The largest and oldest of our competitive-educational programs, Valkyrie Robotics FRC#299 involves more than 70 students and 20 adult volunteers each year through direct access to workshops, mentoring, and hands-on-engineering projects, along with hundreds of community members indirectly through their autonomous outreach and charitable efforts. Students in this team have access to mentors with years of experience in industry, including companies like Google, Apple, Intel, and Uber, with backgrounds in software engineering, mechanical design, law, electrical engineering, and more. Through the Executive Committee, students work together with adult mentors to manage the daily operations of the team, providing not only technical skills but valuable leadership experience to prepare them for the industries of tomorrow.

In the wake of hurricane Maria, and more recently COVID-19, Puerto Rican schools, already underserved in comparison to their counterparts in the Continental United States, have suffered great difficulty in acquiring the supplies and materials necessary to provide their students with a proper education. Project Backpack, founded in 2018 by local school students, seeks to address this gap through direct charitable action: by connecting local donors, grantors, and sponsors with needy schools in Puerto Rico, Project Backpack ensures that supplies get supplies to the schools that need them most.

With most of our operations closed as the world weathered the pandemic, Valkyrie sought to put what resources we had to use in supporting primary care providers. By having provided student volunteers in the 9th and 10th grades with access to 3d printing tools and materials, we've given hundreds of components for use in personal protective equipment across the bay.