Author: <span>David Stout</span>

Our weekly newsletters can be accessed on this page.

Team 702 Update 09/23/2026

Meeting Times & Parent Details

Meeting Schedule: Mondays, Wednesdays, After-school-6 PM.

Team Safety Contracts: If you have not received the Team Safety Contract (aka Team Contract) print it out or get it from Coach Paniza. We need them returned ASAP so we can begin to send out FIRST Registration forms and so students can participate in team work. You can find the link to access it on the team website under ABOUT/Important Links, or here:2026-2027 FRC Team 702 Student Contract & Liability Agreement 

Parent Info Meeting: We will hold a Parent Information Meeting on the 26th from 1PM to 3:30PM. It will cover information for this coming school year. If you can attend, please do.

SoCal Showdown Prep: Our meetings are being used to prepare for SoCal Showdown and to train new members. If you would like to attend SoCal Showdown, be sure to show up!

Open House: We will have an Open House during Back to School Night to give parents the opportunity to see what their students are doing during our meetings and within the Robotics classes.

Parent Supervision Volunteering: Because our coaches both work full time jobs, they are not able to make every meeting, and also appreciate breaks when they can get them. Because of that, we are asking for parents to sign up when available to cover for our coaches during meetings. No experience in engineering is necessary. You can sign up here https://www.signupgenius.com/go/20F0D49A4A629A2FCC52-65707467-parent#/ or access it on the team website under ABOUT/Important Links.

Parent Volunteering: If you would like to volunteer with the team at events, you need to become registered with CCUSD & FIRST. You can find the required information here:
https://www.firstinspires.org/programs/youth-protection-program 
https://www.ccusd.org/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=42358&type=d&pREC_ID=187033

Upcoming Event Times & Details

September 26 – Parent meeting night

• 1pm – 3:30pm
• Covers important information for this coming year

October 9-11 – SoCal Showdown – Weekend Event

• Attending Students:
  • Entire team
• More information to come

Student & Leadership Information

FLL & FTC

We are looking for parent & student mentors to coach classes during the First Semester. They currently are held at El Marino Elementary School & El Rincon Elementary School, one day a week. If you are interested in mentoring, or know anyone who might be, please let Nathan Salyer or Coach Dennis Paniza know. If you know students who are interested, please reference their parents to either Coach Paniza or Coach Emma Gloyer.

Culver City High School has hired a new coach and robotics teacher, Dennis Paniza. We are excited to see the team live on for its 25th year.

The team will be competitng in the FIRST FRC 2025 season at the Los Angeles Regional, located at Da Vinci High School. Coach Singer remains with the team for this season, and Coach Stout has retired and is coaching coach Paniza through November.

On Saturday November 13, six team members attended the unveiling of the Ferris wheel at the Long Beach Aquarium. Thanks to Coach Singer, we met many of the staff and had a personal tour of the entire aquarium. The staff were amazed at how well it was built and ready for the birds to enjoy.

Office A is changing! The old mill has been moved, and the old location cleaned up, sanded and clear-coated in anticipation of the new mill arriving on Tuesday. The windows and walls have been cleaned and the paint given a new fresh coat. Bennett, Adam and Devansh took charge of making this happen. 

After months of COVID related delays, we finally completed the installation of our new tool  rack that our team captain Miro Garrett built as his Eagle Scout project. The rack holds our drills and other hand tools, along with the custom built table below for additional storage. Looks great, works well and helps us keep office C organized.

Thanks to the Culver City Education Foundation, we are getting a new milling machine. Delivery is scheduled for next week, and we have office A all ready to go. The old mill will move to the back benchtop, which the team built this past Wednesday. The new mill will replace the old one, so soon we will have 2!

At our team meetings on Mondays and Wednesday after school, we are working on several projects to teach build skills in preparation for our competition season. The bird feeder Ferris Wheel project for the Long Beach Aquarium is making good progress, with the prototype completed and metal final version underway. The drive base project is coming along where team members are assembling a kit drive base. Programming working on Java coding skills. Coming up are the Rose Parade robot float project and driver’s station build projects.