Westside Robotics

The FIRST LEGO League Challenge program challenges 4th-6th grade students to build and program small, autonomous Lego robots to complete tasks and overcome obstacles on a 4'x8' game board, research solutions to real-world problems with experts from their community, and learn what it means to work together as a team.

Our junior high FIRST® Tech Challenge teams spend their season designing, building, and programming 18" x 18" x 18" robots to compete on a 12' X 12' field in an alliance format against other teams. The teams also document their discoveries & process in an Engineering Notebook, which along with a presentation, can earn teams awards at competitions.

FRC Team 461, Westside Boiler Invasion, is our flagship program that provides real-world technology, engineering, programming, design, media, marketing, and outreach experience to West Lafayette High School students. Our team members are tasked each year with designing, fabricating, and programming a 120lb, 3'x3'x5' robot to compete with other robots in a collaborative competition environment. In addition to the competition on the field, teams compete for awards in a variety of areas, including team spirit, mechanical design, control systems and autonomous robot behavior, and community engagement & educational efforts.

Getting involved with our program in any of these roles is a great way to give back to your community. For parents with students involved in our programs, these roles also come with fee/team dues reductions.

Team Support Roles

• FIRST LEGO League Coaches We rely heavily on parents and other members of the community to help coach our elementary FLL Challenge teams. No great deal of technical expertise is needed (although it is appreciated!), the job is really more about keeping the students focused and moving in the right direction, and FIRST provides guidebooks & materials to walk you through the season. You won't have to go it alone either - we'll pair you with another coach or two, and we'll also have people around to provide technical support. The teams typically meet for about 3 hours a week for approximately 10 weeks during the fall. Reach out to Brad if you're interested in helping to coach a team.
• FIRST Tech Challenge Mentors & Aides Our FIRST Tech Challenge teams really benefit from some additional adult support. Whether you're able to serve as a mentor & share your mechanical, electrical, software, media, or presentation skills that our team members need, or you can just come hang out with a small group of junior high students and help them stay on task & work together effectively, we need your support! Our FTC teams meet twice a week for most of the year, starting in the summer & going until the end of our competitions in January or February. Additional support is especially important during the summer & early fall when we meet as one big group instead of in multiple smaller teams. Reach out to Peyton if you're interested in helping to support our FTC program.
• FIRST Robotics Competition Mentors Our high school students are a lot more self-sufficient, but still get a lot out of learning from mentors with specialized skills. Reach out to Brad if you're interested in helping to support our FRC program.

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Administrative Support

• Fundraising Assistant(s) We're looking for a person or two to help with some of the detail work for our fundraising activities & provide some occasional support to our high school FRC students that work on grant writing & fundraising projects.
• Got Something Else In Mind? If you've got other talents you think we could benefit from, please reach out and let us know!

Contact Brad if you're interested in any of these roles.