TechTigers 3654

Team History

 

On October 25th, 2010, a small group of ten students, four faculty members and eight prospective mentors met with two FIRST Robotics representatives for a historic meeting. On this day, the worlds of Mercy High School and FIRST Robotics collided for the first time, and the TechTigers, team 3654, was born.

After that fateful meeting, we started a team and had a successful rookie year, building a team, a robot, and winning the Rookie Inspiration Award. Since then, we have won many awards including the Imagery Award, Entrepreneurship Award, Gracious Professionalism Award, Spirit Award, Quality Award, Chairman’s Award, Impact Award, and first place at the Waterbury District Championship.

Since 2010, we have grown significantly in size with a symphony of 28 members and 8 mentors, with nearly 100 alumni and 25 returning sponsors. What began 14 years ago as an initiative to increase the participation of girls in New England FIRST has developed into an organization that inspires young women to pursue not only academic success but also global change.

 

We represented FIRST at the Hartford Health Expo, the Women of Innovation Awards, and at the Middlesex Chamber of Commerce Expo. We have done demonstrations at the Children’s Museum in West Hartford, for Girl Scouts, and for an engineering golf tournament. On New Year’s Eve, we demonstrated the robot and taught interactive science demonstrations with “Matt’s Lab” at the “Midnight on Main” celebration. The Mercy High School Alumna Facebook page has posted a picture and short story about the team. We have also had articles and pictures appear in the Hartford Courant, Middletown Press, our own web page, and in a UTC employee newsletter. We publish a newsletter, TechTiger Talk, and had an interview on the public radio show, “All Things Considered”. Most recently we were featured in an article in STRONG magazine for girls- a publication devoted to empowering young girls to reach for their dreams. The TechTigers were chosen as positive role models for girls in STEM.

The TechTigers use the engineering skills they have learned for community outreach. This year we learned how to hack toys for disabled children, making switches that are easier to use. We participated in the “Main Street Stroll” helping children to enjoy science games. We  joined the United Nations "Girl-Up" program to raise awareness and money help girls in underdeveloped nations to have access to an education. An all-female team, our diversity of age, academic abilities, backgrounds, interests and perspective in problem solving, and the desire to share all that we have learned with others are our greatest strengths.