Wildfire Robotics, FRC Team 5454, is a FIRST Robotics Team in Rogers, AR. Our team is comprised of high school students, middle school students, and adult mentors. In an effort to cultivate interest in science and technology, we build a competition robot during a six-week “build season” to complete a specific game challenge each year. Each spring,
we compete with our robot at regional competitions around the country, as well
as at the Championship Event in St. Louis, Missouri if we qualify. In addition to robot competitions, we also
market our team for financial and in-kind support from sponsors, spread the
word of FIRST by helping to start new teams and doing presentations and
demonstrations in the community, volunteering at the local off-season event and
mentoring several FLL and Jr. FLL team 5454 Wildfire is so much more than building a robot.
Description and History FIRST Robotics Team 5454 “Wildfire” began in 2014 as an opportunity to expand the reach of the STEM opportunities of Cross Church Community 4-H Club for students living in Benton County. As we enter our 1stseason in 2014, we have 7 students and 3 adult mentors.
As a FIRST team, we design and build a robot for competition. A close partnership between students and adult mentors creates a strong mentoring and sharing relationship as each group continually learns from and teaches the other. This sharing of work and responsibility flows through every sub-team and every project we take.
Since 2014, Wildfire has been a part of starting new FIRST robotics teams in Arkansas. The students also mentor several Jr. FLL, FLL, and FTC teams in our county. Although our team is primarily engineering focused, we recruit members to support all aspects of our team. We provide opportunities for web site, communications, public relations and other team roles for those who want to be a part of Wildfire but do not have an interest in the engineering field. We also create opportunity for those that are afraid of engineering to enter the team through the other activities and move into engineering