FRobotics is a student-led organization based out of Franklin Regional Senior High School in Murrysville, PA. Since 2012, we have competed against teams from the U.S. and across the world as part of the FIRST© Robotics Competition. FIRST© (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is a non-profit organization founded in 1989 to motivate young people to pursue education and jobs in the STEM fields and to encourage leadership skills.
The annual worldwide robotics competition encourages teamwork, innovation, and gracious professionalism in a sports-style tournament. Teams have two months to design, build, and program a robot from scratch, using money raised from sponsors. Each FIRST competition pits alliances of three separate teams against another alliance, with winning alliances moving on to the next level of competition. In 2020, competitions were shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but FRobotics worked through, holding Zoom sessions and small in-person events. We competed in FIRST‘s at-home challenges for the 20-21 season, and are heading back into a regular season for 21-22.
Here’s what we’ve been up to:
- Moving to a new workshop! Thank you to our generous sponsors FRSD and the Panther Foundation for making this possible.
- Demonstrated at the Mars New Year event in August 2021
- Won the Ohio Valley Region Concept Award for our Dungeons & Dragons Game Design submission
- Designed a fitness app for older adults as a part of Innovation Challenge
- Updated our 2020-21 robot “Hailey” for 2021 “At-Home” challenge
Team History
Franklin Regional High School’s robotics club, Team 4150 FRobotics, has been competing since 2012. That year, our team won the Rookie Team Award and the Coopertition Award. In 2013, we were recognized by National Instruments as one of the top ten teams effectively using their LabView software. In the 2014 regionals, our alliance placed second overall, and in the following year we made it to semi-finals. In 2016, one of our students was a finalist for the FIRST Dean’s List award and invited to attend the FIRST Championship. In 2017, one of our mentors won a Mentor of the Year Award. In 2018, we finished the qualifying rounds as the number one team in the Buckeye Regional, and continued to do well at offseason competitions. In April of 2019, for the first time in our history FRobotics qualified for the FIRST World Championship. Our team traveled to Detroit, Michigan, and spent a week representing the Pittsburgh area, competing with and learning from the best teams in the world.
Mission Statement
- To solve a real-world engineering problem under budget restraints, exact requirements, and a tight schedule.
- To work together as a team and respect each member’s unique abilities and contributions.
- To contribute to the community by bringing the excitement of STEM to the next generation.
FRobotics Team 4150 