Impact Essay
Impact Essay Overview
The Impact Essay is a 10,000-character submission where teams describe their outreach efforts and initiatives for the season. Teams must submit their essay through STIMS before the due date provided by FIRST, typically the third Thursday in February.
What to Include
The essay should provide a detailed account of your team's outreach activities, including:
Planning and execution of outreach events
Impact on the community your team serves
Quantifiable metrics, such as the number of hours contributed and people reached
Breaking the essay into clear sections for each outreach initiative makes it easier for judges to understand your team's efforts.
Example Impact Essay
A corn themed team from Iowa - how ironic! While the name Children of the Corn may bring to mind the eerie 1984 horror classic, these ācorn kidsā debuted at the 1998 National Championship as a University of Iowa sponsored FRC team. Over our 28-year tenure, Team 167 has transformed into an independent 501c(3) non-profit called Iowa City Robotics that supports over 1,000 greater-Iowa City area students annually. With 7 mentors, 5 sub-teams, and 29 members we are the oldest FRC team in the state. Our mission is to make robotics education accessible and engaging for all students through creating STEM summer camps, supporting other FIRST teams, and helping our community.
Enhancing STEM Experiences with Junior Bots Camps
The Junior Bots camps introduce 3rd-8th graders to the world of robotics. Founded in 2016, these camps have grown exponentially. During 2020-21, these camps were reworked to be more sustainable by moving to a larger location and doubling the number of LEGO kits owned. Since 2022, there has been a fivefold increase in membership with 22% being repeat campers. Engaging campers year-over-year has also led to an increase in participation in our FRC recruiting efforts and other events such as How-To Tuesdays, our Children's Museum presentations and FIRST LEGO League teams. The amount of camp counselors has also grown over the years, as weāve partnered with other local FIRST teams to provide support. What started as a fundraiser for Team 167 now funds the registration fees of 5 FTC teams, helping to sustain their programs as well. With FTCās help we are now able to host 80 Junior Bots campers annually.
Weāve designed 3 curricula for Junior Bots: Intro to LEGO Robotics, LEGO Robotics Challenge, and Python Programming. We are currently redesigning the Python camp based on 2024 feedback; we look forward to debuting the new curriculum in 2026. In Intro to Robotics, students learn about the different types of motors and sensors, then build their own robot. This builds in Challenge camp where teams work together to complete a mini FLL season. In each of these programs, students not only gain knowledge, but they also get to apply what they learned in fun competitions, learning the core values of FIRST. These values are reinforced through FTC and FRC presentations throughout camp. Additionally, we use Junior Bots to showcase others in the STEM community. We have invited special guests, such as the Iowa Childrenās Museum, to bring their Finch robots and Cubelets to share. During one 2024 session, a camper wrote that Junior Bots taught him āthere are people out there who care about me even in a new environmentā on his feedback form, showing the meaningful connections these students are making throughout camp.
Making a Lasting Impact with FIRST LEGO League (FLL)
Event feedback revealed a strong demand for community-based FLL teams in Iowa City. To create a sustainable solution, we partnered with the Iowa City Public Library to start 2 teams: 68596 The Corn Poppers and 66188 The Kernel Coders, along with a mini team, The Jr Corn Poppers. This mini team is composed of students not old enough for FLL Challenge but felt ready to advance from FLL Discover. 9 FLL students and all 4 coaches came from past Junior Bots families, while many others joined after participating in our library events like Mini Bots and How-To Tuesdays. To support both teams and other nearby rookie teams, we hosted 2 coachesā clinics, equipping 5 mentors with the skills and resources needed to guide their teams toward success. Our teams had a strong start after securing RTX grants to fund their first year and we covered the remaining costs with Junior Bots funds, making FLL completely free for both the library and the community. To further support accessibility, a local company donated materials for an FLL table, and we invited teams to build alongside our FRC students. This hands-on experience not only prepared them for the season but also connected them with the FIRST community. Students were excited and eagerly built their table, drove our FRC robot, and learned about the importance of Gracious Professionalism and Coopertition.
In November, we held an FLL scrimmage to help new teams test run a competition. It consisted of 5 table rounds and a practice judging session, all scored and led by FRC students. In addition to our program, we invited 4 local rookie teams to participate and opened the event for spectators. This scrimmage provided smiles to teams that had been working so hard throughout the season and acted as the celebration of achievement for The Jr Corn Poppers. As a result we had 4 families reach out and ask how they could get involved after seeing the teams demonstrate their skills.
The Docs Project: A Community-Driven Knowledge Hub
The Docs Project started in 2020 to retain the vast amounts of knowledge seniors acquire over their tenures on FRC teams. This project allows for team veterans to document and share what theyāve learned before they graduate. While initially designed for our use, The Docs Project gained international traction that led to a 2023 redesign to support external contributing, accessibility, and translation. Partnering with GitBook we created a new site, transforming our static project into an interactive community. Now The Docs Project averages 100 daily users from 9 different countries during the build season.
Other teams beginning to utilize the project led to many great collaborations. In 2023, we began meeting with team 5576 monthly to help them train new mentors after their head coach retired. We documented all these meetings through The Docs Project by expanding sections with answers to common questions. Similarly, weāve met with team 967 after they reached out wanting more resources on specific chapters of our project, showing that even well historied teams can benefit from community. In early 2024, we met with teams 3928 and 3100 over Zoom to walk through how to run a summer camp and provided our curriculums and planning documents. With this, Team 3928 was able to launch their first camps this past summer and 3100 hopes to launch theirs in 2025.
This project isnāt only a virtual experience, in 2023 we created PopBot Swerve, a simple drive base to help us make the switch from tank drive. After combing through published resources to learn how to build and program the base, we created a Docs Project chapter and repository dedicated to what we discovered. Since then, PopBot has been traveling to Iowa teams helping them get started. So far it has traveled 674 miles and is back for a brief tune-up before heading out on its next adventure. Along the way we have continued to document and learn from other teamsā experiences to improve our project.
The Docs Project reaches beyond FIRST teams. It also highlights curricula for scouting badges relating to robotics and K-12 science experiments. After using it for his robotics merit badge, a Boy Scout from Ohio compiled a list of additional websites and tools he hoped would encourage future scouts to get their badges. The Docs Project now proudly displays a resource section recognizing the contributions provided by Boy Scout Eric P.
Building Freedom with GoBabyGo
In 2024, Connie Moore, a physical therapist from Iowa City, reached out for help in developing a way for Simon, an 18-month-old born with muscular dystrophy, to move independently. The GoBabyGo project creates motorized vehicles for children with disabilities utilizing a toy ride-on in place of a traditional wheelchair with added extra support. The vehicle is made of a PVC skeleton with pool noodles for cushioning, a kickboard for back support and a potentiometer to easily adjust the speed. To keep costs low for the family, we secured community funding and resources. Procter & Gamble funded the car, we repurposed pool noodles and floats provided by Iowa City Parks & Rec, and the University of Iowa College of Education Makerspace created custom vinyls and 3D printed parts. The project was such a success that it caught the attention of the local news, and our teamās interview reached approximately 30,000 nightly viewers.
As word spread about Simonās car, GoBabyGo Indy referred another family to usāa mother and her 6-year-old son, Maverick, who had just relocated to Iowa after a sudden loss in their family. In July of 2024 we met Maverick, a Hawkeye fan with severe movement limitations and a love for car keys. Over the course of 2 months we worked closely with his family, who visited our lab on several occasions, and GoBabyGo Indy to understand his speciļ¬c needs. Maverick loves his younger sister, so we made custom removable pieces to allow her to ride with him along with 3D printed keys for them both. Beyond Maverick and Simon, Team 167 has rewired an existing car for a 3rd family and is gearing up to build another GoBabyGo vehicle this summer.
Conclusion
This is only a snippet of what Team 167 has accomplished in the past 3 years. We have used the post-Covid era to reset our processes and evaluate how we are working toward our mission to educate the next generation of innovators and problem-solvers. Weāve recognized past struggles with securing recruitment and labspace year-to-year and have created pipelines toward sustainability for the future. Our Junior Bots and FLL programs get students exposed to FIRST younger and build their interest as they grow. Moreover, camps have provided crucial funding to propel our team forward as we work toward a space to permanently call home. Our hard work culminates in The Docs Project, where we publish free resources to help teams grow through similar challenges. Finally, our collaboration with GoBabyGo has opened us up to new ways to support families in our area. We, The Children of the Corn, have had an a-maize-ing past 3 years reaching 36,941 individuals with over 1,161 volunteer hours at 62 events.
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