High Rollers Team 987 from Las Vegas, Nevada won the Chairman’s Award at the 2016 FRC Championship.

They worked with politicians to establish tech academies throughout Nevada, and convinced state officials to allocate 2,000,000 dollars to these programs. They’ve also hosted RoboCamps in an effort to spread STEM to younger communities.

Learn more about their FIRST related projects below.

FIRST BASED ACADEMIES

Team 987 works with state and local education officials to establish curriculum for engineering and IT academies. The established four-year high school program integrates FIRST into the high school curriculum, culminating with an FRC senior design program. Team 987 developed the curriculum for robotics courses taught in more than 20 schools throughout their school district and in multiple other states.

ROBO CAMP

Robo.Camp uses robotics to build robotics teams and help them to become self-sustaining in an effort to retain FIRST teams.  Team 987 established framework for one-week camps in which elementary and middle school students participate in a FIRST style robotics competition.  The camp provides financial support for teams, as well as a pipeline for students into FLL, FTC, and eventually FRC programs. In 2016, hundreds of students participated in camps benefiting teams in 4 southwest states.  Team 987 offers scholarships to campers from low-income households, partnering with local schools with high homelessness rates.

Video