It’s been an amazing year at FCDI, and as we head into the 2020s, we’re excited about what the future holds, especially at AMRoC Fab Lab – a precedent setting space that was only an idea a few years ago, and which, with the help of some amazing partners and supporters, we’ve made a reality.
Here’s just some of what we’ve accomplished since we opened AMRoC to the public in June:
- We’ve welcomed over 800 guests and visitors, about 500 of them children.
- We’ve got four FIRST house youth robotics teams underway, serving more than 50 K-12 youth.
- We provide meeting and build space for six additional youth robotics teams, and several other community organizations.
- We’ve hosted two Professional Development events.
- We’ve hosted a Manufacturing Day tour of AMRoC for Shields Middle School.
- We’ve hosted National Day of Civic Hacking and Hour of Code.
- We’ve provided 3D Printing and Product Development services for several groups and individuals.
- We’ve been part of several University Area Community events, from UACDC Partner Coalition quarterly events, Tampa Innovation Partnership TechHire and Gathering events, CANDO Caribbean Festival and Winners Resource Day of Thanksgiving.
- We’ve been awarded three grants, from SunTrust Foundation, the Children’s Board of Hillsborough County and the CEL, Community Enrichment Lab.
- We received a UACDC Community Impact Award.
- We took first place in the 2019 Children’s Board Social Enterprise Competition.
We couldn’t have done any of this without the fantastic support of our amazing Board of Directors, who founded and manage AMRoC, and especially without the vigorous engagement of individuals like our Volunteer Coordinator, Marissa Schiereck, and regular volunteers and contributors like Michael Smith-Mapp, Chris WIllingham, David Mendez, groups like the USF Society for Hispanic Professional Engineers, and the support of organizations like eSmart Recycling, Sensible Micro Corporation, SOFWERX , U.S. Auto Training , PLUGHITZ Live, Bits4Bots , Tampa-Hillsborough Public Library , Ultimate 3D Printer Store and more. With enormous gratitude to RD Management, for having the kindness, vision and foresight to believe in AMRoC and the value we bring to University Mall and the community.
As we move into the new year, we’re excited about growing our programs to include more focused workforce training opportunities, expanded after-school programming, completing our workshop build out, building our membership base and extending our service and product offerings via the Gearbox, our Fab Lab retail space.
Look for news here about upcoming programs and projects – like the STEAM Pavilion Mini Fab Lab experience we’re hosting at Synapse Summit in February – and in the AMROC Fab Lab weekly eNewsletter and social media, and stay tuned, too, for more information about our Gulf Coast MakerCon event, coming to University Mall May 23 and 24, 2020! And of course, we’ll be holding ROBOTICON Tampa Bay again next fall, aiming to make it bigger and better than ever.
From all of us at the Foundation for Community Driven Innovation, we wish you a New Year rich with creative possibilities and invite you to make your own ideas into realities at AMRoC Fab Lab!
It’s going to be an awesome year!