About the Team
Our mission is to spread STEM across our local community and inspire students to pursue careers in engineering, programming, design, manufacturing, and business. While doing so, we provide opportunities for personal growth, team collaboration, and lifelong friendships.
The Issaquah Robotics Society, or IRS, is one of the oldest and largest student robotics clubs in the Pacific Northwest. We participate in the FIRST® Robotics Competition (FRC), in which we build a large robot over two months every year and then compete with it in a sport-like competition.
The IRS is “more than robots.” We volunteer at community events and, in addition to engineering and programming, students have the option to learn design, marketing, business management, data analysis, and more. Adult mentors with real-world experience volunteer their time to teach us these modern 21st century skills, preparing us for future career. Alumni have gone on to universities such as Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, and Purdue, and have joined companies including Microsoft, Expedia, Facebook, and Google. One even competes on Discovery Channel’s BattleBots.
Our Year
Fall Training
Meeting about once a week, mentors and veteran members teach rookies members basic robotics skills. Meanwhile, preparations are made for build season such a building the drive-train and ordering parts.
Build Season
Staring in January, we receive the rules of the year's FRC game and get to work. We have only two months to design, build, and program a robot from scratch, so we meet up to five times a week!
Competitions
March through April, our robot competes across the region. Members delve into robot strategy, data analysis, maintenance, presentations, and robot driving. We go to three qualifying events and the regional championships. If we do well, we attend the world championships in Houston, Texas.
Summer Off-Season
Over the summer, the team pursues new exploratory projects without the stress of school. We try to get a head start on new ideas for the upcoming year. This is when the majority of fundraising and community outreach takes place. We go to community festivals and volunteer to teach students.
About FIRST
FIRST is an international not-for-profit organization of student STEM education programs. We participate in the highest level, the FIRST Robotics Competition, but FIRST has programs from kindergarten to senior year.
Every year in January, FIRST gives FRC teams a different game challenge that our robots will have to undertake at competitions, usually involving manipulating objects like discs, cubes, or balls. We then have only two-months to design, build, and program a 125-pound robot from scratch. Competitions consist of intense two-minute matches in which two teams of three robots each go head-to-head to score points. Teams win awards for winning the playoff bracket, but also for robot design, community impact, and sportsmanship.
What You Can Do
Join
Anyone and everyone at Issaquah High School is welcome to join, regardless of prior skill! You can come to our orientation meeting in late September. After that, we have Fall training meetings every Thursday night in the woodshop and material science room (1418). Check out our calendar for a full meeting schedule.
Mentor
We're always looking for more mentors to train our students. Maybe you've seen us at an event and want to teach technical skills, or maybe you want to keep our team running on the business side. Either way, we'd be more than happy to have you on board. Please send us an email from the contact page if you are interested.
Sponsor
Robotics teams are awesome, but expensive! We need to raise an average of $50,000 every year to fund robot parts, tools, safety equipment, computers, raw materials, uniforms, transportation, and travel expenses. Anyone can donate, and we would love sponsorship from any local business, either monetary or in-kind.