FRC Team 10015 Bubbles Celebrates Kickoff Day with Mentor Team 4039 Makeshift

FRC Team 10015 Bubbles joined mentor team 4039 Makeshift for the 2026 FRC Kickoff, honoring their mentorship through strategy discussions, game analysis, and community collaboration.

By SolversMind Robotics
Published January 10, 2026 | Updated July 31, 2026
Reviewed by SolversMind Robotics mentors

The FIRST Robotics Competition season does not begin with a robot.

It begins with a community.

On 2026 FRC Kickoff Day, FRC Team 10015 Bubbles traveled to Stoney Creek to join FRC Team 4039 Makeshift for the official game reveal and the start of a new competition season.

For Bubbles, this was more than a kickoff event.

It was a chance to reconnect with the team that helped shape our beginning.

Since the very first days of FRC Team 10015 Bubbles, Makeshift has been a mentor team, sharing experience, answering questions, offering guidance, and helping a young rookie team understand what it means to be part of the FRC community.

Without the support and encouragement from Makeshift, Bubbles’ first-year journey would have been much more difficult.

To recognize that impact, Bubbles presented Makeshift with a thank-you letter expressing our appreciation for their mentorship, friendship, and belief in our students.

Why did Bubbles join Makeshift for FRC Kickoff Day?

FRC Team 10015 Bubbles joined FRC Team 4039 Makeshift at their school in Stoney Creek for the 2026 FRC Kickoff Day because of the strong mentorship relationship between the two teams. Since Bubbles’ rookie season, Makeshift has supported the team with valuable FRC experience, technical advice, and guidance on building a successful team culture. During kickoff, both teams watched the official game reveal together, discussed strategy and robot design ideas in smaller groups, and participated in a human version of the game to better understand field objectives and possible approaches. Bubbles also presented Makeshift with a thank-you letter to recognize their years of support. The event represented more than collaboration on robotics. It demonstrated the mentorship, friendship, and community spirit that make FIRST Robotics Competition unique.

What did the two teams do during kickoff?

After the official 2026 FRC game reveal, both teams immediately began the exciting process of understanding the new challenge.

Instead of jumping directly into robot ideas, students first focused on asking questions:

What are the most important scoring opportunities?

What strategies could teams use?

What mechanisms might be needed?

What challenges could create difficulties during matches?

Students from both teams divided into smaller discussion groups and shared their perspectives on game strategy, robot requirements, and possible engineering solutions.

This type of conversation is one of the most valuable parts of kickoff.

At this stage of the season, no one has all the answers.

Teams learn by listening to different ideas, challenging assumptions, and exploring possibilities together.

The students also participated in a human robot game, physically acting out the roles of robots and game pieces.

This activity helped everyone understand the field layout, scoring opportunities, movement challenges, and strategic decisions before any CAD model or prototype existed.

For newer FRC students, these activities are especially valuable because they show that successful robots begin with understanding the game.

Engineering comes after strategy.

The best teams do not simply build impressive mechanisms. They build mechanisms that solve the right problems.

Why is Makeshift an important role model for Bubbles?

FRC Team 4039 Makeshift is more than a successful competition team.

They represent what a strong FRC community member should be.

Over the years, Makeshift has built a reputation for helping other teams, sharing knowledge, supporting students, and strengthening the Ontario FRC community.

For Bubbles, Makeshift was the example of what a mentor team should look like.

When Bubbles was a rookie team, many aspects of FRC were new:

How should a team organize?

How should students approach design decisions?

How should strategy and engineering work together?

How should a young team build a sustainable culture?

Makeshift helped answer those questions through experience and encouragement.

Their support was not about building the robot for Bubbles.

It was about helping students learn how to build the robot themselves.

That distinction is important.

The best mentors do not remove challenges. They help students become capable of solving those challenges.

Because of that support, Bubbles was able to grow from a rookie team into a team that earned recognition at the FIRST Championship and developed its own student-led engineering culture.

Now, Bubbles hopes to continue the same tradition.

As we grow, we want to become the type of team that Makeshift was for us: a team that shares knowledge, supports newcomers, and helps strengthen the entire FIRST community.

How does mentorship build the future of FRC?

FRC is special because teams do not exist only as competitors.

They are part of a larger community.

A team’s success is not measured only by awards or rankings. It is also measured by the positive impact it has on other teams and students.

The relationship between Makeshift and Bubbles is an example of how mentorship creates long-term impact.

A team helps another team.

That team grows stronger.

Eventually, it helps others.

The cycle continues.

This is how the FRC community becomes stronger every year.

For Bubbles, kickoff day was a reminder of where we started and the responsibility we now carry.

We will always remember the teams and mentors who helped us during our first steps. At the same time, we hope to create similar opportunities for future rookie teams and younger students entering FIRST.

The thank-you letter presented to Makeshift was a small gesture, but it represented something much bigger.

It represented gratitude.

It represented friendship.

It represented the belief that the best achievements in robotics are not accomplished alone.

Thank you to FRC Team 4039 Makeshift for believing in Bubbles from the beginning.

Your mentorship helped us become the team we are today.

Now, we hope to continue that legacy by supporting the next generation of FIRST teams.

Because in FRC, we do not just build robots. We build a community.

Tags:

FRC 10015 Bubbles, FRC 4039 Makeshift, FRC Kickoff 2026, FRC mentorship, Aurora Robotics, Solversmind Robotics, Dahai Zhang