FIRST Tech Challenge
The team realized that the FIRST Tech Challenge can be a great solution for schools in Israel who cannot afford to participate in the FIRST Robotics Competition, and decided to do all it can to bring the program to Israel, in order to provide them too with the lives changing experience of building robots. The best way to do that was starting a new FIRST Tech Challenge team in Israel that would compete in official events, and demonstrate the Israeli FIRST community how awesome FIRST Tech Challenge is.
After watching the 2014-15 FIRST Tech Challenge kickoff with Highland Park teams, our team started working on the robot with their help as a mature FIRST Tech Challenge powerhouse. 3 months later the team came to Illinois to compete at a district event – where they remarkably won the event against all odds, also winning 2 more awards.
Following the team's successful FIRST Tech Challenge piloting, FIRST Israel decided to bring the program to Israel, and this year is the second year the program is running with 32 new teams in Israel and a championship event!
The Y Team now mentors two FIRST Tech Challenge team in the town - #11056, an all-girl team that won the luxorious Inspire Award in the Israeli regional competition last year, and a new team, #12001, joined to the FIRST Tech Challenge program this year.
​
But not only good robots came from this cooperation - Yeruham and Highland Park became Sister Cities thanks to this robotics connection, and are now cooperating in fields of education, art and more.