The Globe Robotics program has had an incredibly eventful year. Our five Midnight Cicadas teams have been learning, competing, and growing by leaps and bounds.

We expanded our program this year to include all of the FIRST (www.firstinspires.org) organization Robotics’ divisions.

The Globe Unified School District now provides robotics for students in grades pre-K through 12: FIRST Lego League Junior FLL Jr (one team 11205), FIRST Lego League/FLL (two teams 24758 and 35418), FIRST Tech Challenge/FTC (one team 10246), and FIRST Robotics Competition/FRC (one team 5059), with meetings and events throughout the year, including summers.

Our FIRST Lego Leagues and FIRST Tech Challenge teams kicked-off their seasons in early September with the Aqua Adventure, Hydro Dynamics, and Relic Recovery games with competitions starting in November that culminated with the February, Arizona State Championship in Flagstaff.

The FTC team, once again, experienced an immensely successful year reaching the competition for its third straight year, ultimately competing in the semi-final rounds to rank fourth overall, one out of 46 teams, won numerous engineering design awards, and the Arizona State Judges Team Award recognizing overall season achievement.

Both FLL teams competed in December at ASU Polytech in Mesa and spent the time learning from other teams and getting excited for growth and improvement starting with weekly EV3 coding Fridays coming up soon.

The FIRST Robotics Competition team has just completed their 2018 PowerUP season with rousing execution.

This year, due to the generousity of sponsors — The Boeing Corp, Resolution Copper, Freeport McMoRan, Globe USD, and members of the community — the team was able to compete twice at pre-world championship regional events; once at the Arizona North in Flagstaff and the other at the Nevada Regional in Las Vegas.

Both events led to a showing in the semi-final rounds after great qualifying match-play.

The Midnight Cicadas ended in fourth and sixth place respectively from a total of 60 and 43 teams at each event.

We were overjoyed with our success and the realization of the fruits of our labors and persistence after five years.

A timeframe that is apparently the typical turning/tipping point for effectively sustained teams.

While the Cicadas did not qualify for the World Championships in Houston this year, it will compete at the Arizona State Finals this fall, made a huge name for themselves nationwide with successful robot design, and presenting as a team that’s helpful, generous, with enthusiastic spirit.

Upcoming plans for the offseason include an FLL Jr expo with our Jr Cicadas on April 7 at ASU Tempe, EV3 FLL Coding Fridays through May, Midnight Cicadas demonstrations during the annual STEMFest on Saturday, April 28 at Gila Community College, Relay for Life on Friday, May 11, the Summer Reading Kickoff at Harbison Field on Saturday, June 9, and at school sites promoting STEM and our team regionalization efforts.

The Cicadas will also continue its summer camp to make progress in coding, 3D modeling, and mechanical design skills.

As community partners, the Midnight Cicadas offer themselves for events, not only for demos and presentations.

The team is willing to provide support as volunteers to assist in the numerous valuable services offered in the region.

For the Midnight Cicadas are not only ambassadors for STEM education and achievement, but dedicated, contributing citizens willing to serve our community.

Many thanks Southern Gila County Copper Corridor from the Globe MC’s.