In 2021, we initiated a working alliance with the Agahozo-Shalom youth village in Rwanda. The connection started via emails and turned into a series of online meetings where we introduced them to the world of FIRST and FRC, shared with them how to build a robot, and manage a team to encourage them to start on a journey of opening a robotics program in their village.

This year, we have had the pleasure of hosting a group of German engineering high school teachers in our workshop, explaining to them about FIRST and our team, and getting them enthusiastic about opening a FIRST team in their school. This meeting was part of an exchange project between our school and theirs, and we hope to host their students in one of the Israeli districts this year and further expose them to FIRST.

We also got in touch with a different German High School and had one of our alumni fly there and give students a lecture about our team and FIRST in general.

On top of that, during this year’s Houston Championship, we got in touch with members of FRC team 195 and kept this connection through multiple Zoom meetings where we shared different aspects of running FRC and FLL teams and planned further collaborations.

SABABTA is a program that connects high schoolers with elderly individuals through weekly meetings. We met with them, showed them the 2022 FRC game, and explained various mechanical mechanisms used by teams that year. We experienced with them the joy of creativity and teamwork around technological challenges that stands in the heart of FIRST activities, through planning and building wooden structures together.

We run the GAMLA program with the help of the “LIONS” organization in our city.

It began as weekly pre-FLL meetings with around 10 kids from low socio-economic families. We introduced them to FIRST and the world of technology, believing that would open up a host of new possibilities for their future.

This year, we took GAMLA a step further by getting GAMLA kids more involved in FIRST by including them in our FLL and FLL JR. teams.

We take an active role in the FIRST community in many ways. From volunteering at FIRST events to translating the kickoff video for the Israeli FIRST community. We opened the Israeli FIRST unofficial Facebook page, which allows teams to keep in contact, share knowledge, and seek advice from others.

We teach teams CAD and programming, give lectures about electronics, manufacture CNC parts, teach teams how to use a CNC machine, and share the knowledge and experience we gain from our outreach programs with teams nationally and internationally. Our alumni mentors other teams.

We also started the postcard project which we ran between 2016 and 2021, where Israeli FRC teams sent us videos of their team. Those videos were edited into clips and presented in FRC competitions in Israel. This project helped teams share their vision, spirit, and activities and reinforced connections between groups.

We founded our robotics center, with around 300 children from our city taking part in FLL and FLL-JR teams in 2018. It became a hub for technological education in our city and enabled us and the kids to make dreams come true.

In 2020 we transformed it into virtual zoom groups due to COVID and overcame the challenge of keeping connections, missions, and dreams working through the threat of the pandemic and the challenge of remaining connected through times of social distancing. We re-opened our robotic center in 2022, and our team members and alumni currently mentor around 400 kids from almost every school in Hod HaSharon, some as part of after-school activities, and others as part of our FLL and FLL JR teams, 3 of which competed in FIRST Israel FLL competitions.

Our members and alumni teach them how to turn their creative ideas into reality, using building and coding skills, while working together with their fellow students to achieve great results.

Developing and enlarging our robotic center is one of the main missions of our team as part of spreading STEM and FIRST values and creating a creative local community that makes dreams come true together. Our team members benefit from those activities l as they gain important leadership experience and work on their communication skills, helping us improve our team.

We host seminars in an attempt to reach kids who aren’t in one of our various FLL programs and to offer a more in-depth view of the world of robotics, our team, and its activities.

Meant for young kids, our seminars offer a complete look at what every FRC team does during a season. Over the course of multiple days, our team members teach kids to 3D model, to code, and finally, to build, code and drive their very own Lego robots, all while encouraging them to be creative and independent, while also working as a team.

Our team organizes and hosts multiple festivals annually since 2013.

The festivals invite young kids and their parents to take part in multiple activities that let them have a small taste of FIRST and its different programs and introduce them to the world of STEM.

In this year’s festival, we hosted 12 different activities! Some of the activities included technology-oriented escape rooms and puzzles, building LEGO robots, and driving our FRC robots, 3D modeling and learning about 3D printing, as well as doing science experiments.

Hundreds of kids and parents attend those festivals, as the number of participants grows, allowing us to expand our reach and make an impact on the lives of more people every single year.

TNUFA is a club for over 20 young adults with disabilities and lacking social skills. The club organizes weekly meetings for them, where they meet and interact with each other, and experience many unique activities.

We have been working with TNUFA since 2018. We take part in their meetups, hosting them once a month for an evening of STEM-related activities, tailored to their needs. We teach them about various aspects of technology from engines to building legos to 3D modeling. Over the years we’ve formed a special bond with those adults, and seeing their eyes light up when they walk into our workshop excites us every single time.

GINAT GESHEM is a unique Israeli program for autistic children that operates in multiple cities, including Hod HaSharon. The program strives to help the children to identify and fulfill their unique interests. Several kids from GINAT GESHEM were very interested in robotics. We provided them with FLL kits,  taught and supervised one of the tutors there how to operate these kits, and accompanied the tutors along the process.