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Meet the Shark Bytes!
Meet the Shark Bytes!
Shark Bytes is a FIRST® Tech Challenge (FTC) community-based robotics team in Fairfax, Virginia. We're composed of 11 members from grades 6-8, three volunteer coaches, and three outstanding mentors. As we build robots and compete, we learn about build mechanics, programming, computer-aided design, communication, planning, teamwork, and more!
Why Donate?
Why Donate?
Our team depends on the generosity of supporters like you to help us acquire essential components for our robotics project. Our coaches and mentors work countless hours as unpaid volunteers, but building a robot from scratch can require as much as $2,000 in components. We also incur costs for registering for competitions.
Your donation can profoundly impact the lives of many young individuals who dream of pursuing careers in the STEM fields. Studies have found that FIRST robotics students are more likely to major in STEM than their peers in similar math and science classes.
FIRST Robotics encourages students to tackle real-world problems through hands-on learning experiences. Your support can inspire the next generation of innovators and problem solvers.
Our 2024-2025 Performance
Our 2024-2025 Performance
For a team with only two students with prior FTC experience, we had an amazing season!
Our team showed significant growth throughout the season. In our first two competitions we placed 20th and 22nd, gaining lots of experience and learning how to improve our robot and strategy. Our work paid off in the third competition, where we made many improvements and secured 9th place.
Beyond the competition we were awarded a 2nd Place Control Award, recognizing our programming and autonomous performance. Additionally, we received a 2nd Place Think Award, showcasing our design and brainstorming processes.
Looking ahead, we aim to build on this momentum, continuing to push the limits of our skills and performance.
Our 2024-2025 Robot
Our 2024-2025 Robot
To score in the 2024-2025 season, our robot used a claw mechanism to pick up "specimens," and extended a linear slide to hang them on a bar. It also hung specimens during the autonomous stage, when the robots are entirely controlled by code. In the endgame it hung on a bar, which is 15 points, but we are working on hanging on the highest bar, which is 30 points. The outstanding feature of our robot is our climber, which has two sets of two hooks that rotate in an oval shape to climb efficiently when there are only 30 seconds left on the clock.
What We Learned
What We Learned
During the season, we learned many things while we were building and at competitions. One of the main things that we learned was to check everything on our robot, even if we didn't think that it would be a problem. During one competition when we hung on the bar during the endgame, we got stuck, which ended up leading to a major foul. This happened while we were practicing once as well, but we didn't think much about it and did not attempt to fix it. Some other things that we learned connected to parts of our robot. For example, our climber had many different hooks that we learned from, and we took what worked and what didn't work to make the ones that we are using now.
Our Plans for Next Season
Our Plans for Next Season
FIRST presents a new challenge for FTC teams each year. In 2025-6 we will build another robot and compete in the new game. We also plan to do multiple outreach events to get people interested in STEM, including:
An elementary school STEM night to get elementary school students interested in robotics.
A First Lego League mock tournament. In First Lego League, younger children build robots out of Legos.
An FTC scrimmage, where FTC members can practice against other teams without having to worry about rankings.
We will also get to show off our robot at Awesome Con, bringing greater awareness of robotics.
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