2025-2026 Outreach

This year's Robot Reveal Night was held at the Mills High School Library! The team presented a recap of offseason activities, including our offseason competition, Capital City Classic, as well as an overview of outreach. Each department and subteam set up their own booth to provide those curious further information. New members got to share their experiences and practice presenting in front of a crowd for the first time. Then, technical departments explained the process of building the robot during build season and revealed our 2026 robot, In-TEa-ana Jones. The event also included complimentary food an drinks for guests to enjoy. Additionally, we held a silent auction in which attendees were able to bid on services donated to us, including gift cards and scholarships. In the end, we raised a total of $295 from bids! Overall, despite taking a different apporach to this year's Robot Reveal Night, the event was a success among locals in our community, our peers, and our team!

On February 21, 2026, The Boba Bots media subteam worked with FRC NorCal Director Luan Heimlich and Velma Lomax to create a workshop for NorCal FRC teams. The "Media in FRC" digital workshop covered the new media guidelines in NorCal District Events, how to manage a media team, camera basics, social media tactics, and basics of photo editing. We will be turning this into a series of workshops!

On December 6, 2025, The Boba Bots participated in the 2025 Spring Valley Elementary School STEAM Fair. Along with bringing our prize wheel and pins to hand out to visitors, our team happily answered questions regarding the robot to those curious. Unlike most other outreach eventts, where our robot is stationary and we explain how it moves, we gave the elemenary school kids the chance to drive Mana-TEA themselves at a section of our booth. To make it safer for the children to drive it, our programming team was able to change its speed and elevator controls. The children were so excited with interacting with our robot for the first time, and by the end of the event, a number of parents told us that they're interested in letting hteir kids join robotcs!

As the largest club at Mills, our Makerspace was opened for parents and incoming freshmen to walk in and watch us demonstrate ForTEAsimo, our 2024 robot. Meanwhile, members stood outside with pom-poms and our flag to welcome people. Halloween candy and stickers were distributed as we answered questions about the team and our own experiences in FRC. 8th Grade Night was a lovely time for sharing stories and inspiring kids to take the first step in their STEM journey.

On September 7, 2025, the Boba Bots were invited to present at WRRF, and they gave a presentation on how to create and enforce consistent branding standards for FRC teams. As part of our session, we explained how to make a mascot using different colors and characteristics. They also explained the history of Boba Bots and how to make a logo that stands out from the crowd. We also touched on how we show spirit during competition. 

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Our own Dean’s list finalist Sharon Zhang, spoke at the Dean’s List Panel and shared about their experiences applying, interviewing, and standing out as student leaders in FIRST alongside other dean list winners (Cierra Yu FRC 2813, George Tao FRC 840, Serena Koopmans FRC 5026). Also at the Dean’s List Panel our Mentor Katie Widen Moderated the Panel!

Every year, Mills holds a club fair, giving various clubs a chance to advertise their purpose and activities to students. We make sure to put on a good show, busting out the banners, pins, stickers, and most importantly, our robot. The robot also served as a good icebreaker, as students normally too shy to ask questions suddenly came up to team members to ask about our robot’s wiring and construction. We also passed out pins and stickers to students. Interested students not only got to see what their involvement in the club can lead to, but they got to connect with people who can one day be their teammates. The club fair is a major opportunity for the Boba Bots to recruit and connect with our school.

During the Mills Freshmen Orientation, all freshmen were given a tour around the school for the first time. The Boba Bots took this opportunity to spread awareness of our team. We opened the Makerspace to all freshmen, and had multiple leads give a short speech advertising our introductory rotationals day. This event allowed people with no previous knowledge of FRC or robotics to get the chance to see how an FRC team works and the passion and effort that goes into running one. Ultimately, several of the people who attended the orientation ended up becoming members, proving how effective this event was at bringing in new members.

On December 13, 2025, The Boba Bots attended a media brainstorming group for FRC NorCal, which after a series of meetings turned into the Student Media Committee. The Boba Bots 253, Dark Matter 2643, and BREAD 5940 came together to implement the new media guidelines, new initiatives (media pit and Loan-A-Photographer program), and media standardizations across NorCal. 

On February 20, our team participated in a video call over zoom with Unipards 6998, an FRC team from Taiwan, and Dark Matter 2643, an FRC team from Bay Area. A week later, we called RoboKryptonite 6191 and Overlooking 6083, two other Taiwan teams, and Janksters 1967, another Bay Area team, in a Google Meet. As a whole, our discussions featured teams from religious, all girls', public, and private schools, culminating in a variety of diverse backrounds that shaped each respective team. Everyone gave an in-depth tour of their labs and shared their team structure and team practices. Our overall goal was to bring our teams togher and facilitate a cultural exchange where we could all share and learn from one another. 

On December 7, 2025, The Boba Bots were invited to the Invent the Rest workshop -- a collaboration with FRC 1967 Janksters. We presented our "Beatiful Brandards" workshop from WRRF, explaining the principles of a strong brand and ways to implement it across an FRC team. We were very happy to continue sharing our team's expertise in imagery with other members of the FIRST community!

The Boba Bots participated in the 2025 Millbrae Mid-Autumn Festival. We displayed our robot and sold team merchandise (buttons, stickers, and t-shirts). Whether passerby came by to spin a prize wheel or look at our merch, almost all customer interactions ended with questions about the robot or our team. Little kids were curious about our robot's functions and were able to interact with both the Prize wheel and Mana-TEA. We also brought out pins, merch and stickers. Lastly, we also taught kids how to make pins.

The Boba Bots opened the Makerspace for parents and students to tour. Many people stopped by to look at the activities and bought merch. We also gave out pins and stickers. Members had a good time connecting with the school community, and parents and students who stopped by gained more awareness about the team.

This season, our team decided to try something new: running a boba stand! After presenting our idea to our local Tea Hut, we were gifted 60 free boba teas. We later resold the drinks for $6 each to other students at our high school. With tremendous support fro our peers, we were able to sell our quickly and ended up gaining a total profit of $360!

The Boba Bots were invited to set up a booth at the annual Millbrae Art & Wine Festival, one of the biggest events in Millbrae that attracts crowds from across the Bay Area. Members volunteered to showcasing our robot while managing a prize wheel and selling merch. We displayed our robot and sold team merchandise (buttons, stickers, and t-shirts). Whether passerby came by to spin a prize wheel or look at our merch, almost all customer interactions ended with questions about the robot or our team. Little kids were curious about our robot’s function, while adults and elders were more curious about our team events and how to get involved.