The iRaiders after school robotics programs parallels Baseball, or Scouting’s programs that teach a range of progressively more sophisticated skills, helps develop students leadership and social skills using a set of mentors from the community.
FIRST Lego League (FLL) Teams – Grades 3-8.
If your child’s room is filled with Lego bricks, and have mastered most of the complex builds then let us challenge your child in a team setting with mentorship to take it to the next level.
Robot specs:
- 6″ cubic; plastic construction;
- Visual programming
- Prepurchased parts (no customization)
Middle School Vex Team – Grades 7-8
After two year’s of snapping together plastic Lego parts and doing visual programming ( think “Scratch”) they will be ready for VEX. In this program we learn “C” programming with all metal components that require nuts, and bolts and ingenuity to construct.
At this level we a leave behind the single robot in parallel play modality to introduce the concept of teams. Two robots against two other robots that are autonomously or teleoperated by the students.
Robot specs:
- 18″ cubic;
- Metal construction (minor customization through cutting of stock metal)
- C programming
FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) Team – Grades 9-12
With two year’s of VEX under their belts students are ready to take on the challenge of FRC. Each year the high schooler’s face a new challenge which inspires them to use different mechanisms. The field grows to 20″ x 50″ and it now becomes a three on three competition which allows offensive and defensive strategies to unfold. Thing – very innovative; very complex electro mechanical engineering with a very, very strong social component both within the team (35 students) and across teams.
Robots specs:
- 28″ x 36″ x 65″
- Weigh 120″
- Custom fabrication (in-house machining); source welding and complex cutting
- Java programming