A championship-winning robotics
team from Ferndale, Michigan.

Who we are

The team competes in the FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC), a division of FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), the world’s leading youth-serving nonprofit advancing STEM subjects, founded by inventor Dean Kamen in 1989.

FTC sees over 87,000 students from more than 60 countries, with each team designing, building, and programming a classroom-size robot to do specific tasks.
The 2025-2026 FTC season is just the third year the Giggle Pickles have been a team.

In the 2024-2025 season The Giggle Pickles went undefeated in 12 matches, including a best-of-three finals, to the Michigan State champions.
In 2024, lead mentor, Nick Kokotovich, won the Compass Award, aka “Mentor of the Year,” in recognition of his outstanding guidance and support of the team and based on a heartfelt video secretly created by the students.
At the 2025 World Championship they finished 14th out of 64 teams in their division with a 7-3 record in qualifying matches. While they did not advance to the playoff rounds, this was a strong showing especially as the only all middle school team competing against high school teams.
In the 2025 season the Giggle Pickles were undefeated to win their qualifying event in Royal Oak allowing them to defend their title at the Michigan State SE Championship as well as winning the Control Award which recognizes a team that uses sensors and software to improve their robot's functionality during matches by solving game challenges with innovative control solutions.
In 2025 the Giggle Pickles also competed in a league where they were the winning alliance captions winners as well as the Innovate Award winner for the most creative and ingenious robot design.

On December 13, 2025 The Giggle Pickles were the captains of the winning alliance that won the Michigan State SE Championship for the second year in a row, offering them an invitation to compete at the World Championship event in Houston TX from April 29 - May 2.
The team’s attention between now and the World Championship will be on improving its robot with extensive practice, programming updates, and optimization all while raising the funds needed to make the trip possible.