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Our team prides itself on student-led projects and events that make STEM more accessible, engaging, and meaningful to our community. We also recognize that at a competition, matches only make up a small portion of the overall experience. We want to use the time between matches to display activities that are engaging for students, families, and other teams while also sharing values that are important to us. Through these initiatives, our students are able to turn the things they care about into hands-on experiences that connect and involve others in the FIRST community.
The Gender Ally Project
The Gender Ally Project
During the 2024 robotics season, our team captain noticed gender inequality both within our team and at competitions. She wanted to create an initiative that would encourage teams to recognize and challenge stereotypes about women in STEM and FIRST. At a competition, she introduced the Gender Ally Project, where teams selected a member to represent their team as a “Gender Ally.”
During the 2026 season, students on our team decided to make the initiative more interactive. Instead of simply asking teams to choose a Gender Ally, we created a trivia activity where teams answered a question related to gender advocacy in order to earn a Gender Ally button. Teams that answered correctly were also entered into a raffle to receive Gender Ally keychains that our students designed and 3D printed.
In future seasons, we hope to continue developing the project into more of a game while maintaining the same message that inspired the initiative: encouraging students to recognize stereotypes and support greater inclusion in STEM.
Core Values Bracelet Making
Core Values Bracelet Making
During the 2026 season, one of our team members noticed that while Gracious Professionalism is widely recognized throughout FIRST, the six FIRST Core Values, Discovery, Innovation, Inclusion, Impact, Fun, and Teamwork, were not always as visible at competitions. Having previously participated in LEGO League and mentored a team, she decided to create an activity that would help students and families learn about and celebrate these values.
She developed the Core Values Bracelet Making initiative, which involved teams and organizations throughout the Minneapolis and Saint Paul area. Each participating location hosted one of the six Core Value charms. Students and families could visit the different locations to collect all six charms and then come to our team's pit to receive a team-number charm, along with the string needed to make their bracelet.
The activity gave students something fun to do between matches while encouraging them to learn about the values that FIRST promotes. The initiative received several positive responses from students and families, who enjoyed having an interactive activity to participate in throughout the competition.
STEM Day at the Fair
STEM Day at the Fair
The Minnesota State Fair hosts a STEM Day on the first official day of the fair, which our team was excited to participate in during our scheduled morning time. During our first year participating in STEM Day, our team wanted to create an activity that would allow children to actively participate in STEM rather than just watch demonstrations.
One of our team members came up with the idea of having children design their own buttons. Before the fair, she created two different “STEM Person” button designs. One featured patterns within the bubble letters, while the other used a simpler bubble-letter design. At the fair, our team brought the button-making supplies and helped children create their own buttons, including teaching them how to use the button-making machine.
The activity was extremely successful. Many children enjoyed designing and making their own STEM Person buttons, and the STEM Day organizers were impressed by the response. They asked our team to leave the button-making supplies available for the rest of the day so that children attending at other times could participate as well.
This initiative shows how our students look for creative ways to make STEM more interactive and approachable. By giving children the opportunity to design and make something themselves, we were able to turn a STEM demonstration into a hands-on experience that they could take home with them.
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