One of the great parts of being one of the oldest competitions in FIRST is that teams from all over the world travel to Orlando to compete. This year, in addition to the more common locations, like Brazil, the Orlando Regional welcomed two teams from Turkey and two from the Netherlands. Tamara Hanegraff from Team Rembrandts spoke to us about the unique challenges her team faces.
For example, while there is a growing FIRST Tech Challenge environment, there are only two FIRST Robotics Competition teams in the country. That means that there is not an official competition, or even a scrimmage, for the teams to participate in. Every season the teams travel to a different competition in the United States, where the largest concentration of tournaments exist.
Scott is a developer who has worked on projects of varying sizes, including all of the PLUGHITZ Corporation properties. He is also known in the gaming world for his time supporting the rhythm game community, through DDRLover and hosting tournaments throughout the Tampa Bay Area. Currently, when he is not working on software projects or hosting F5 Live: Refreshing Technology, Scott can often be found returning to his high school days working with the Foundation for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST), mentoring teams and helping with ROBOTICON Tampa Bay. He has also helped found a student software learning group, the ASCII Warriors, currently housed at AMRoC Fab Lab.
Daniele is a student at Florida Polytechnic University who is studying Computer Science with a concentration in Cyber Security. In High School, she was introduced to the science and technology world through the Foundation for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST), a robotics foundation where students of varying ages can compete through tasks that their robots perform. With help from mentors she met through FIRST, she became interested in programming and developing. Today, Daniele is a special events host for F5 Live: Refreshing Technology and PLuGHiTz Live Special Events and a co-host for both The New Product Launchpad and FIRST Looks.
