FIRST Robotics Competition Team 324, Chips, is a competitive high-school robotics team that was created in 2020 as a partnership between Clear Creek Independent School District (CCISD) and the NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC). We work out of Clear Brook High School in Friendswood, TX. However, our team includes students from all of the CCISD high-schools and mentors from several area companies.
FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is an organization designed to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders and innovators. The FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) does this by engaging students from around the world in an exciting, competitive robotics league.
Help team members develop the practical skills needed to work as professionals in the fields of science, engineering, and technology.
We have year round training sessions in the engineering process, software, electronics, mechanisms, computer aided design, and manufacturing. This training is focused on robotics but provides general background information that will help team members in many technical areas. During the build and competition seasons this training is put to use as the team builds a complex robot designed to complete the year’s unique challenge. Throughout the year students are working alongside professionals from local businesses so they can learn by example.
Introduce younger students to exciting engineering and robotics activities before the pressures of society push them away from these fields.
Our team members are dedicated to spreading our passion for technology and robotics throughout the community. Many of our high-school students mentor elementary and middle school robotics teams. We have special events to invite younger students into our workshop so we can share our experiences and let them drive different types of robots. We also help host more than 12 robotics competitions and summer robotics camps over the course of a year. In addition we participate in demonstrations at several community events.
Build a competitive robotics team using a refined engineering process and modern manufacturing technologies.
The competition aspect of our program gives our team a chance to gain hands-on experience, applying what we learn in classrooms and in our training to practical applications. The pressure of the competition forces us to follow a schedule and to work as a team. Communicating ideas with each other is critical. However it doesn’t stop there, at the competitions we work with other teams and share information about our robot, our team, and our outreach program with judges. Our experiences at competitions helps us build self-confidence, practice communication skills, and hone leadership skills.
Have fun.
Having fun may seem like a strange goal, but when designing, building, documenting, and competing it is easy to overlook keeping things fun. We emphasize having fun because we want our students and mentors to enjoy their experiences and to continue to work with the team. In all of our meetings we have a little social time and we schedule additional activities just for having fun with our team and with other teams in the area.
