FRC Team 5190 was founded in 2013 by two passionate students for STEM and a teacher at Green Hope High School in Cary, NC. Now consisting of nearly 100 students in grades 9 to 12, FRC Team 5190 has the mission to enrich the lives of students and mentors through STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education and the FIRST organization.
For the first six years, FRC Team 5190 was a nomadic team, having build spaces at Green Hope High School, Kramden Institute, Frontier, and Gamma Technologies before settling at Cary Towne Center.
In the first year, FRC Team 5190 won the Rookie All-Star Award at the North Carolina Regional and went onto win the Rookie Inspiration Award in the Newton Division at the World Championship. As a result, the team had a significant increase in student count from 23 to 40 and mentor count from 1 to 10. In 2015, the team continued with the mission to enrich the lives of students and mentors through STEM education and the FIRST organization. This was done through hosting outreach events, such as robot demonstrations and computer drives, and building new robots, such as the competition robot and a t-shirt cannon.
In 2017, FRC Team 5190 started to grow immensely, from students to the attention of other teams in the robotics community, the team had stamped their name in the FIRST community. FRC Team 5190 did this by making it to the finals of the Pitt County District Event as well as winning the Quality Award. Furthermore, the team won the Quality Award and the Raleigh District Event altogether, and brought home their first blue banner! Continuing the journey, FRC Team 5190 when onto the North Carolina State Championship, winning the Gracious Professionalism Award and qualifying for the Houston World Championship! Rounding off the year, the team competed at the THOR offseason event and won the event with help from Team 2655 and Team 4290.
In 2018, the team gained more traction, increasing the student count by 20 and new mentors joining the team to help in all areas! FRC Team 5190 took their skills to the next level by improving in engineering, programming, and marketing. All of which were shown by finishing as finalists at the Pitt County District Event and UNC Asheville District Event, and the team won the Excellence in Engineering Award and Entrepreneurship Award at the events, respectively. Later, FRC Team 5190 went onto the North Carolina State Championship where the team won their second blue banner and competed in the Galileo Division of the Houston World Championship! At the end of the competitive season, FRC Team 5190 was ranked 2nd in the state with 323 points! In the offseason, the team competed at events THOR and SCRIW VIII, winning both events and ending the season on a high note.
In 2019, the team continued their streak of hitting a record number of students as a result of the team’s achievements. FRC Team 5190 continued to improve as a team and move into a central location in Cary Towne Center, where people of all ages came into our build space and were interested in who we are and what we do! The team improved greatly as the season progressed, finishing as finalists and winning the Engineering Inspiration Award at the Wake County District Event, and finishing as the winners and winning the Autonomous Award at the UNC Asheville District Event, after ranking 1st at the event. At the North Carolina State Championship, FRC Team 5190 ranked 1st at the event and went on to win the Regional Engineering Inspiration Award and North Carolina State Championship and the Back-to-Back State Champions! At the Houston World Championship, FRC Team 5190 competed in the Roebling Division and attended the competition for their third year in a row! The team ranked 3rd in the division and was the Alliance 3 Captain. After the competitive season ended, FRC Team 5190 was ranked 1st in the North Carolina District with 358 points! The team competed at the Indiana Robotics Invitational, where the best of the best come together to compete, and was a part of Alliance 4. As the season came to a close, FRC Team 5190 was placed 43rd in the world!