Community Impact

Robotics is louder when everyone gets a turn.

From camps and bootcamps to library stations and hackathons, Metal Magic brings STEM experiences to students across the community.

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Outreach Events

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People Reached

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Hours Volunteered

Feb 2026 – Present

Magic Under the Hood Podcast

We started the first FTC podcast of this sort in the Chesapeake region. In this, we hope to share the experiences of many FTC teams throughout the region and how they combatted the challenges of the game to build their robot. Watch them at https://www.youtube.com/@metalmagicftc/

Previous Interviews Include:

Turbo Terminators 30348

System Overload 27489

Other shorter interviews at districts including Blu Cru and Beaver Bots

Jun 20 – Jul 21, 2026

Summer Autonomous Robotics Course 2026

This 4 week, 9-day course introduced rising 7th–10th graders to autonomous robotics through Arduino development at Curie Learning LLC in Chantilly, VA.

Program details

Tuesdays 6:30pm – 8:30pm and Saturdays 1pm – 3:30pm: Jun 20, Jun 23, Jun 27, Jun 30, Jul 7, Jul 11, Jul 14, Jul 18, Jul 21.

Students learned core electronics including servo control, motor based robot movement, laser distance tracking, and color sensing. Each week had lessons and guided lab time for a final project: an autonomous robot capable of organizing objects.

The $375 program fee included an Arduino UNO and other electronics students could take home as part of their working robot project.

May 2026

Code Crush Hackathon 2

Our second annual hackathon coding competition. Students had 24 hours to create a game or project relating to a certain theme! We also conducted many bootcamps during this competition such as intro to marketing, AI/ML, Java, CAD, MVP pitch, and more!

Visit Code Crush Hackathon

Spring 2026

Curie Autonomous Robotics Course

We taught a Curie autonomous robotics course where students learned Arduino development, servo control, motor based robot movement, sensors, and how to troubleshoot hardware and software issues.

Course details

Students worked toward an Arduino based autonomous robot capable of organizing objects. No prior robotics, programming, or technical experience was required.

Late 2025

2025 Academic Year Camp

This year, we hosted a 4-week Academic Year camp where students formed their own mock robotics team. In this experience, students learned about FIRST, as well as important robotics team aspects like hardware, software, and outreach. Students gained many valuable insights through our team members as their mentors.

September 2025

2025-26 Decode Kickoff Event

In partnership with Curie Learning, we conducted a kickoff event for the 2025-26 FTC Decode Season with activities and a game reveal livestream.

August 2025

Robotics Summer Camp 2025

In partnership with Curie Learning, we conducted our first ever in person summer camp to expose students to FTC. Students create their own 'mini' FTC eam for a week. Together, they build and program their own FTC robot, and showcase it to an audience!

June 2025

Code Crush Hackathon

Our first annual hackathon coding competition. Students had 24 hours to create a game or project relating to a certain theme! We also conducted many bootcamps during this competition such as intro to Python, Java, and AI.

Visit Code Crush Hackathon

March 2025

ACL Maker Showcase

We had a booth in the Academies of Loudoun's annual Maker Showcase, where we showcased our team, FIRST, and the concept of competitive robotics. We presented and spoke to educators, parents, and students about how to get involved in FIRST and robotics. We did demo runs of our robot along with a hardware and software showcase to inspire students. We also setup our trifold and awards for others to see. This was a great opportunity to showcase ourselves, FIRST, and robotics!

February 2025

Online Robotics Bootcamp

In partnership with Curie Learning, we conducted online sessions covering the basics of FIRST, FTC, and robotics. We went over hardware parts, 3-D modeling, programming concepts, Python crash course, marketing, logo design, and even a live robot demo!

Ongoing

Library Events

Open events with stations for 3D printing, Java programming, robot driving, AI experiments, and hands-on hardware challenges.