Sessions
Keynotes | Presentations | Panels
Key note addresses provided by
The Future Starts Early
Building STEM Pathways
from Wonder to What's Next
Qualcomm
We are Mentors
Andy Baker
AndyMark, 2003 WFA
Presentations
A Rising Tide Lifts All Bots: Exploring New FIRST Resources
Presenter: Gavin Wood - FIRST Education Key Takeaway: Reconnect with why we mentor and explore practical FIRST learning tools that can lift your students, team, and community. Explore the latest educational resources from FIRST, including the FRC Guided Experience,...
Barriers and Bridges: A Strategic Approach to Having a Real Impact
Presenter: Isriah Keila (321) Key Takeaway: Doing outreach work without a strategy will lead to meager results - here's how to make a real plan. Talking about your impact is great, but how do you actually have an impact? In this session, you’ll learn about how the...
Behind the Badge: Who’s Who at Your FIRST Event
Presenter: Presenter: Katie Gull (5816) / FRC FIRST Technical Advisor (FTA) and Katie Mahoney (179) / FTC FIRST Technical Advisor (FTA) Key Takeaway: Don't fight event issues alone. Discover what key FIRST volunteers do and learn when they can help to solve problems...
Beyond the Bootcamp: Building Student Leaders in FIRST
Presenter: Jenifer Lawrie (1466 & 1445) Key Takeaway: Learn practical strategies for teaching leadership skills using robotics scenarios for practice, making leadership part of your technical training. How do we develop student leaders who can do more than manage...
Building Better Robots as a Team with Onshape
Presenter: Reis Simpson (108) Key Takeaway: How to use Onshape as a collaborative engineering system to promote practical workflows that helps teams build better robots faster, while teaching students professional techniques. Building robots has never been easier,...
Building Heroes. Funding the Future.
Presenter: Stacey Jones (180) Key Takeaway: The power to build a sustainable FIRST Robotics program is within every team. By empowering students as ambassadors, creating meaningful STEM experiences, and developing a network of community champions, teams can unlock new...
Building Resilience: Team Retention and Sustainability
Presenter: Elise Cronin-Hurley & Amanada Little (1902) Key Takeaway: Build stronger processes & deeper benches. Spend more time doing what you love with your students. A discussion on methods, barriers, and resources for developing and implementing team retention and...
Competitive Robot Software Simulation
Presenter: Ryan Shavell (180) Key Takeaway: Learn how to fully simulate an FRC robot so programmers can test their changes quickly and without access to the physical bot! Gone are the days of waiting for a physical robot to test robot code - with a bit of planning,...
Course Credit Utilizing FIRST Robotics
Presenter: Bart Nash and Ashley Nash (4065) Key Takeaway: Attending this session will give you clear ideas of how to incorporate resources for school based teams. In this session, veteran teacher Bart Nash will explain how he incorporates FIRST Robotics competition...
Creating a Non-Profit: Pros, Cons, and How to Do It
Presenter: Nikki Botwinik (8324) Key Takeaway: Discuss the pros and cons of creating your own non-profit, then learn how to make it happen and keep it going. Ever considered creating your own non-profit? The benefits are many: the ability to manage your own funds,...
Fostering Improvement Culture: How BREAD’s Kaizen Culture Built FRCtees
Presenter: Beckett Miller (FRC 5940) and Ben Zislin (FTC 23979) Key Takeaway: 5940 BREAD's culture is something special. Being surrounded by students and mentors continuously pushing to improve at an institutional level was a formative experience. I'm going to talk...
FRC Archaeology: Finding What Works
Presenter: Arefin Bari (108) Key Takeaway: A comprehensive roadmap through the past, present, and evolving landscape of FRC knowledge repositories and exploring the major eras of FRC. Over three decades, FIRST robotics teams have designed, documented, and iterated on...
Fundraising Is Hard. Your Brain Makes It Harder.
Presenter: Sandra Contreras, South Florida Regional Director Key Takeaway: Fundraising is a skill—and the way we think, feel, and behave during the process can make it easier to keep showing up. Fundraising is one of the hardest—and often most uncomfortable—parts of...
Gracious Professionalism to Yourself.
Presenter: Darin Gull (3932) Key Takeaway: The heart of a competition robot is reliable power and reliable controls A Mental Health is the Ultimate Innovation. FIRST Robotics can be stressful and can take a toll on both Mentors and Students mental health. This...
Guidance for Wiring an FRC Robot Electrical System
Presenter: Todd Lovelace (86) Key Takeaway: The heart of a competition robot is reliable power and reliable controls. A Narrated Powerpoint Presentation by The Voice of 30 FRC Years Experience: Where to Start, Discusses Battery, Breaker, Power Wiring, and CANBUS...
How to present Impactful Outreach Events
Presenter: Wendy Austin Regional Director, North and Central Florida. Key Takeaway: Reconnect with why we mentor and explore practical FIRST learning tools that can lift your students, team, and community. How to present Impactful Outreach Events Outreach events take...
Leaving an Impact Through Imagery
Presenter: Lily Goltz and Alyssa Colwell (108) Key Takeaway: Learn how student-led branding and imagery can tell your team’s story, grow your team, inspire outreach, and leave a lasting impact. Explores how strong branding, storytelling, and student-created media can...
Level Up Your Mentoring Game: Applying the Mentor Mindset to Robotics
Presenter: Laura Leonard (6184) Key Takeaway: Learn how combining high standards with high support (the Mentor Mindset) builds student autonomy, motivation, and problem-solving skills in robotics. Mentor Mindset to Robotics Mentoring 10- to 25-year-olds in FIRST is as...
Navigating the Solution Space
Presenter: Jeffrey Payne (FTC) Key Takeaway: Reconnect with why we mentor and explore practical FIRST learning tools that can lift your students, team, and community. Understanding the definition and solidity of the boundaries of the solution space is a most necessary...
Overscope
Presenter: Lucas Parlato, Logan Parlato, and Bart Nash, Nerds of Prey FRC Team 4065, 2026 World Champion Key Takeaway: You should leave this session with some ideas of how to steer your team towards efficient design and build strategies. In this demonstration, current...
Ready on Go: Eliminate Match Failure Points Before Countdown
Presenter: Katie Gull (5816) and FRC FIRST Technical Advisor (FTA) Key Takeaway: Master essential hardware and software practices to prevent connection failure and capitalize on your matches. Match readiness starts long before placing the robot on the field. This...
Sibling Teams: Scaling a Program
Presenter: Isriah Keila (321) Key Takeaway: Sibling teams can expand your capacity to support students, build more robots, and bring in more funding for your program. Hear practical insights from coaches leading multi-team programs about fostering healthy competition,...
Stop Posting. Start Strategizing
Presenter: Shelby Little (1902) Key Takeaway: Create consistent, meaningful content that builds awareness, strengthens your community, and keeps your team top of mind. Social media success isn't about posting more, it's about posting with purpose. This session will...
Strategic & Mechanical Design
Presenter: Phillip Parker and Dawson Baldwin (5816) Key Takeaway: Help your team decide what to build and how to build it without lowering your goals. This workshop combines strategic and mechanical design to show FRC teams how to move from deciding what their robot...
XRP Robots for FTC Teams
Presenter: Sandra Archer (FTC #25746) Key Takeaway: This session will introduce FTC mentors to XRP robots by sharing our team’s experience so they can determine whether the platform is a good choice for their own team. XRP robots can provide FTC mentors a low‑cost,...
PANELS
Drive Coach & Strategy Panel
Moderated by Arefin Bari (108) and Andy Baker (45) Key Takeaway: Insights into the strategies and dynamics of drive teams. About the Panelist: Bart Nash (4065), Ryan Shavell (180) and Robert Koehler (233), Phillip Parker (5816), & Lexi Udowychenko (1902), , Charlie...
FIRST Impact Award Panel
Moderator: Elise Cronin-Hurley (1902), FIRST Hall of Fame Chair Key Takeaway: Insight into how teams approach various aspects of the FIRST Impact Award and their thoughts on the recent changes to the award. About the Panelists: This panel will include Katie Mortensen...
From Alumni to Mentor
Moderator: Wendy Austin Regional Director, North and Central Florida. Key Takeaway: About the Panelist: Coming soon