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Circuit Breakers

Middle School Robotics Team #11717 Circuit Breakers for FIRST Tech Challenge

Email us at ftccircuitbreakers11717@gmail.com
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Our Team

The Circuit Breakers are a 5th year FTC team that consists of 7 middle schoolers attending Baker Middle School in Troy, Michigan. The team promotes diversity with members of different races/ethnicities and consists of both boys and girls. We also promote STEM and FTC in our school and community by spreading the knowledge of FIRST with students and parents of the Troy School District and the rest of Michigan. This is our 5th season as The Circuit Breakers, we originally started with our mentor, Bhaskar Marthi in 2016. In the first season, our team didn’t qualify for the States Tournament mostly due to our late start. For the next 3 seasons, we started a couple of months before the build season began so that the members of our team could gain some preliminary knowledge about programming/building before the build season. This may have been the primary reason for our successful 2017-2018 and 2019-2020 season, as we made it to the Michigan State Finals twice and even world championships.

Events

The Michigan State Championship is our next competition. After that, we are off-season.

History & Awards

• We are working on a robot for the 2020-21 season! We currently have 7 members and are doing more than ever this year, including taking COVID-19 precautions.


• We improved and from the last year quite a bit back in 2019, working in a new basement, and while we weren't always productive we came back strong from 2018-19. We attended Auburn Hills, Troy, and OCCRA qualifiers. Made it to Michigan State Championship, and was invited to the World Championship, though COVID-19 caused the event to be cancelled. Awards: Connect Award Finalist, Motivate Award Winner, Design Award Winner, Inspire Award Third Place


• Added some younger members to our team and lost some older ones in 2018, attended Howell and Bedford qualifiers. Awards: Connect Award Finalist, Control Award Winner


• Improved and growed in team size during 2017, attended Bedford, Mason, and Marysville qualifiers. Made it to Michigan State Championship Finals. Awards: Connect Award Finalist, Motivate Award Finalist, Control Award Winner


• Started in 2016, attended Petoskey and Marysville qualifiers, Awards: Design Award Finalist

Get Involved With a FIRST Team

See the Community page on how to start a FIRST team.

You can easily get involved with an FLL, FTC, or FRC team.

• FLL is elementary robotics, using LEGO Mindstorms to build robots, and can be found in a good number of elementary schools around the world.


• FTC is middle school robotics, using new concepts and building robots with unique parts like an Android phone for commmunicating with your robot. It is very big around the world, and you can easily find a team.


• FRC is high school robotics, using many different parts with little limitation. While it is not as big as FTC, you can still find a team that suits you.

You can locate a team that suits you at a local school, and one school may have multiple teams. Remember, selecting a team isn't always selecting the one that is the best, you will want to contribute to teams that need a lot of contribution. You should also familiarize yourself with Gracious Professionalism and other aspects of robotics. If there are no local teams that you can mentor or contribute to as a student, you should look into starting a team. Robotics teams can be expensive, but it can help kids with STEM and learning new principles that will help them later in life. Check the link above for some pointers on starting a team.

Business & Community

Our Business and Community pages contain info about our awesome sponsors, community outreach, our practices, and more! Check these sections out.