Today we’d like to introduce you to Gra-V Robotics.
Gra-V, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Gra-V Robotics is a Central Florida community-based, high school robotics team. We were founded in 2016 by 5 industry professionals as a small but passionate group of students. Our mission is to make STEAM education accessible in our community and raise up the next generation of leaders.
Gra-V Robotics is part of FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) a global nonprofit organization that prepares young people for the future through a suite of inclusive, team-based robotics programs for PreK – 12th grade. We participate in FRC (FIRST Robotics Competition) a program designed for high school students to learn what it takes to design, build, and program a 125-pound robot in eight to ten weeks. After the building, we compete at regional events alongside teams from across the world, putting our engineering, strategy, and teamwork to the test.
Our team has students from 5 different Central Florida counties that include 7 high schools, and some homeschools. We welcome students from all backgrounds. Our different experiences in life help diversify the way we think through problems and help us thrive.
Beyond building robots, our team needs to run like a business. So we equip our students with real-world skills in entrepreneurship, networking, and public speaking. Students learn how to pitch ideas, secure sponsorships, and confidently present their work to diverse audiences. These experiences prepare them not just for competitions, but for success in any future career path.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Gra-V wants to make this program available to anyone in our local community. To do that successfully you need several things, some of which include: volunteers, money, and a dedicated space to call home.
Gra-V Robotics has a family atmosphere that runs like a business. A place for students to come, feel a sense of belonging, and accomplish something amazing. To do this, we need people who want to teach the next generation the skills they need to be successful out in the real world and help this business run smoothly. Finding those people who want to give up their Saturdays from January – April has been challenging. Thankfully over the last few years, we have gathered an amazing group of mentors and parents.
Another barrier we are breaking is making this affordable. We never want to turn away a student who wants to broaden their minds in STEAM because they could not afford it. To help us make the team affordable, we established our own 501c3, Stronghold Robotics, to give our team nonprofit status and make what we do possible. We want students to have a space to explore STEAM and provide the opportunities to experience more outside their normal. A couple of the ways we do this are by building a robot, and traveling to competitions. Both of which are not cheap. To make it affordable we rely on grants and donations from sponsors. Students work with mentors to write grants and letters to try to create new relationships with organizations that might want to help. We also attend local events and conferences where students network with professionals to talk about how this team and FIRST has changed their lives.
Having a space to connect with each other in person and physically be able to house our tools that help us build a robot is critical. After the pandemic, we lost that space. This has created many struggles for the team. Not having a home meant that so many of the things we used to do for the community were not possible. Each year we found a temporary space to build, but nothing long term. The team stayed focused on our mission, and adapted by meeting online and doing as many outreaches as we could. This past year, we shared our story with the Maker Effect Foundation, a fiscal sponsor and community partner, who kindly opened the doors of the MakerFX makerspace for us to use year round. Through these trials, we learned to innovate under pressure and grow through change. We build robots and opportunity.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Our mission encompasses more than just robots. Since 2016, we’ve won many regional awards including the most prestigious award, the FIRST IMPACT Award, which honors the team that best represents a model for other teams to emulate and best embodies the mission of FIRST.. “The mission of FIRST is to provide life-changing robotics programs that give young people the skills, confidence, and resilience to build a better world.” We do this by getting involved with our community at local events and bringing our robots for people to engage with. We’ve volunteered at the Runway to Hope Foundation’s 5k and Spring Soirée Gala which helps raise money for pediatric cancer survivors. We bring our robots to bring joy to kids at the event through demonstrations. Before the pandemic, our team has even helped develop technology like the Freedom Wing Adapter. This technology gave individuals in power wheelchairs the ability to use a computer, play video games, or even control a drone.
We continue to impact our community through volunteering. We promote FIRST and STEAM education at local schools. To do this, we do robot demonstrations with past FRC season robots and CrateBot. CrateBot is a robot designed to simplify robotics for kids. We support both our local community and the broader FIRST community. We have developed an FIRST outreach program called Bumpers FIRST. This program is designed to help teams with the creation of bumpers, which are required to compete. At competitions, we run the Bumpers FIRST pit which helps teams build bumpers from scratch and helps with essential bumper repairs. We also teach other FRC teams programming, business, and engineering. We have even led educational workshops on these skills.
We also support the other levels of FIRST at their competitions as event volunteers. A couple years ago we started a FIRST LEGO League – Challenge team for grades 4 – 8th, called Quack Attack.
Please contact us to find out ways that you can join us in our journey as we empower students in Central Florida to go into STEAM fields to become future innovators and leaders.
What were you like growing up?
(We are a team)
Contact Info:
- Website: https://gra-v.org/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/frc5816/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/grav.robotics/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@gra-vrobotics2780/videos
