Bug In The SystemFTC Team 30307
Our members

Our team

Roles shown are from our 2025–26 season. We'll update them as this season's roles are set.

Rainy Captain

Judging Lead, Building, Organization, CAD, Outreach

Favorite thing: Helping others discover STEM.

Maddie Captain

Programming Lead, Organization, Build, Outreach

Favorite thing: Problem solving.

Ophelia

Build Lead, Driving Lead

Favorite thing: Building and driving.

Natalia

Programming, Judging, Build, Social Media

Favorite thing: Understanding how our design and team work.

Kora

Judging, Build

Favorite thing: Building and being able to create.

Kate

Build

Favorite thing: Building and understanding how our robot works.

Ellie

Programming, Build

Favorite thing: Learning and developing my programming skills.

Violet

Build

Favorite thing: Building.

Teammates working on laptops, CAD, and robot parts around a table with a mentor
From rookies to a team

Managing many levels of experience

  • Breaking into subject teams, with leads to guide each project
  • Making sure every member has a voice in discussions
  • Captains learning how to empower others and lead
  • Levels of learning guidance, with easy-to-follow processes

Our rookies started with the goBILDA Robot-in-3-Days (RITD) build. Following a simple build taught the basics, gave everyone a solid foundation in the engineering design process, and gave us a base design to improve on.

Growing leaders

Our process of growing leadership

How every teammate grows from rookie to teacher.

Understand: a base in all topics and interests of the team
Interest: find what's most important and exciting to you
Develop: learn and grow with collaboration and research
Expand: understand more subjects and teach others
Organization

How students run the team

Students lead our planning. Mentors support, but we set the priorities.

Leadership

Instead of a mentor leading discussions about building priorities, students create the plan themselves.

Partnerships

We're one of four FTC teams in Southwest Robotics (SWFTC). We share space, materials, and ideas, and students lead collaboration and joint events.

Documentation & goals

Clear objectives with dates and plans to reach them on time. We track growth, outreach, and personal and team goals.

Rules

Beyond FIRST and organization guidelines, we create our own rules together to build a structured team and community.

Mentors

Co-leadership with our mentors

Our team board set guidelines for mentors that put student growth first:

  • Supporting our questions with small nudges, not answers
  • Joining the conversation as equals to solve problems together
  • A final goal of a completely student-led team

Colin Gardner-Springer

Full-time mentor

Sarah Hippert

Full-time mentor

Our first season · 2025–26

Our journey so far

  1. Winter & spring

    A new team is born

    First discussions of the new team, then setting goals and planning.

  2. Summer

    Skills & outreach

    Building skills together weekly and pushing community and mentoring outreach.

  3. September – fall

    Season kickoff

    Planning the season, learning the flow of the team, and hitting our first goals.

  4. December

    First competition

    Refining goals and starting to iterate.

  5. January

    Second competition

    Putting original, creative ideas into action.

  6. 2026–27 · Now

    Season two: BIOBUZZ

    Higher goals, growing skills, and a brand-new robot. See our progress.

Want to join the team?

We started this team to be welcoming. If you're curious about robotics, we'd love to meet you.

Get in touch