FIRST Outreach

For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, or FIRST, is an international organization who's mission is: "to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders and innovators, by engaging them in exciting mentor-based programs that build science, engineering, and technology skills, that inspire innovation, and that foster well-rounded life capabilities including self-confidence, communication, and leadership." You can read more about FIRST© and their mission here:

MIRL has and continues to work with local high school programs to educate and and inspire students in stem fields, particularly engineering, in a hands-on and team based enviornment. MIRL actively mentors a high school Macon team who competes every year in the First Tech Challenge (FTC) game. The season typically runs starts in September and concludes with an international championship event held in April. Included on this page are some of the outreach events that we have held in the past.

2020-2021 Season

With the current sitation, the FTC team is not officially competing this year. However, they are hard at work completing trainings and improving their skills for next year's game, which should be revealed in September 2021.

2019-2020 Season

This year's season is called "Skystone". The primary objective of this competition is to place large plastic rectangular elements "stones" onto a platform. These stones interlock and can be stacked. The higher an alliance is able to stack a tower of stones, the more points they receive. Teams also get points for moving the platform in and out of a particular zone and for placing a special "capstone" at the top of their stone tower.

The team we mentored competed in the state championship! For more details about this season, click here:

2018-2019 Season

This year's season is called "Rover Ruckus". The primary objective of this competition is to score plastic cubes and balls "minerals" into goals - one of the ground and other elevated. There is also a special objective in the last 30 seconds (referred to as the end game) where teams would get extra points for latching onto the central elevated platform.

For more details about this season, click here:

2017-2018 Season

This year's season is called "Relic Recovery". Each match starts with a 30 second autonomous session where robots can score points for completing preprogrammed tasks. This period is then followed by a 2 minute driver contol period where the primary goal is to stack plastic cubes into columns in predefined positions. The last 30 seconds of the game is the endgame where teams may place special items called "relics" from the field outside the perimeter wall to earn points.

For more details about this season, click here:

Previous Workshops

Listed below are some of the workshops we have hosted for FRC teams.