2025-2026 Season Highlights
Awards
This season was one of the most successful in our team's history. We earned a total of 4 awards.
Our greatest accomplishment was earning the 2nd-place Sustain Award at the Michiana Premier Event, an international-level competition in South Bend, Indiana. Competing against 96 FIRST Tech Challenge teams from around the world, our team was recognized for its long-term success both on and off the field.
Throughout the season, we participated in league meets, hosted a scrimmage with four other FTC teams, and competed at the Interleague tournament, where we earned the 1st-place Winning Alliance Award and the 2nd-place Inspire Award. These achievements advanced us to the Super Qualifier, where we qualified for the Washington State Championship and were the 1st-place seed.
At the Washington State Championship, we earned the 1st-place Sustain Award and qualified for the Michiana Premier Event, where we concluded our season.
Outreach
Building on last year's mission, we focused on helping people join FIRST and fostering meaningful connections through outreach events, which remained a core part of our team's efforts throughout the season.
We held events at 6 libraries, including Shoreline, Broadview, Lynnwood, Puyallup, Greenlake, and Edmonds branches. Additionally, we partnered with Young Black & Brilliant for one of their library book clubs. During these outreach events, we typically give presentations, teach kids simple block coding, and allow them to drive both FLL and FTC-style robots. Additionally, we hosted numerous booths at large events such as Seattle Worldcon and launched our Coding Class at the Bitterlake Community Center.
Mentoring
We strive to help prepare the next generation of engineers, which is why we enjoy and value teaching young students STEM skills. This is important to our team because it is important for the world.
One of the ways we teach students STEM skills is by mentoring FLL students, which we do every year at our school. We also enjoy and value giving back to FIRST to help students grow, so we host and assist FIRST competitions.
We continued our Intern club with our sister team 3805, and this program allowed students to gain important skills necessary for FTC. This club lasted throughout our off-season and involved mentoring 11 students. Overall, this year we regularly mentored 100+ students.
2024-2025 Season Highlights
Awards
This season has been extremely successful for our team. We earned 3 awards and got to compete at the State Championship.
After participating in two league meet practice competitions and two scrimmages, we competed in our first official event, the Interleague competition. There, we won the 1st Place Winning Alliance Partner Award and the Third-Place Inspire Award. In FTC, the Inspire award is the highest honor a team can receive and signifies that a team is a role model while also embodying the "challenge" of the program. This achievement secured our position in the next level of competition, the semi-finals, where we received the Connect Award for our efforts in engaging with the local STEM community. We then went on to compete in the State Championship, finishing 11th out of 24 teams, which officially concluded our season. Additionally, as a team, we participated in two local off-season competitions: Deeper, where we placed 2nd, and the West Coast Invitational, where we finished 6th.
Outreach
This year, our focus was on helping people join FIRST and fostering meaningful connections, rather than simply trying to reach as many individuals as possible. Organizing and hosting outreach events has been one of our team's main priorities, and this season, we successfully facilitated many of them.
We held events at several libraries, including Shoreline, Broadview, Lynnwood, and Edmonds branches. Additionally, we partnered with Young Black & Brilliant for one of their library book clubs. During these outreach events, we typically give presentations, teach kids simple block coding, and allow them to drive both FLL and FTC-style robots. Additionally, we hosted numerous booths at large events such as the Washington State Fair and the Edmonds School District STEM Expo.
Mentoring
We strive to help prepare the next generation of engineers, which is why we enjoy and value teaching young students STEM skills. This is important to our team because it is important for the world.
One of the ways we teach students STEM skills is by mentoring FLL students, which we do every year at our school. We also enjoy and value giving back to FIRST to help students grow, so we host and assist FIRST competitions.
We also co-created an Intern club with our sister team 3805, and this program allowed students to gain important skills necessary for FTC. This club lasted throughout our off-season and involved mentoring 9 students. Overall, this year we regularly mentored 50+ students.
2023-2024 Season Highlights
Awards
This season was an exciting milestone for Team 9880 Aftershock as we competed in our first official season after reviving the team. At our Interleague competition, we earned the 1st Place Think Award, which recognizes the team that best demonstrates the engineering design process.
Outreach
This season, our team organized 19 outreach events, totaling 110 hours of community engagement. We hosted presentations, STEM booths, workshops, and demonstrations at a variety of locations throughout our community.
During these events, participants had the opportunity to drive FIRST robots, explore engineering concepts through hands-on activities, and learn more about robotics and STEM careers.
Our outreach included STEM workshops at local libraries, presentations at schools, educational workshops for students, and interactive FIRST and STEM booths at large community events such as the Washington State Fair.
Mentoring
By helping younger students develop confidence, technical skills, and a passion for STEM, we are building a stronger and more connected FIRST community for years to come.
We mentored 10 FIRST LEGO League teams in the Seattle–Edmonds area, providing technical guidance, answering questions, and encouraging younger students throughout their seasons. We aim to not only mentor teams but also to create lasting support for FIRST programs through fundraising and community partnerships.