Kicking off 2024 with our first #TeamREV spotlight of the new year: FRC Team #1732, Hilltopper Robotics, from Milwaukee, Wisconsin! 

Tell us a little bit about your team’s background.

Hilltopper Robotics was founded in the fall of 2005 at Marquette University High School, an all boys school in the city of Milwaukee. In 2008, the team expanded to accept students from an all girls school, Divine Savior Holy Angels High School. Our two schools bring together people from many different cities and backgrounds from around southeastern Wisconsin. Our team is 30% bilingual and 32% female. In total this year, we are 62 students strong with 19 mentors, the majority of whom are FIRST Alumni. Our team is good at balancing hard work with fun. We enjoy serving the community via outreach and take pride in the robots we build. We’ve written a book about our 2012 FRC season, Robot McGuire, and have developed an outreach program called Books&Bots, that uses our book and outreach robots to introduce young kids to STEM. We rely on our diverse student body to reach a wider audience and teach young people from all backgrounds about robotics and STEM opportunities.

What has your team been working on recently?

Team 1732 hosted 2 FLL Regional Tournaments, something we do each November. This year we had 40 teams, totaling over 800 kids, attend the two tournaments. Our team members fill most of the volunteer positions for the tournament and host additional activities for the FLL Teams and their siblings to participate in during the tournament. We provide Books&Bots sessions, STEM related activity stations, and games after the FLL teams compete. 

What are a few offseason achievements your team is proud of?

Hilltopper Robotics offered 2 robotics summer camps. Our students developed a curriculum using FIRST Core Values that encompassed building LEGO robots, learning about careers in STEM, and seeing how our FRC team operates. 44 students from 7th to 9th grade participated in our summer camp. Team 1732 camp staff taught robot design, coding, strategy, and competitive spirit. On the last day of camp, students got to showcase their robots by competing in a tournament. 

This October, we competed in an offseason tournament called TWIST (Together Women In STEM Thrive). We fielded two robots with two all female drive teams for the event. In addition to our female students getting extra driver practice, our newer students were able to get hands-on experience in a competition setting. 

This year, we revamped our preseason recruitment and fall training. Interest in joining our team is at an all-time high (110 students interested last year!). Our student leads met in the summer to develop subteam specific training sessions to help prospective members. All applicants were given the opportunity to try each subteam out, learn the required skills, and experience how it feels to work within each subteam. 

What is your team enjoying within the #TeamREV Sponsorship Program?

The #TeamREV program has given our blossoming Social Media team direction in increasing our digital presence. Also, it’s very helpful to communicate directly with other established teams. We’re excited to set up some meetings to learn from them and share what we know as well.

Meet more of #TeamREV through the end of the 2023-2024 FIRST® IN SHOW℠ season! Find Hilltopper Robotics on these platforms:

• Website
• Facebook
• X (Twitter)
• Instagram
• YouTube