each other, share ideas, and always compete in alliances." It is less individualistic than FLL.



FRC is much tougher than FLL. Building the guts of the robot requires so much more work that building an NXT. Can the Microbots do it? I don't know but I do know that I want to begin to learn how.