Advisor: Mrs. Kassil, jkassil@nthurston.k12.wa.us 

Meeting Location: Room 205 Tuesdays & Thursdays 2:00 - 4:00 pm

Welcome to Robotics Club - my name is Jenny Kassil and it is my privilege to be your FTC Robotics Coach.  FTC requires a wide variety of professional and technical skills.  Creativity, imagination, ingenuity, and passion are at the heart of innovation, and I hope to foster all of those gifts in you this season.

The NTHS Robotics program provides students the opportunity to engage in engineering, science, technology, marketing and business skills in a high-energy, highly competitive environment. Robotics motivates students from all walks of life to develop skills through participating in a real-life, hands-on experience, and exposes students to engineering, fabrication, programming, web design, photography, presentations, writing, marketing, business processes and much more.  We compete in the FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) and it is like any other highly competitive high school extracurricular activity and requires commitment, dedication, time and energy.  Please contact Mrs. Kassil for an application.

FTC stands for FIRST Tech Challenge.  Ultimately we will form and register two teams.  Each team will compete in 3 events, with the possibility of qualifying for State and beyond.  Succeeding at this work is about more than a robot… because being a scientist, mathematician, engineer, technology engineer is about more than the product you produce.

The purpose and mission of our club is:

• Designing, building, programming and sharing robots;
• To participate in competition-level events, including, but not limited to, FIRST Tech Challenge;
• Build and share professional skills necessary to succeed in STEM-related fields;
• Contributing to our community through service, teaching, leadership and inspiration;
• And to include and support all members are Gracious Professionals.

As an ASB club, we are led by student officers elected by club members in good standing.  We will hold elections in November, once our remote club is up and running.  All ages and experience levels are eligible to run for club office, but real work and responsibility comes with election!

Our meeting schedule normally includes meetings every Tuesday and Thursday after school.  HOWEVER, this year is different!

• Challenge Kickoff is virtual - join us Saturday September 12th, 2020.  More details to come.
• Washington FIRST has pushed the competition season to start no sooner than February.  All competitions will be remote - but we are techy people, so we can handle that!
• NTHS will not begin FTC work until after the Novemeber 13th, 2020 checkpoint for COVID-19.  If we return to school we will evaluate the safety and possibility of meeting then.
• Different competitive options are being explored for the fall quarter - stay tuned for more details.
• Feel free to reach out to Mrs. Kassil with questions, ideas, etc.  Robotics is a community experience, and we can build a remote community, too. 

We compete in the Washington Chapter of FIRST.  This state-wide organization puts teams into leagues once they know how many teams are competing.  After that, competition dates and locations will finalized.  Our tentative competition schedule is:

• League Event #1: Date and Location TBD
• League Event #2: Date and Location TBD
• Interleague Championship: Date and Location TBD

After this point, teams might qualify to advance to State or beyond.  Details for these events will come later.  Transportation to and from events is student and family responsibility.  If you are unable to transport your student, please let me know so we can make other arrangements.

Participating in FTC requires dues.  If you qualify for free and reduced lunch or are experiencing a financial hardship, please let me know.  They North Thurston Education Foundation joyfully supports participation costs for clubs and sports.  The dues for our club are $50 paid upfront.  Checks made out to North Thurston High School.

Thank you so much for your interest, effort, and innovation!  Every year I coach robotics club I feel better about the future - because it rests in the hands of these stellar inventors, engineers, programmers, scientists, and business people!