Student-led, staff-supported
Students drive the design decisions, the code, the outreach calendar, and the budget — with mentors and school staff coaching, teaching, and keeping the program running.
About
Engineering, taught with the help of the staff and mentors behind us
Raw Bacon Robotics is FIRST Tech Challenge team #8743 at Iowa City High School. We have been competing since our rookie year in 2014, and every season we hand the tools — and the responsibility — to the next group of students.
- School
- Iowa City High School
- Location
- Iowa City, Iowa
- Rookie year
- 2014
- Program
- FIRST Tech Challenge
Our mission
To build competitive robots and confident engineers — giving every student at City High a hands-on path into STEM, and sharing that path with our community across Iowa City and Johnson County.
Gracious Professionalism
We compete hard and help hard. Lending a part, sharing a fix, or scouting honestly matters as much as the score on the board.
Iterate in public
Every design is documented in the engineering portfolio so the next season starts from what we learned, not from scratch.
Open doors
No experience required. We teach CAD, Java, machining, and presentation skills to anyone at City High who shows up ready to learn.
Where we came from
Rookie season
A handful of City High students, a borrowed workspace, and a name nobody forgets.
A decade of FTC seasons
Qualifiers across Iowa, judged awards, and a steady pipeline of students moving into engineering and computer science.
Machu Picchu qualifier & Iowa Championship
Competed at the Machu Picchu qualifier and the Iowa Championship Black Division, earning 2nd place for the Innovate Award.
Six events and three first-place seeds
A new robot, a Solon scrimmage opener, and first-place qualification finishes at Solon, Iowa City in November, and Iowa City in December.