4-H and FIRST

4-H

The four H’s stand for Head, Heart, Hands, and Health! As America’s largest youth development organization, 4-H is a 501c(3) nonprofit organization connected to more than 100 public universities across the nation. For more than 100 years, 4-H welcomed youth of all beliefs and backgrounds, giving kids both a voice to express who they are and how they make their lives and communities better.

4-H is a program where you get to “Learn by Doing.” Through a variety of 4-H programs, nearly 6,000,000 youth take on critical issues such as addressing community health inequities, engaging in civil discourse, and advocating for equity and inclusion for all. 4-H believes in youth and their influence to improve the world around us.

In NC, 4-H is connected to North Carolina State University’s cooperative extension (www.nc4h.ces.ncsu.edu). With more than 10,000 established 4-H programs across NC, programs are available for almost everyone. In 4-H, you can start a business, raise an animal, create a community service project, build lifelong friendships, and much more.

4-H and FIRST
Robowhales First Robotics FRC Team Cary NC- (14)

4-H Whale Robotics

4-H Whale Robotics is our local community’s 4-H club dedicated to youth developing excitement for STEM through robotics. To achieve this mission, 4-H Whale Robotics hosts multiple teams for all ages to compete in FIRST: FLL, FTC and FRC teams. RoboWhales is the 4-H FRC team.

Our Partnership with 4-H

Our 4-H partnership not only provides us with financial support and nonprofit registration, but also allows us to create a team in which any public, charter, private, or home school student may join.

Robowhales team 9032 and 4-H First Robotics

FIRST

Founded in 1989, FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is a nonprofit organization that prepares youth for the future through a suite of life-changing robotics programs. The three levels of student participation are based on age and grade level: FIRST Lego League (FLL), FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) and FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC). The programs expose students to hands-on engineering and coding where students work collaboratively to solve themed robotics challenges. FIRST core values emphasize sportsmanship, teamwork, learning, community involvement and inclusion.

FIRST Robotics

FIRST Robotics Competition

FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) is a highly competitive worldwide program that challenges over 85,000 high school students to design, build, and program a robot for sports-like competitions. The goal of this program is to not only get students close to real-world engineering and coding, but also to hone professional, community outreach, and teamwork skills. Teams compete through district competitions for the opportunity to win awards and advance to the state competitions and the global FIRST Championship in Houston, TX, where approximately 600 teams compete.

Every season, over a six-week period, each team builds a unique robot to perform tasks specified by FRC. The robot’s dimensions are 28″ x 38″ x 60″ and can weigh up to 120 pounds. The components of the robot can include different advanced motors, metals, electronic controllers, power distribution panels, batteries equivalent to those found in cars, steel frames, pneumatics, hydraulics, and more. Students program the robot using Java, Python, and C++.