01
Non-technical
The half of FTC that judges actually score: the engineering portfolio, outreach, sponsors, and how the team explains itself in a ten-minute interview. Frequently the difference between a good robot and a winning team.
FTC #38345 · Craiova, România
Every raccoon
starts small.
A FIRST Tech Challenge team in Craiova. We design, build, code and compete with a real robot every season — and we hand screwdrivers to people who have never held one.
Season 2026 — 2027
Kickoff
Kickoff
25 Aug — 14 Sep
Build
15 Sep — 14 Oct
Code & test
15 Oct — 1 Dec
Compete
1 Dec — 1 Mar
Off-season
Mar — late Aug
Zeroexperience required
Foursubteams, one workshop
One robota season, built by us
Rookiesbuild real parts
01 — Who we are
A competition team that doesn't ask what you already know. You walk in, you pick a subteam, and by spring your hands are on a robot that plays real matches — whether or not you'd ever touched one before.
Rookie Raccoons is a FIRST Tech Challenge team in Craiova. Every September we get the same game, the same rulebook and the same deadline as every other team on the planet, and a few months later we turn up at a qualifier with a robot we drew, cut, wired and programmed ourselves.
What's unusual is the front door. Most of us joined knowing nothing — the first weeks are tools, safety, and somebody standing next to you saying "no, the other way round". Nobody gets benched for being new. The bracket a rookie makes in October is the bracket that goes to the competition in December, and it either holds or it doesn't.
We are not a class and there is no exam. It's a room, a deadline, a budget that's always slightly too small, and a group of people who would rather be in there than anywhere else after school.
Where we come from
We share a city, a workshop and a raccoon with Soft Hoarders #12560 — the team our founders came out of. We run our own season, our own build and our own robot.
Where to find us
Colegiul Național „Frații Buzești", Craiova. Sessions run through the school year.
02 — What you'd do
Four subteams. Pick one, borrow the others.
Everyone starts with the same two weeks of basics, then drifts toward whichever part of the team they can't stop thinking about. Changing your mind in November is completely normal — most of us have.
02
3D & CAD
Drawing the part before anyone cuts metal. You model in CAD, watch it print overnight, then find out in the morning whether it fits — and iterate until it does. Half the parts on our robot started here.
03
Hardware
Cutting, drilling, tapping, assembling. You learn the workshop properly — hand tools first, then power tools, then the parts of the robot that have to survive a match without falling apart.
04
Software
Java, on a robot that actually moves. Start with making a motor spin on command and work up to autonomous routines that score without a driver touching anything.
How you grow here
1
RookieLearn the basics
2
BuilderOwn a subsystem
3
LeadRun a subteam
Some members later move across to Soft Hoarders #12560, some stay and lead here, some do both. All three are a great outcome.
03 — The season
September to spring, in five phases
An FTC season has a shape. Here's ours, so you know what you're signing up for before you sign up for it.
Now
01
Kickoff
25 Aug — 14 Sep
The game drops worldwide on one day and everybody reads the same rulebook at the same time. Two weeks of arguing at a whiteboard, sketching, and printing things we fully intend to throw away.
02
Build
15 Sep — 14 Oct
A month of cutting, drilling and re-drilling. Chassis, subsystems, wiring. This is where rookies stop asking permission to use the drill.
03
Code & test
15 Oct — 1 Dec
Autonomous routines, driver practice, and finding out what falls off — on our own floor, rather than in front of a referee.
04
Compete
1 Dec — 1 Mar
Qualifier weekends. Matches, judging interviews, frantic pit repairs between rounds, and the entire team crowded around one field.
05
Off-season
Mar — late Aug
The half of the year nobody photographs. Teaching new people, rebuilding what annoyed us, outreach, and trying ideas that were too risky to attempt in December.
04 — Milestones
Where we actually are
We're early. This list is short on purpose and gets updated when something actually happens — not padded to look bigger.
Team formed
First members, first workshop sessions, first tools handed out.
Done
First full robot build
A complete competition robot, built start to finish by this roster.
In progress
First qualifier
Our first official FTC event as a team — matches and judging.
Up next
First outreach event of our own
Running a workshop for other students instead of attending one.
This season
05 — Straight answers
Things people ask before they come
Usually whispered to whoever seems least intimidating. Asking here saves you the trouble.
Do I need to know how to code?
No. That's the whole premise. People arrive having never written a line of Java, and the first sessions exist precisely to fix that. If you already code, you'll just get bored slower.
I'm not good at maths. Is that a problem?
Less than you think. Most of a season is measuring twice, noticing that a bracket is 2mm off, and deciding what to try next. Plenty of the job is patience and stubbornness rather than mathematics.
Can I join in the middle of a season?
Yes, and people do. It's a different experience — you'll walk into a half-built robot rather than a whiteboard — but there is always something that needs doing, and mid-season is when we most need extra hands.
Do I need my own tools or a laptop?
No. The workshop's tools are the team's tools. Bring a laptop if you have one and want to write code on something familiar, but nobody is turned away for not owning one.
What if I try it and hate it?
Then you leave, having lost an afternoon and learned to use a drill. Come to one session before deciding anything — that's what the invitation is for.
How much time does this actually take?
It swings with the season — the weeks before a qualifier ask a lot more than March does. Rather than quote you a number we'd have to keep correcting, ask us and we'll tell you what this term genuinely looks like.
06 — The roster
The people in the workshop
Students from Craiova who mostly started this year.
A
Member AHardware
B
Member BSoftware
C
Member CNon-technical
D
Member DHardware
E
Member ESoftware
F
Member FHardware
G
Member GNon-technical
H
Member HSoftware
07 — Join
Come see a build night.
No application, no test, no robotics background. Write to us and come look at what we're building — bring a parent if you'd like, they usually have questions too.
Workshop
Colegiul Național „Frații Buzești"
Bulevardul Știrbei Vodă 5, Craiova
Bulevardul Știrbei Vodă 5, Craiova
Email