While ROBOTICON Tampa Bay is not an official competition with Championship implications, they did welcome their first ever international team in 2016. FIRST Robotics Competition team 5606, Red Hurricane, traveled to Tampa from Shenyang, Liaoning in China specifically to compete in this off-season event.
RuoYi Lu, a Grade 11 student and captain of the team, talked with us about FIRST Robotics Competition in China, their first ever official regional in the country, the growing influence the program has on students and his hopes for the future of the program. He also discussed the team's participation in other international competition, namely the regional they usually attend in Australia.
Daniele is a student at Florida Polytechnic University who is studying Computer Science with a concentration in Cyber Security. In High School, she was introduced to the science and technology world through the Foundation for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST), a robotics foundation where students of varying ages can compete through tasks that their robots perform. With help from mentors she met through FIRST, she became interested in programming and developing. Today, Daniele is a special events host for F5 Live: Refreshing Technology and PLuGHiTz Live Special Events and a co-host for both The New Product Launchpad and FIRST Looks.
