We are a community robotics team that draws from ten different towns in Southern Maine who do not have access to a robotics team. In 2015, our rookie year we won our first two competitions and even went all the way to the World Championship. This year we have already received the Innovation In Control Award from FIRST, sponsored by Rockwell automation.

FIRST, For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, strives to gain interest from grade school students in science technology engineering and math. Involvement in FIRST competitions has allowed members of our team to learn leadership, project management, fundraising, and has also connected students with scholarship opportunities and resources for furthering their education.

The Outliers Robotics Team respectfully requests $1,000 toward our participation in the New England FIRST Championship in Hartford, Connecticut. Only the top sixty teams in New England can participate in this championship. Our participation will give us the opportunity to compete at the World Championship in St. Louis, MO in April. If we won the World Championship we would be the first team from Maine ever to win and the first team in six years from New England. Our participation helps to increase New England's presence in the fields of robotics and technology.

Because we draw students from ten different towns who do not have access to robotics teams we serve an important function to multiple communities. Our outreach efforts have included exhibitions at the Portland Art Walk, Computer Aided Designing (CAD) workshops for robotics teams who do not have access to CAD classes at their schools, and a demonstration to cultivate interest in STEM fields at a week long elementary and middle school aged day camp in Lewiston Maine (see attached photo).