Three years of history! Can you believe it?
Three years ago, two university students dreamed of creating a robotics team for high-school level students. The idea was to promote robotics in Santa Catarina and to give young people the opportunity to get familiarized with Science and Technology and to work on these areas.
And with the experience of Asaph, Lauro's partnership and support from the International Association for Technological Development (AIDTEC), this dream became reality and FRC5800 was created!
But of which competition are you guys a part of?
First and foremost, we should explain some things:
FRC5800 is part of an international robotics competition called “FIRST Robotics Competition”, which is held by FIRST , a non-profit organization from the United States aided by huge companies such as NASA, Google and 3M.
The founder of FIRST is this man in the picture below with our team: Dean Kamen.
We had the pleasure of meeting Kamen at the New York Regional in 2018.
Every year a new season starts, a new challenge is launched and we have exactly six weeks to build a new robot that fulfills the challenge. We also have to raise funds to help us get to the competition.
The goal of FIRST is to turn robotics into a fun sport, that encourages children and teenagers to be a part of and to have careers in STEAM areas.
And it actually worked! FIRST came to Brazil, all the way to Florianópolis and for three years it has been giving students from the Federal Institute of Santa Catarina (IFSC) the opportunity to be a part of this incredible competition.
The first two years
Let’s get back to our team’s story:
Right after the team’s consolidation, the company 3M helped us by paying for our registration in the competition’s regional. And to this day, 3M has been supporting us and guaranteeing our presence at the competition.
To keep a bunch of teens motivated to work was easy. In our first selective process, around 20 students from the Federal Institute of Santa Catarina were selected.
During the Build Season, we:
- Built Piaimã, our first robot;
- Reach out to social media to publicize the project;
- Raised money with online fundraising, raffles and events to buy the needed materials;
- Raised funds for orphanages and nursing homes;
- Mobilized the community as they helped us raise funds for the team.
And all this hard work was worth it as we were able to bring all of our students to our first regional in Las Vegas, in April 2016!
Imagine our joy to receive, at our first ever competition, the “Rookie All Star Award”. This award is given to the rookie team that best represents the values of the competition: Teamwork, Gracious Professionalism and “Coopertition”.
Look at us in 2016 with the award!
As recognition for representing our country at an international competition and for being awarded the best rookie team of the regional, we were honored by the local City Council in Florianópolis.
And by seeing this picture below, it’s easy to understand how special the event was and how happy the team was for being recognized!
The team back in 2016 with the city councilor Pedrão!
Still in 2016, we represented Brazil in countries such as Australia and China.
Back in China, we assisted rookie teams by helping them build their robots, and to practice and prepare for the competition. For this, we won the Inspiration Award, which is given to teams that encourage and inspire other teams.
The following year, we build a new robot, Condá, which had this name as a way of honoring the soccer team from Chapecó.
We took Condá to Orlando, US, where we got to compete with some of the best teams in the world at the Orlando Regional, in March 2017.
The team at the CFE Arena in Orlando!
2018
This year is all about renovation!
In April of 2018, we traveled to New York with our robot Rubinho! We had the pleasure of competing with some excellent teams and managed to get our all-time best position in the ranks!
Our team super engaged working on Rubinho back at the Regional
But that’s not all!
In 2018 we also began some projects aiming to expand our team’s visibility:
We had the opportunity of being a part of IFSC Itinerante, a project created by the Federal Institute of Santa Catarina which took us to all 22 campuses of the Institute to show some of the work created by the students of the school.
One of the things we did to introduce our work was a seminar to encourage the creation of more FRC teams in Santa Catarina.
We also held workshops with LEGO Mindstorms, which is a type of Lego that you can use to build small robots.
And so many people were a part of our seminars and workshops, take a look!
Students from IFSC - campus Itajaí.Students from IFSC - campus Itajaí.
What about the future?
Our goal is to consolidate 5800, obtain enough recognition to keep the project going and to improve our abilities.
To turn our students into leaders, directors and enthusiasts of areas of technology and education.
To provide students the opportunity to be a part of academic events, competitions, extension projects and workshops.
To become a reference in the application of methods of 4.0 Education and Problem Based Learning, among others.
We want to expand robotics in Brazil, to encourage the creation of new FRC teams, promoting technology and inciting the youth’s will to join areas of science and technology.
Inside the FIRST community, we wish to make every FRC team from Brazil become recognized and become an example to be followed by other teams of the competition.
Our students
Many people have already been a part of FRC5800, contributing extensively with the growth of our team and today these students are out there studying, working and spreading every single experience they shared and knowledge they acquired with us.
We love to see our team members getting into universities, traveling to other parts of the world and embracing new opportunities to learn and to grow.
Some examples of students that embraced opportunities:
- Four of our students have been a part of a project from the Federal Institute of Santa Catarina that takes their students to Porto, in Portugal;
- Two students created a project for girls to learn about science and technology inside their school;
- All students who applied for universities and public institutions were accepted into the schools;
- One of our mentors managed to travel all the way to the other side of the world to mentor an FRC team over there;
- One of our students had the chance to live outside of the country for a year to finish their last year of high school and also had the FIRST experience there.
Many of our students take the knowledge they acquire with the team beyond their community, to other cities and countries.
But some of them stay and become mentors, applying their knowledge onto new students and helping 5800 grow.
Some of our students managed to become young mentors:
This student joined the team during our first selective process and has been with us to this day. He has learned so much about programming and how to apply codes on robots and today he acts as mentor of the area that is responsible for this task. At the same time he is a Mechanical Engineering student at the Federal University of Santa Catarina.
Another student of ours, who joined our marketing team at the end of 2016 as the team’s photographer and social media manager, after a year and a half with us, realized that she had a strong passion for design, branding and communication. Today, she acts as mentor of the marketing division and is headed to the university to learn more about the area she developed a love for while being a part of the team.
Today, as our angry mullet and 5800 celebrate three years of history, we’d like to thank every single person who has helped us get where we are today.
If it wasn’t for partnerships such as the ones we have with 3M, Softplan, Unifique, Blog do ENEM and the support of AIDTED, IFSC and other small companies, families and our own community, our journey would have been way more challenging.
We work towards improving the future of robotics in Brazil.
So, to everyone who has helped us create our path and believed in our project: Thank you so much!
Our new stance
After three years of constant evolution, improvement and learning, we have decided to renew our brand, our website and our stance!
Our new logo is simple and minimalist, but we’ve kept our angry mullet, which represents our strength and our hometown, Florianópolis.
We wish to get closer to the community that supports us, to show our activities and to tell our stories with more clarity and transparency.
So, if you have any questions, just send us a message
Our new website is filled with new stuff!
If you go through it, you’ll find our projects, sponsors, history and much more!
Take a few minutes of your day to get to know our team a little better! Follow our social media and see what else 5800 is up to these days.
See you next time
EN 
PT_BR