Reefscape - 2025
Written By: Impact Team
17 years ago, Huskie Robotics began with 5 passionate "pups." Today, we are a close-knit pack of 125+ members, united in our mission to inspire future innovators. Every student we empower today helps shape the future of FIRST, STEAM, and the world.
Our Huskie Pack
We are a student-led, mid-sized engineering company boasting 24 leadership roles working across 10+ classrooms. Communication and team structure are essential. At the helm are five captains—three oversee our core branches: Business, Robot, and Strategy. Our Systems Integration Specialist Captain directs four Feature Project Managers (FPMs), each responsible for a specific robot feature, while the Project Manager Captain ensures cohesion by leading events and facilitating communication among all leads. Each of our 11 subteams is headed by a leader who provides technical guidance and strong leadership. As our needs evolved, we introduced specialized roles such as Accountant and Open Alliance Coordinator.
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For team alignment, we hold stand-up sessions at each meal, where leads share progress, setbacks, and successes. Weekly cycle planning meetings, organized with the Linear and FMECA (Failure, Modes, Effect, Criticality Analysis) frameworks help us maintain a competitive timeline and mitigate risks. Our postseason “Keep, Fix, Try” (KFT) discussions refine processes, inspiring the creation of our eight-week Professional Skills Workshop series—a tradition that continues to strengthen our team.
Huskie Heritage
The growth of Huskies is deeply tied to the guidance of our 20 mentors. Through close collaboration, we gain hands-on experience with professional tools, allowing the robot to be entirely student built. Mentors demonstrate and guide rather than direct, prompting us to reflect on challenges and develop critical thinking.
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They emphasize personal growth, urging us to learn from mistakes and build problem-solving skills. As mentor Christopher John says, “If every four years there are another 100 individuals moving out into the world with a better sense of how to interact with each other, then each of those corners of the world will be a better place, not only for them but for all of the people they interact with.” Mentors remain with us for an average of six years, staying connected through alumni and mentor chat groups.
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Alumni continue to bolster FIRST’s impact as well—30% serve as FRC mentors and volunteers. Spencer Gore, one of our original five members, returned as a mentor this year. Now a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree and CEO, he exemplifies our enduring spirit: once a Huskie, a Huskie forever.
UnLEASHING DEI
At Huskie Robotics, inclusivity isn’t just a goal, it’s a commitment. Over the past three years, we’ve increased the number of women on our team by 10%, achieving over 40% female leadership. Joining NCWIT’s Sit With Me movement, we have documented the experiences of 70+ women with our Red Chair. Our annual Sit With Me video—featuring interviews with members, alumni, mentors, and FLL participants—is viewed by corporate sponsors and the public, inspiring action: we sit down to stand up.
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Our Women in STEAM conference offers female leaders a platform to share stories of overcoming adversity, inspiring youth. But beyond advocacy, we create change: through the m.e. FIRST movement, we distribute pads and tampons in all bathrooms at competitions, fostering more inclusive spaces. At TWIST, an off-season FRC event, our all-female drive and pit teams served as role models, empowering girls to lead in male-dominated areas.
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Through the University of Washington’s HuskyADAPT initiative, we modify children’s toys like roller coasters, trains, and dancing animals to aid motor-skill development. The electrical subteam replaces a difficult to press ON switch with a simple button. All they have to do is press! After trial distributions and feedback, we have already provided 12 revised kits to special-needs classrooms.
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Through FIRST Futures, we bridge the gap between FRC and the workforce. We help students translate their FIRST skills into resumes, applications, and career opportunities by connecting them with industry professionals, ensuring their time and effort in FRC directly supports their future careers. This inspires continued participation in STEAM despite local challenges and expands FIRST’s impact and inclusivity.
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Fostering PAWssionate Pups
We have dedicated 5,276 hours across outreach events in the past three years to enrich and cultivate future STEAM leaders, impacting 7,260 pups in the past 12 months alone. Members apply to be outreach coordinators for events, empowering students team-wide to lead community-focused events. Partnering with organizations like the Dupage Children’s Museum, we showcase FIRST through FRC robot and FLL kit demos, introducing STEAM concepts to more than 500 youth.
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Our commitment extends to supporting the next generation. We collaborated with Scouts BSA to run interactive booths that connected 44 families with local FLL teams, further expanding community impact. Each year, we visit PLTW classrooms in junior high schools, giving 6th-8th graders a behind-the-scenes look at our team—from pre-season training to competition. Many current team members credit these sessions for inspiring their journey into robotics and STEAM.
No Pack Left Behind
Our impact extends to the broader FRC community. Over the past three years, we have enhanced SPOT, our open-source, modular scouting app that streamlines the scouting process for teams. With a customizable interface, SPOT is used by 18+ teams to gather critical data that boosts performance. Team 8906 Cache Money said “We just set it up and tested it out and it is absolutely amazing. Our scouters found it simple and intuitive”.
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In 2022, we launched our software library, 3061-lib, focused on swerve-based drivetrain technology, which now supports 16 teams in robot development. Embracing coopertition, we joined Open Alliance last season to share successes and failures. From robot to business, each lead contributes regular updates. With over 16,000 views, our posts have fostered a growing network of teams that learn and innovate together.
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This year, we started mentoring community FRC team 2704, Roaring Robotics, sharing best practices, inviting them to meetings, and giving equipment, to strengthen FRC in the area. Our commitment also transcends borders, collaborating with Japanese team Hanabi (9494) to provide workspace and batteries at competitions and Israeli team ORBIT (1690) on software development.
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Corporate Canines
Maintaining sponsorships and partnerships while seeking new opportunities is essential to our mission of creating a lasting impact.
Direct student engagement allows organizations to gain confidence in the impact of their support, fostering lasting partnerships through student led pitches. When we identified Linear as the ideal project management tool but found its cost prohibitive, Project Manager Jai Gupta reached out directly to the CEO. Impressed by our achievements and potential, we secured a free lifetime subscription.
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We emphasize maintaining strong relationships with our 22 sponsors through weekly updates, where each subteam shares progress, inviting feedback. Weekly sponsor posts on social media foster ties. A highlight was a demo session at Rockwell Automation’s facility, where we showcased our robot to company leaders, stakeholders, and clients, including FIRST CEO Chris Moore.
Our community partnerships with the Naperville Education Foundation (NEF), Naperville Public Library, and philanthropic organizations like the Alive Center amplify our impact. Through STEAM days and public demonstrations, we ensure FIRST remains accessible, creating an impact that will not just last for months or seasons, but for years and decades to come.
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Inspiring the FUR-ture
We inspire the next generation of STEAM innovators by integrating FIRST into local education systems, bridging classroom learning with real-world applications in engineering, coding, and teamwork. Our School District 203 FIRST pipeline nurtures robotics passion from elementary through high school.
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In just two years, we nearly doubled the number of FLL teams in the district—from 23 to 42. Our efforts kick off each summer with a district FLL camp led by Huskies that introduces 240 students to hands-on robotics. To ensure lasting impact, we host a Professional Development conference for 37 D203 FLL coaches, equipping them with essential training and strategies. Per Lego Education Key Account Manager Steven Weniger, “The student leaders who facilitated the session demonstrated remarkable knowledge of the FLL rules and expectations, providing invaluable insights that will empower all coaches.”
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Trained in student-led FLL bootcamps, student mentors have dedicated 420+ hours to support 42 teams and 475 students. They not only share technical expertise but also build confidence, empowering teams to overcome challenges. Each year, we organize two major student-led FLL competitions—one for elementary teams and a state-wide qualifier for junior high teams. Many pups go on to join our high school team, carrying forward the passion nurtured through FLL.
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Recognizing our impact, the Naperville Education Foundation awarded us a five-year, $477K grant in 2022 to expand STEAM access, directly supporting new teams, resources, and robust programs for both students and educators. One of our next steps is proposing a FIRST Robotics Engineering Exploration Curriculum as an engineering capstone course, to strengthen our pipeline and further FIRST impact.
Leaving Paw Prints Behind
Team 3061 fully embraces the FIRST ethos, having made a meaningful impact on multiple levels. After 17 years of passion, hard work, and love, we are diving deeper than ever before. We stand for diversity, inclusion, and sustainability. We are coopertition and gracious professionalism. We are innovators and believers. We are Huskie Robotics.