Manisha is an alumna of FRC 1100, Inverse Polarity, and began volunteering at events in 2014 as a junior. While at Drexel University for Biomedical Engineering, she began mentoring FRC 484 as a college awards mentor. Upon graduation, she returned to 1100 and is now one of the lead mentors, focusing on team development, scouting and strategy, outreach and Impact. Manisha is a Human Factors Engineer focused on user-centric design and testing, seeking ensure safety and efficacy in medical products. She is a Senior Voice for New England and has been featured on the largest FIRST stages around the world at FIRST Global.

Kenny is a product builder, robotics mentor, and longtime FIRST alum. He helps build AI-powered software at PropRise and mentors FRC Team 4414 HighTide, where he works with students on strategy, scouting, and the team tools that keep a high-performing program moving. Kenny is especially interested in making software creation more accessible to people who do not think of themselves as programmers. His work focuses on using AI to help mentors and students turn good ideas into polished, useful products that make teams better.

Mike is the Head Coach of FRC Team 1678, the Citrus Circuits, and has been coaching the team since 2008. Trained as a Mechanical Engineer, Mike's day job is providing engineering consulting services for a wide range of clients spanning energy, manufacturing, ag-tech and med-tech applications. He lives in Davis, California with his wife Pearl and their two pets.

Gavin is a STEM educator focused on engineering for social good, design-thinking, and developing an ecosystem of innovation. His work with students has earned him numerous recognitions, including the FIRST Robotics Woodie Flowers Finalist Award, the ITEEA Teacher Excellence Award, and the Lawrence W. Prakken Professional Cooperation Award. As the former STEAM Director for The Barstow School in Kansas City, Wood designed curriculum that reinforces user-centered design and the “empathy” part of the Engineering Design process. He brings this experience to FIRST Education as a Learning Experience Specialist.

Blueprint Robotics was built by people who’ve coached teams, engineered robots, and taught classrooms. We see where robotics gets stuck: too much setup, complexity, and time before students have something that actually works. So we changed the starting point. A ready-to-use swerve drive chassis. Modular, snap-together Rapid Robot builds. Lessons that get students building, testing, and improving from the start. Robotics Redefined™

Drew has been involved in FIRST Robotics in New England since 2013 and has been a mentor since 2017, serving as a CAD & Mechanical mentor for teams 4564, 6329, and 3467. He is currently an Education Solutions Engineer for Onshape and PTC Education, where he has spent almost 3,000 hours in Onshape and worked with a large number of FRC teams to troubleshoot Onshape and teach CAD best practices.

Beckett is an undergraduate business student, FIRST Robotics Competition alum, and the founder and CEO of FRCtees, a custom apparel provider for robotics teams. He knew FIRST teams deserved better so he built a solution that actually works for them. By striving for low rates, convenient shipping, and easy-to-use online merch stores, more than 250 FRC and FTC teams have become customers in a few short years.

Yt Li is an Education Programs Engineer at MathWorks, helping robotics teams apply model-based design to solve engineering problems. Before joining MathWorks, he was an application engineer at Caterpillar pioneering system modeling and simulation for construction vehicles.

Amy is the Technology Teacher for Ayer Shirley Regional Middle School by day, and the lead mentor for Milky Way Robotics by night. Over the past 3 years she has grown the program from ~20 students on two teams to 46 students on four teams. She loves working with middle school students and believes that every single student is capable of participating in robotics, they just need to have the opportunity to try it. In addition to coaching four FIRST Tech Challenge teams, she has a Unified Robotics FLL team.

Claire is a Senior Accessibility Specialist at the National Center for Accessible Media at GBH, a national leader in making digital media accessible for people with disabilities, and based at Boston's public media (PBS/NPR) station. At NCAM, she leads work consulting on all types of digital accessibility, from websites and apps, to robots and hardware. She has been a part of FIRST for over 20 years in just about every capacity: as a FLL and FTC (Techno Chix, #18) participant, coach, tournament volunteer, judge, and judge advisor. Claire is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College, where she completed a self-designed major in Disability Studies, with minors in entrepreneurship and data science.

Dan is a software professional and technology leader with over 20 years of experience building and breaking software solutions, currently serving as Chief Architect at Invicti Security, where he specializes in building agentic offensive cybersecurity tools that autonomously hack web applications and APIs, telling the good guys about vulnerabilities before the bad guys find out. A frequent speaker and co-host of AppSec Serialized, Invicti's podcast on web security, Dan brings his lifelong passion for technology and solving difficult challenges to FIRST as a mentor for FLL 27041 Thought Process and FRC 6328 Mechanical Advantage.

Dylan is the Director of the Hirsch/Alperin Design-Innovate-Build (DIB) Lab at The Wheeler School in Providence, Rhode Island. He teaches computer science and creative technologies, coaches the school's FIRST robotics teams, and has guided award-winning student projects like the Electric Quahogs at the World Championships.

Emilio is a Technology Project Specialist managing infrastructure and deployments for a technology department. He is an FRC alumnus and a "full-stack" mentor for Spectrum 3847, working across everything from CAD and manufacturing to electrical and programming. He brings a strong focus to empower students to dive into STEM, and feel inspired while having fun.

Heather was an FRC parent for two years before joining the Aztechs as a full-time mentor in mid-2017. Since then she's become a core mentor for the team managing the team's communication, logistics, marketing, and fundraising activities while mentoring students in various areas of business practices as well as a many of life's 'soft' skills. Heather serves at the Volunteer Coordinator for the Aztechs' Marlborough FLL Qualifier Event and, this past year, the first Tech on the Valley FTC Qualifier. In her 'day job', Heather is the Demand Manager for Kayaku Advanced Materials, a Westborough-based electronic chemical R&D, manufacturing, and distribution company. 

Joe has been involved in FRC for 20 years. First as a student, then as a mentor, and today as the head coach for FRC 694 StuyPulse as well as FRC 516 StuyPlus. Joe was head strategist and driver as a student and has been the lead strategy mentor and drive coach for 694 since 2011. Joe is the head Robotics Teacher at Stuyvesant High School in New York City.

Michael is the Lead Technical Mentor for FRC 1403, Cougar Robotics out of Montgomery NJ. Michael is focused providing his students real world experiences through their robotics team and program.

Mo (FRC 1511 alum; 2022 Finger Lakes Regional Woodie Flowers Finalist) and Arianna (2023 Tech Valley Regional Woodie Flowers Finalist) bring a combined 25+ years of experience developing sustainable, award-winning FIRST programs. Together, they have led three distinct teams to seven FIRST Impact Awards, with a focus on building systems that scale across student leadership, outreach strategy, and award submissions. Most recently, they helped revitalize CHAOS’s Impact program following a 2025 submission hiatus, culminating in a 2026 New England District Championship FIRST Impact Award.

Nate is an alum of FRC 269 and former mentor of FRC 6420. Since 2022 he has mentored with FRC 131, CHAOS from Manchester, NH. Nate has been designing and building custom roadcases for NE FIRST for two years!

Tony has been with CHAOS since 2016 (student 2016-2020). Over the past few years, they have floated between different positions with the team. This year, Tony focused on the newly created role "Asset Manager" which is responsible for managing all of the teams equipment, pit load-in/out, and being in the pit during events to manage the pit.

Orion is a FIRST alum with 16+ years of experience designing competitive robots and giving back to the FIRST community as a mentor, volunteer, and supplier. Senior Manager of Mechanical Engineering at FIRST, Orion is passionate about helping teams of all levels and backgrounds succeed in all of FIRST’s arenas. He is the Lead Design Mentor for FRC team 2713 Red Hawk Robotics and previously was Lead Design Mentor for FRC team 3005 RoboChargers and its various FTC programs.

Sam is a long-time mentor and WPILib developer, most recently having added the Java units and epilogue libraries.

Lily is the President of FIRSTxMIT, a student organization dedicated to spreading STEM education access through FIRST programs. She is an undergraduate researcher with the MIT AeroAstro department and MIT UROP program, specializing in hardware at Jonathon How's Aerospace Controls Lab, and studies contrails made by planes at John Hansman's International Center for Aerospace Transportation. A FIRST alum, Lily was  President of the RoboLancers, FRC 321, leading the team as they joined the FIRST Hall of Fame in 2023 and won the FIRST  Championship in 2024. 

Dave is an FLL/FTC/FRC alum of 228, a mentoring alum of FRC 2168 / 1678, and President of the Board and Technical Mentor of FRC 6328. He studied management and mechanical engineering at WPI before working in Littleton, MA, where he started mentoring Mechanical Advantage as their lead technical mentor. Wanting to further his career in robotics, he took a leap and moved to California to join a startup that was setting out to change the agriculture industry. There, he joined Citrus Circuits as a hardware mentor and supported their developing educational curriculum. Having grown up with FIRST, he continues to mentor and volunteer to provide the next generation of students with the support and education he feels lucky to have.

Katie is the NE FIRST Senior Mentor for Massachusetts, helping teams in all programs navigate the world of FIRST. She has been a business mentor with FRC 6328 since 2016, and a member of the Littleton Robotics Board of Directors since 2017, serving as their Board President from 2017–23. She often volunteers at FRC and FLL events around New England and is a parent of two FIRST alumni (classes of 2020 / 2023). Professionally, Katie works in nonprofit administration for The Decibels Foundation and previously worked in corporate communications and technical documentation in a variety of industries.

Sam is the NE FIRST Director of Communications + Advancement, focused on advancing the mission of the organization through fundraising and information sharing. An alum of FRC 230, she has lived (and volunteered) all over New England and mentored teams from CT, MA and RI. She has been part of FIRST for 25 years, with almost a decade as the Lead Coach of FRC 3182, Athena's Warriors, a 4-H community team out of the largest makerspace in CT.

Travis is the Head Coach of FRC 2423, an alum of FRC 2468, and a founder of the New England Mentor Conference. As hobby 3D printing enthusiast and a software engineer at Markforged, he’s been printing robot-ready parts for over 10 years. Learn about material selections, design recommendations, print settings, and a variety of robot applications through examples of printed parts from top level FRC teams from around the world.