AREA 27 is retired
AREA 27 was a FIRST Robotics Competition team, and our inaugural (and final) year was 2020. We had a blast of a build season and got to compete in our first district event in North Carolina. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the remainder of the season. The team stuck together electronically during the pandemic, but with virtually all of its constituent members graduating during the pandemic, the team was formally retired after this season.
If you’re looking to join a team, GOOD NEWS! Valence Robotics has formed as a new FRC and filled our old home on the Duke University campus. They’re a community team open to high school students from around the Raleigh/Durham area, so check out their site and reach out if interested.
We’ll keep this website online for a while to share our story.
What is FIRST?
FIRST Robotics is the final program in a series of progressive competitions focused on inspiring K-12 students to pursue STEM fields. Through the competition, high school students develop skills extending from engineering to business which can be used throughout college, and beyond.
After high school, the FIRST organization provides a plethora of scholarship and internship opportunities for alumni. 75% of alumni are students or professionals in the STEM field. Alumni also love to give back by mentoring and volunteering! During the 2018 season, mentors and volunteers contributed 16 million hours back into the program!
What We Did
As a team, we spent several weeks designing, building, and coding robots which accumulates in an international competition season. STEM is only one small part of our experience; we must fundraise at least $5,000 by January, develop documentation, and outreach to the local community.
After we build the bot, we partake in a “competition season”, where teams from around North Carolina, and beyond, spend an intense 3 days competing with their product of that build season. Competition matches involve a combination of “autonomous” pre-programmed movements, and “teleoperated” human-controlled segments. The 2.5-minutes matches feature a 3 teams vs. 3 team style, and these “alliances” of 3 teams are randomly assigned.
Dependent on performance at local competitions, teams are then eligible to compete at a North Carolina State Championship, and eventually World Championships in Houston, Texas. It is our goal to qualify beyond regionals this year!
