FRC Gigawatts

Help the Gigawatts get to Worlds!! For the first time in Alabama’s history, the Gigawatts have won the first place Impact Award TWICE! We’re so fortunate to be able to attend the World Festival to compete at an international level in April. Help us raise money for travel and registration on Tuesday, April 4 🤖❤️

What do you do with so much greatness, all in one room?

For the second year in a row, the Gigawatts hosted the FLL State Championship. We are so honored to be a part of such an amazing network of people. Thank you to every volunteer, coach, mentor, and team that made this event possible. If you’ve never come to a FIRST event, you don’t know what you’re missing 🤖❤️

Another wonderful LEGO Day with 🤖❤️❤️

I spy 👀…. a NEW Gigawatts Backdrop Banner!!

Yesterday, the Gigawatts and got to share lots about at the Trash Pandas baseball game!!

Can we get a LET’S GO BIG DAWG for your 2022 Bayou Regional Entrepreneurship Award Winners??? Our list of thank-you’s for pulling this off would run a mile long, so let us just say this: the Gigawatts cannot express how grateful we are to every team member, parent, mentor, community member, sponsor, and everyone we’ve met along the way. We couldn’t be happier with how our in-person comeback went, we’ll see you in 2023 🤖❤️

We were so proud to host the first in-person AL State Championship in 2 years!! We had 22 FLL and 19 FTC teams come to Fort Payne, and we had a BLAST hosting 1200 people on campus!

Videoconference with ! We loved meeting you guys 🤖🤟❤️

You might be wondering what a partnership between a robotics team and local law enforcement looks like. In a new endeavor for the Fort Payne High School Gigawatts team they have taken on a challenge presented by the DeKalb County Sheriff Firing Range. Ken Thomas, Shooting Range Manager, had an idea for free moving targets that would allow marksmen to practice their skills on unpredictable targets. After a couple of meetings, the team went to work designing a robot that could carry targets a hundred yards away and provide an enhanced element to target practice. This past Thursday the robot was put to the test in an initial testing. The test was a great success and will now lead to the production of a full capable final product. Office Cagle said “that was harder than anything I had to do in sniper training”, while also never missing the target. Jamie McClung, coach of the Gigawatts, was excited for this opportunity, “As a teacher this is an amazing opportunity. The team members are developing real life entrepreneur skills while also expanding on their technical skills. We are extremely grateful to Ken Thomas, Jim Phillips, and Sheriff Nick Welden to coming to us with this opportunity.” The Gigawatts are now preparing for their 2022 FIRST Robotics competitions. Fort Payne City Schools now has competitive robotics teams from 5th grade and up and offer robotics and computers science at each school in the system K-12

We had an awesome tour of UA thanks to !! Loved getting to meet these amazing people🤖❤️

CALLING ALL 7-12 YEAR OLDS!! We are hosting THREE WORKSHOPS where you can learn to build and program a LEGO ROBOT!!! Find a workshop that works for you at the Rainsville OR Dekalb County Public Libraries! Register with the link in our bio!! 🤖🤟❤️

Congrats to and .shugart for both using their FIRST Robotics talents in their internships! Ryan is doing Raspberry Pi programming for Heritage Wire Harness, and Laurel is doing community outreach and advocacy for . What skills from FIRST can help you in your future career? 🤖🤟❤️

It’s !! We go ALL the way back to 2015 🤖🤟❤️

HAPPY HAPPY SPIRIT WEEK! We sure do love FIRST, and we have the pics to prove it! 🤖🤟❤️