FTC Governor's Cup in DC

2/20-21/26

On 2/20 and 2/21, we were fortunate enough to experience the first-ever FTC Governors Cup. At this event, there was one team from every state. We sent three of our team members down to Washington DC. They talked to the other teams to learn about how the season is different in every state and how it is the same. Our Team Captain, Xander, was picked to be the ambassador for Maine. This allowed him to see governors and talk to the VIPs to let them know how important FTC and FIRST are to kids and that schools should incorporate FIRST into their schools.

FTC States Event at NHTI, New Hampshire

2/21/26

Our team has come a long way to this point, and we are happy to share this experience with all of you! We came into the competition with high hopes and a fresh robot, but we didn't do quite as well as we had expected. We ran into mechanical errors and had some struggles, but we powered through and did pretty well, all things considered. We unfortunately will not be moving on from this point, but we had a lot of fun and hope to come back next year!

FTC Qualifier at Windham Central School, NH

2/7/26

Our team's last chance at qualifying for states in the 2025-2026 season was on Saturday, February 7th. Those who could show up to the event arrived in the morning, and after setting up our team banner and our supplies, we started working on the robot and preparing for the imminent judging session. Once our judging session started, we gave the judges a brief explanation of our team, our bot, and what we do and have already done. The judging session went very well, and we received an amazing score on both it and our portfolio, with all of the sections in it marked either accomplished or exemplary (the scaling system is n/a, beginning, developing, accomplished, and exemplary). In fact, we did so well in the various sections that we were given the Connect Award, an award given to the team that best displays a connection to their local STEAM community and engages with professionals to explore engineering opportunities. For the actual competitions, we did quite well until most of the robot's catapults broke, but despite this, we improvised and were still able to compete. We left midafternoon, and though we didn't initially qualify for states, we were one of the few teams picked for the wild card qualifications, so we are now preparing for the NH States Championships coming up on the 21st. Overall, this has been a wonderful display of our season thus far, and of our teamwork and collaboration.

(BPL Hosted) FTC Qualifier at Kittery Community Center

1/17/26

On January 17th, our team hosted the very first FTC Qualifier to ever be hosted in the state of Maine at the Kittery Community Center. The day before, we went to the Community Center to set up the pits and practice fields, concessions, all of the technology related things, signage, and the judging rooms. On the day of the qualifier, we had to arrive early to be ready to check teams in and greet our volunteers and spectators. Carter and Zach served as queuers, getting teams where they needed to be when they needed to be there. Payton and Xander were assistants to the mentors, and helped from the backscenes to keep everything running. Keelan was our announcer for the event, calling out matches and being generally fun. Sawyer and Collin were field resets, helping keep the matches running on time. We had many volunteers help us as well, parents, siblings, and people from the shipyard. The competition went really well, and many teams and others congratulated us on the venue and running a really good qualifier. At the end, we were ahead of schedule and we put everything away and went home. We are very proud of this competition and how it went.

Acton Elementary 4-H Fest

11/8/25

In November, our team went to the 4-H Fest at Acton Elementary School. Since we are an official 4-H club, we decided that it would be best if we showed our support for this organization by being at their event. Also, since our team is a part of 4-H, we decided that this would be a great opportunity to show our team to those coming through, and teach them a bit about us, FIRST, and FTC. This was a wonderful outreach opportunity, and we were able to spread FIRST awareness to people of all ages who came to the event.

Corner Point Art Show and Raffle 11/2/25

We as a team decided to make art pieces based on the history of different regions of the world, as it fit into this years FTC challenge, Decode, which is based on archaeology. We then assigned people random regions of the world, sorted geographically, and they had to research that region. When we got to Corner Point Brewing Company we started setting up our tables and art pieces so we would be ready by the time they opened. We spent the day talking to people about what we did for our art pieces and talking about FIRST. We also raffled off our art pieces and other things that were donated to us at the end of the event so people would remember us.

Pease Air National Guard : Air Show

At the Pease airshow we set up tables in a hanger that the airshow provided for us and a few other First teams. This helped people that went to the airshow learn about our team and mission in the First Robotics Challenge. The airshow was also the location for where the First Tech Challenge presented the 2025 - 2026 season kickoff. Our team was set up in a spot where there was quite a bit of foot traffic, in this location we were able to tell people about our team and we also got to hang out with other teams in FTC. Overall, it was a great outreach event and we are very excited for the 2025 - 2026 First Tech Challenge.

Lebanon Elementary School Outreach

Payton manned a station where kids could drive around XRP’s with expo markers in them and drive around, drawing in their wake on a large piece of paper. Xander and Carter manned a station where kids could dip a sphero in paint and drive it around on paper inside an enclosed area to reduce the mess. We later made special buttons out of the painted paper to give out to people special to us. Keelan and Sawyer manned a station where the kids could drive Jeff around in a half-field and shoot at various cups and other objects. This was the most popular station and the kids loved the whole experience and even got some stickers and buttons when they were done. 

Berwick Library Outreach

We set up an exhibit where kids could play with legos and build their own robots and code them to do whatever they want them to do. They were mostly ages 4-12 and we got around 195 visitors. We brought a bin of legos, a bin of duplos, 2 spike prime kits, and 2 spike essential kits. The 4 kits were for building the robots. It was overall a huge hit and we will definitely come back.

Noble High School Outreach

Keelan was over at the half field watching the children drive the outreach robot, a xrp, and the sphereos. She had to code the robot to go slower for the little kids so they wouldn’t break it. The kids had fun with the sphereos and the outreach robot. XANDER DRESSED UP AS BAYMAX TO BE THE MASCOT OF THE BLUE POTATO LOBSTERS. HE RAN UP TO THE FIELD AND ACTED LIKE BAYMAX. The Lego kids and the other kids in the community loved messing around and learning about FTC. There was also another team that came to visit, the Shapleigh Cyber Sharks.

Corner Point Outreach and Raffle

We each made our own art that we thought was representative of the STEAM community or something that we were good at, and we set them out for the public to enjoy. We raffled off the pieces so that people were more engaged and we got some great donations from this event. We also had some donated Lego sets and other items for the raffle.

Pine Tree FRC Competition

We talked about the robots, all of their functions,  the tasks they were supposed to complete, and the competition that it competed in. We showed anyone who was interested how to drive robots, and  kids /other people drove the robots around. We talked to them about FTC and trying to raise interest about it and get some teams going in Maine. 

We set up a half of a playing field and had the coachbot and the team bot drive around and pixels were strewn about the area and we had the small bit of rigging and the backboard. We allowed kids to drive around the robots (resulting in minor damage) and informed people about FTC and what it is.