SUB-TEAMS
CAD
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Electricity & Pneumatic
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Software Team
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Strategy Team
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FLL Challenge
As early as our first year as a team, we understood the importance of spreading science and technology, so in 2010 we opened D++ 285 - the first FLL Challenge team in our school. Throughout the past 15 years we have mentored the team daily, and it paid off: the team has a long list of local and international achievements, including Runner Up in the GIA in 2018, 2nd place Champions Award in the 2022 Arkansas Championship Tournament, and 2nd place Robot Performance Award in the 2025 Israel Championship.
In 2016 we expanded the reach of our impact on the middle school students by opening another team, Dgital 1331. We mentor them consistently too, and they have reached impressive achievements locally and internationally, including 1st place Champions Award in the 2023 Israel Championship, 8th place in Robot Performance in the 2023 Houston Championship, and Championship Finalists at the 2025 WAFFLE competition.
Due to increased demand, in 2020 we opened a third team, Dscover 2503. Despite being younger than its sister teams, with our dedicated mentoring the team has earned great achievements, such as 3rd place Innovation Project Award in the 2022 qualifiers and 2nd place Robot Design Award in the 2025 Israel Championship.
In 2024 we noticed once again that there was a lot of demand for FLL in our school, but knew that due to the war we won't be able to prepare them well enough for the competitions. Instead we decided to open two non-competitive teams which we mentored throughout the year, while still mentoring two competitive ones. The kids in these non-competitive teams went on to join our competitive teams in 2025.
In addition to mentoring out school's teams we help different FLL teams in Tel Aviv and the area, as well as teach others inside and outside the FIRST community how to mentor teams. We have also put out online resources on the different FLL Challenge subjects to help new teams.
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FLL Explore
In 2014 we opened the first FLL Explore teams in Tel Aviv, understanding that it is important to invest in the next generation. Since then we have opened and mentored 76 teams in the city. We did so in different schools, kindergartens, and social centers, teaching kids aged 5-9 from different neighborhoods, socio-economic levels, and education backgrounds. Since our team has so much experience mentoring FLL Explore teams, we make our knowledge public and teach people inside and outside the FIRST community about opening and mentoring FLL Explore teams.
Over the years we had the pleasure of seeing the impact that these activities have on everyone involved. After we mentored FLL Explore teams in Dizengoff school, a teacher who worked there opened a FLL Challenge team at a different school. Additionally, some of the kids we mentor in FLL Explore teams later come to our school and join the D-Bug family, forming a beautiful cycle and further proving the importance of exposing kids to STEM early.
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MFR
Back in 2010 we created our signature activity, the MFR - My First Robot. We take the activity wherever we are invited. The activity is a small competition that simulates the FRC season. The participants, divided to groups of a few kids, build a small robot using a small vibration engine, a battery and other materials. Each team designs a unique robot by making strategic decisions regarding the electronics' placement and the robot's overall design. The robots then compete in a Sumo-like competition which is very fun to watch and participate in. In another variation of the activity the kids stick a marker to the robot, making it draw as it moves.
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Krembotics
The Krembotics is a project we do in collaboration with different branches of Krembo Wings, a youth movement for children with and without disabilities. We arrive at different branches, and combine the D-Bug and Krembo Wings worlds. We sing together both their and our morals, and during the activity work closely with all the kids. We expose the kids to the world of robotics by running our MFR activity and letting the kids to play with our 2020 robot Stardust.
The project was started in 2024 by a team member who was also in Krembo Wings, and we have visited many branches since. We started by visiting the branches closer to us but eventually expanded - by now, we have visited all 5 Tel Aviv-Yafo branches, the South Ramat Gan branch, the Givatayim branch, the Givat Shmuel branch, and the Lod branch, and we are excited to continue this beautiful project.
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Seminars and Presentations
We know the importance of passing down the knowledge we have to others, so we take as many opportunities as we can to do so. Our most impactful seminar is on FLL Explore mentoring, and we have been presenting it yearly for the past decade, leading to the opening of more than 350 new FLL Explore teams!
The pandemic made delivering live presentations hard, but we made the best of the situation and gave many on Zoom. In 2020 we took part in the yearly MAC - Media, Awards and Community conference, that took place on Zoom. That same year we presented on how to run and mentor FLL Challenge and Explore teams, as well as on the Educator++ and the GIA, in two seminars that FIRST Israel organized in Sukkot and Hanukkah. In 2021, FIRST changed the FTC and FRC rules and added an Innovation Challenge due to the pandemic. For team members who were not FLL alumni the challenge might have seemed new and intimidating, so we hosted a Zoom meeting and presented tips and tools for research to anyone who needed it.
Over the past 3 years we have given 10 lectures on different subjects. In 2024 we gave 2 presentations in 2212 The Spikes' conference for FLL Mentors: one on FLL Explore mentoring, and one on FLL Challenge mentoring. In 2025 we delivered a presentation in 5951 Makers Assemble's Refresh conference on FLL Challenge mentoring.
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Online Resources
We know we can't physically reach everyone, so we try to make long lasting resources anyone can use any time, like the Educator++. Over the years we have seen many new FLL Challenge teams use the basic robot that arrives with every EV3 kit, but it is not well suited to the FLL Challenge program. The Educator++ is based on the basic Educator robot but designed with a generic, strong and easy to build base structure, with features helpful in the FLL Challenge program. We published building instructions and gave private sessions to specific teams, and there is a widely watched Youtube playlist on Mr. Hino's channel about it.
In 2022 we collaborated with FIRST Israel and created 27 videos for the mentors of signed teams, covering subjects such as FLL Explore models, EV3 coding, the innovation project and core FIRST values. To help Israeli teams who don't speak English well, we translated some existing online resources as well. For FRC teams we translated 5985 Project Bucephalus' "The Unofficial FRC Mechanism Encyclopedia". For FLL teams we translated dozens of presentations from flltutorials.com and Prime Lessons about all different subjects in FLL Challenge.
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FIRST Community
Being a part of FIRST we realize the importance of being a part of a community. Thus we try as much as we can to help and collaborate with FIRST Israel and other teams from all programs, especially the ones in Tel Aviv.
In 2022 we helped Orbit 1690 and FIRST Israel to check the FMS system, and used Orbit's field to practice. In 2023 we helped MA 5951, Ninjas 4744, GreenBlitz 4590, Demacia 5635 and Roboactive 2096 with their code, and received parts made in CNC from Mariners 8223. That same year we helped the FTC team Tatooine 12201 by running a private seminar for them, teaching them how to mentor FLL Challenge teams and program SPIKE Prime robots.
We have also taken time throughout the years to volunteer in different FIRST Israel events. Each year our team members volunteer in FLL and FTC competitions and the FIRST Israel office.
We also combine out efforts with other teams to give back to the community. One of the biggest projects we raised with other teams in our city was the Festibotica, with support from the Tel Aviv municipality and the the Port Market. It was a big fair showcasing our and our FLL Challenge teams' robots, as well as other fun activities and FIRST programs. After the huge success we had in 2022, we once again partnered in 2024 with Maker Assemble 5951, Vulcan 3835, GreenBlitz 4590, and Mariners 8223 to make another Festibotica festival come to life.
During the Swords of Iron war we wanted continue to spread science and technology even with the limited possibilities we had. We taught a programing course for the kids in our middle school on zoom, so that we can do it even when we couldn't meet it physically. We took part is 8223 Mariners' project Waves of Hope, and ran two presentations on zoom for kids. We also came to hotels Dan Acadia and Herods in Tel Aviv with 4590 GreenBlitz and other teams, where we did fun STEM activities for evacuated kids. After the begining of the Israel-Iran war we came to Nyx hotel in Tel aviv with the Spikes 2212 for the same purpose.
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Girls in STEM
We know the importance of empowering young girls to study science and technology. We start right here by being role models - over the years the team has had around 50% girls, many of them in leadership positions.
Throughout the years we sent girls of our team to FLL Explore groups so that girls can look up to someone like them, as well as opened teams for girls only. That led to an increase in the amount of girls goining out teams, an effect we saw in our FLL Challenge teams as well. We also see it paying off by seeing how those girls go on to join our team and take leading positions in all sub-teams. We seek to have a positive influence on girls in a range farther than our teams, so we have been regional partners with FIRST Ladies for the past 7 years. As part of our activities as regional partners we held conversation circles for girls at many different events.
Over the past few years we worked with the Baba-da organization, which offers orthodox girls a fun and creative STEM learning program. We helped them organize their yearly FLL Challenge competitions for girls in 1st-9th grades. We also took part in AliceCode's hackathon, a program for girls in STEM subjects. Together with Team Sycamore 5614 we ran activities for the girls such as building and coding FLL robots, as well as showed them our robot and told them about the FIRST programs.
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FIRST Romania
In 2017-2018 we acompanied FIRST Romania in their first steps. In 2017 in the Israel FTC Championship a member of out team acompanied the 2 FTC groups from Romania as a translator. We hosted them in our workshop when we revealed our robot, and since then we are in contact with FIRST Romania's teams and crew.
Over the years that have passed we helped both Romanian teams and the FIRST Romania crew. We held virtual meetings with Romanian teams to explain important concepts and processes, and members of the D-Bug family have flown to Romania on several occasions to judge and volunteer in competitions.
AND HOW WE DO ALL THAT?
THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS
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