About FIRST
View the members of our team
Dean's Homework Assignment
Accomplished inventor Dean Kamen founded FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) in 1989 to inspire an appreciation of science and technology in young people. Based in Manchester, N.H., FIRST designs accessible, innovative programs to build self-confidence, knowledge, and life skills while motivating young people to pursue opportunities in science, technology, and engineering. With the support of many of the world???s most well-known companies, the not-for-profit organization hosts the FIRST Robotics Competition and FIRST Vex Challenge for high-school students, the FIRST LEGO?® League for children 9-14 years old, and the Junior FIRST LEGO League for 6 to 9 year-olds. To learn more about FIRST, go to www.usfirst.org.
The FIRST Robotics Competition, FRC, is an exciting program that team sponsor's, collegiate's and technical professionals work with high school students to demonstrate their solution to a prescribed engineering challenge in a competitive game environment. The program has resulted in life-changing, career-molding experiences for its participants. It is one of the most challenging and rewarding programs for high school students. For more information about the 2007 FRC game, click here
The FIRST Vex Challenge is the newest member to the FIRST family, tying in elements of both the FRC and FLL experiences for high school students. Teams design, build and program miniaturized robots which compete in an environment similar to FRC but on a smaller scale. This program is rapidly becoming popular due to its affordable price range, and is easily integrated into the classroom environment. For more information about FVC, visit the FIRST website linked above, or one of our articles here
FIRST Lego League is the most expansive of the three branches of FIRST with over 9,000 teams, 92,500 students and involving 45 countries around the world. FLL utilizes Lego Mindstorms technology to build and program robots and have them compete in a series of challenge autonomously, without human control. This program allows students to experience hands on technology at a young age. Junior FIRST Lego League presents the opportunity for students 6-9 to begin their education in science and technology. The program is designed to excite children about the wonders of engineering and to capture their inherent curiosity about the world. To read about a FLL competition, click here
Team 357, Royal Assault, is a competitive FIRST Robotics team from Upper Darby High School located in Drexel Hill, PA. We have competed all over the United States from Pittsburgh, PA to Houston, Texas. The team, which began in 2000, is now entering its eleventh season, eager to compete in this years challenge, Breakaway.
Royal Assault is a year round team, not only focusing on FIRST events, but incorporating community service projects and educational opportunities into our busy schedule. We annually host the Philadelphia Alliance Remote Kickoff, FIRST Night at the Phillies, car washes, and our team banquet.
FIRST encourages teams to be ambassadors to their community. Our team has accepted that challenge, making community service a central part of our team. We have adopted Alex’s Lemonade Stand as our team charity, holding stands at all of our events in an effort to raise money for pediatric cancer research. Through this effort, we have been able to give back to the community for all they have given to us.
During the summer months, we continue to expand our program. Every Friday for eight weeks, several students make a presentation introducing FIRST Robotics to high school students at Drexel University’s SEED program. Through the rest of the summer, we work toward researching and developing different mechanisms and skills useful to building a robot for the FIRST Robotics Competition. For example, our mecanum wheel drive train, “Jester Drive”, is a direct result of efforts made during the Summer Robotics Project.
This year, as a result of the work done in the summer program, a group of students from Royal Assault were awarded the Lemelson-MIT InvenTeam grant. Our proposed invention, an omni-directional mecanum wheel driven wheelchair, aims to solve the mobility problems faced every day by disabled people.
Royal Assault has been successful in many aspects of the FIRST program. Over the past several years we have been honored with the following awards:
| Team 357's Accomplishments | ||
| 2008 | Philadelphia Regional | Woodie Flower's Award - Mr. Joseph Troy |
| 2008 | Phildelphia Regional | Seventh Seed Quarterfinalist |
| 2008 | Philadelphia Regional | Outstanding Volunteer Award - Mrs. Christy Troy |
| 2008 | Pittsburgh Regional | Regional Winner |
| 2008 | Pittsburgh Regional | Rockwell Automation Innovation in Control Award |
| 2008 | Pittsburgh Regional | Autodesk Visualization Award |
| Get Published | FIRST Robots: Rack 'N' Roll: Behind the Design | |
| 2007 | FRC Championships | Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Entrepreneurship Award |
| 2007 | Philadelphia Regional | Xerox Creativity Award |
| 2007 | Bayou Regional | Website Award |
| 2007 | Bayou Regional | Woodie Flower's Award - Mr. Michael Crane |
| 2007 | Bayou Regional | Delphi's Driving Tomorrow's Technology Award |
| Get Published | FIRST Robots: Aim High: Behind the Design | |
| 2006 | Philadelphia Regional | Delphi's Driving Tomorrow's Technology Award |
| 2006 | Philadelphia Regional | Woodie Flower's Award - Mr. Jules Scogna |
| 2006 | Philadelphia Regional | Regional Chairman's Award |
| 2006 | Florida Regional | Engineering Inspiration Award |
| 2006 | Florida Regional | Regional Finalist |
| 2005 | Philadelphia Regional | Engineering Inspiration Award |
| 2005 | Pittsburgh Regional | Delphi's Driving Tomorrow's Technology Award |
| 2005 | Pittsburgh Regional | Autodesk Visualization Award |
| 2004 | Philadelphia Regional | Engineering Inspiration Award |
| 2004 | Philadelphia Regional | Autodesk Visualization Award |
| 2003 | Philadelphia Regional | Outstanding Volunteer Award - Mr. Joseph Troy |
| 2003 | Philadelphia Regional | Autodesk Visualization Award |
| 2003 | Chesapeake Regional | Regional Chairman's Award |
| 2003 | Chesapeake Regional | Delphi's Driving Tomorrow's Technology Award |
| 2002 | FRC Championships | Delphi's Driving Tomorrow's Technology Award |
| 2002 | Houston Regional | Leadership in Control Award |
We look forward to our continued participation in FIRST and the challenges of the future!
The website is a highly-interactive, student-written system managed by a group of Royal Assault team members known as the Web-Team. The website contains features that are available to students and mentors alike.
The features include many team and member management tools. Through the website one can add team members, media, articles, announcements and even send emails to the rest of the team, as well as download important files..
The website is powered by the PHP programming language and uses a mySQL database to store data for the different website elements. For more information about the website and specific features, click here.
