Outreach
The Issaquah Robotics Society is committed to spreading STEM education throughout our community. Here’s how we do it…
Salmon Days
The Issaquah Salmon Days festival is among the largest street festivals in Washington State, with almost 200,000 annual attendees. Over the years we have become a landmark in this festival. We show off our robots, share information about the program, and provide robot-related arts and crafts. Recently, we have begun teaming up with other FIRST teams to expand the robotics booth. Along with other Seattle Eastside FRC teams, multiple FLL and FTC teams join as well.
FLL Mentoring
Wanting to inspire a love of STEM at a young age, we mentor FIRST LEGO® League (FLL) teams, the elementary and middle school level of FIRST, at local schools. FLL teaches kids to build and program small-scale robots out of LEGO Mindstorms® kits, preparing them for the high school club.
Taking FIRST to the Streets
Since 2001, "Taking FIRST to the Streets" has been our outreach program in which we bring robotics and STEM to community events where they are not usually found. We’re present at festivals such as Issaquah Highlands Day and the Issaquah Fourth of July festival and parade. While there, we share FIRST programs with our community while children play with our outreach robots.
In the News
The IRS has become a well-known Issaquah organization. Issaquah Robotics was featured in the cover story of a 2016 issue of Above the Lake magazine, and in 2019, a team member wrote an article for the technology-news website GeekWire about his experiences with FIRST.
Government Outreach
Since our successful 2008 Olympia campaign, Issaquah Robotics has continued to build relationships with our government. We have presented FIRST multiple times to the U.S. Navy in an effort to increase their involvement in student robotics, and in 2019 we met with U.S. Representative Kim Schrier about our program.
PNW Social
We host the annual PNW Social event for other Pacific Northwest FRC teams. It’s a huge party hosted at Issaquah High with food, music, shop tours, and games like dodge-ball, volleyball, and human foosball. It’s a great place for teams to socialize together after the hard work of build season.
At Our School
Robotics has become one of the most popular clubs at Issaquah High School, with about 70 members every year. We give back to our school district by attending elementary school science fairs and developing club attendance software.
Library Events
Working with the Issaquah Library, we lead library activity days every summer. At “Building Buddies” days, kids build with LEGO® bricks during unstructured creative time. And during events at Valley Church, we introduced kids from an under-served community to robotics and STEM activities.
Looking to the Future
The Issaquah Robotics Society is always looking for new opportunities to work with our community. If you have an outreach idea or request, please contact us! We’d be happy to help.