Community Outreach

Durfee Middle School Robotics Program

Our team helped to start a robotics program at Durfee Middle School, a public school in Detroit. Durfee has some of the lowest standardized test scores in Michigan, and it was a great experience to help them set up a brand new robotics program. With help from blackhawk mentors, the Durfee Robotic Bulldogs made it to FTC states this year. We also brought their team to our shop and showed them around while teaching them the potential of FIRST.

This was a great learning experience for everyone involved, and it was so exciting to see their team do so well. We taught them the core values of FIRST, gracious professionalism, and engineering skills. We set up both FTC and FLL programs, and are looking to set up an FRC program in the future. Our team member would visit Durfee after school days to help out with building and programming their robot. This helped us to build our team building and community outreach skills.

Bloomfield Girls Robotics Competition

Since 2012, we've co-hosted The Bloomfield Girl Robotics Competition as an initiative to further Girls' involvement in FIRST. On November 10, our 6th annual Bloomfield Girls Robotics Competition was held at Bloomfield Hills High School with 32 teams participating in the event.

Proceeds from the event, make it possible to award five $1000 scholarships to distinguished highs school senior girls. Our aim as a team is to encourage all girls to participate in STEAM and share their transformative ideas with others, which is exactly what this competition harnesses. The event was held at Bloomfield High School, home of the Bionic Black Hawks team 2834. The event was co-hosted and co-organized with team 33 (Killer Bees), 68 (Truck Town Thunder), and 469 (Las Guerrillas).

Operation Good Cheer

For over 45 years, the Child and Family Services of Michigan has organized an annual event, Operation Good Cheer (OGC), to bring Christmas gifts to thousands of children in foster care across the state. Always looking to serve our community, the Bionic Black Hawks, joined the cause alongside GM, Bloomfield Hills FTC Robotics team, and other volunteers.

T-Shirt Cannon

New this year, as a fun side project, out team built a T-shirt cannon robot to bring to school sporting events. It's basically a pressurized tube on wheels with two scuba tanks of air underneath the barrel. It's been a huge success, and we've taken it to football games, basketball games, and our FLL Explore event to present. He also have plans for a new, self-loading design.

FIRST Mentoring

The Bionic Black Hawks continue to be active in mentoring FTC, FLL, and FLL Jr. teams. During the season, our members serve as mentors to our many FLL and FTC teams, joining them weekly for programming, build and strategy, and more, resulting in over 1000+ mentor hours. At the end of the season, we host week-long FLL and FTC camps, and numerous demonstrations and parent meetings to manage the progression of students and teams to the next level.

Advocating for FIRST

Since 2015, our team has visited both the NAC (National Advocacy Conference) and the MAC (Michigan Advocacy Conference). These are meetings in Washington DC and Lansing with lawmakers to secure funding for and promote the values of FIRST programs. Unfortunately, due to the COVID pandemic, we had to attend virtually the past two years. However, we already have plans to return this year in early summer to NAC.