ABOUT | ftc7172

ABOUT US

We are FTC Team #7172 "Technical Difficulties". The team was started in 2013 by our team captain Katherine Thomas, who had just graduated from FIRST LEGO League In addition to continuing to mentor the FLL team, Katherine invited a bunch of her friends from school to form a new FTC team, which became known as "Technical Difficulties". We've received grants and sponsorships from FIRST in Texas, the Texas Workforce Commission, 3D Systems, the Coca-Cola Company, PTC, and (most recently) ServoCity and Actobotics.

In the team's rookie season (Block Party), they advanced to the FTC South Super Regional Championship in San Antonio. In the Cascade Effect season, the team made it their goal to reach the World Championship in St. Louis, and at the World Championship, they ranked 5th in the Franklin Division with a 7-2 record. Building on those goals, in the 2018-2019 season, Rover Rockus, Team 7172 again qualified for the World Championship, where for the first time, they advanced past qualification matches and became the Franklin Division Finalists! The team has won the Texas Robot Roundup FTC off-season event in 2014 and 2015. We also won the FTC Minibot Challenge with our video of "Plotterbot," which can be found here: http://firsttechchallenge.blogspot.com/.../minibot...

Since their rookie season, the team has adopted a mission to help other teams become better competitors in FTC. We believe that stronger competition ultimately makes for a stronger team. During the Cascade Effect season, the team collaborated with five other teams and mentored several rookie teams, including some that advanced to the South Super Regional in 2015. We hosted three small scrimmage events, including one at the request of the Dallas Independent School District.

We continue to help teams by holding workshops on game strategy and programming, showcasing our robot at community events, and cooperating with our competitors at every competition we go to.

USEFUL LINKS

Current Roster

Awards

FIRST Website

FTC Reddit

What's FTC?

The FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) is designed for students in grades 7–12 to compete head to head, using a sports model. Teams are responsible for designing, building, and programming their robots in a 10-week build period to compete in an alliance format against other teams. The robot kit is reusable from year-to-year and is programmed using Java. Teams, including coaches, mentors and volunteers, are required to develop strategy and build robots based on sound engineering principles. Awards are given for the competition as well as for community outreach, design, and other real-world accomplishments. The ultimate goal of FTC is to reach more young people, and get them a more accessible opportunity to discover the excitement and rewards of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.