FIRST Tech Challenge team 2845, Team Duct Tape is a community-based team that has been around almost since the FIRST Tech Challenge program started. Along with FIRST LEGO League Jr. team the LEGO Pros, Team Duct Tape is sponsored and mentored by the Foundation for Community Driven Innovation, as part the nonprofit’s community STEM programming. Here’s a bit more about the team.
This year marks Team Duct Tape’s 11th season! (The top photo is of a team potluck with a bunch of our alumni students and their families.) Since our founding Team Duct Tape has:
- Brought more than 60 students through our community FIRST Tech Challenge team.
- Introduced more than 40 students to the FIRST experience for the first time
- Graduated over 30 high school graduates, most of whom have gone into science and tech related fields of study or work, including over half dozen Eagle Scouts and one West Point student
- Impacted hundreds of youth through our extensive outreach programs, including camps, conventions and fairs.
- Earned our way to two FIRST Tech Challenge Championships and three Super Regional events
Based at the Regency Park Library in New Port Richey, Florida, TDT is helping make FIRST programming more accessible to
the local community . The team meets in the library Makerspace and provides a point of pride to the library and the local neighborhood. There are no other FIRST Tech Challenge teams in New Port Richey, and very few in Pasco County. This year, more than half of Team Duct Tape members are new students.
Team Duct Tape members also help mentor the library’s FIRST LEGO League Jr. team, the LEGO Pros, and can be found at outreach events around Tampa Bay, showcasing their robots and the work they do to design, build and program them. The team’s motto is “We Stick Together!” and we’re excited about the new Rover Ruckus season!
Team Duct Tape would like to give a shout out to their sponsors and supporters. In addition to FCDI, TDT sends thanks to Regency Park Library for providing a great home base, to the Society of Manufacturing Engineers and Rockwell Collins for fiscal support, to our great mentors (most of whom are team alumni!) and to our parents, who get us where we need to be, coordinate snacks and meals at events, and cheer us on!
You can see Team Duct Tape and our other great FIRST Tech Challenge teams at ROBOTICON 2018 on September 29, at the USF Yuengling Center. Click the image below for your free tickets!
