A championship-winning robotics
team from Ferndale, Michigan.

Working together with a fantastic group of mentors, the Giggle Pickles are a co-ed robotics team of twelve 6th-8th graders from Ferndale Middle School that design and build robots that compete in the FIRST Tech Challenge.


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.


What we’ve achieved

  • 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.


What’s next

  • On November 8, 2025 The Giggle Pickles won the Royal Oak regional qualifier, offering them a spot to defend their state championship title at the Michgan State-SE championship in Grand Blanc on December 12-14.

  • The team’s attention between now and December will be on improving its robot with extensive practice, optimization and league meet matches.

Meet the Team

  • Luke

    CAD / Programmer / Human Player

  • Ben

    Programmer

  • Parker

    CAD / Builder / Lead Driver

  • Urban

    CAD / Builder / Drive Coach

  • George

    Documenter / Builder / Stats

  • Sophia

    Programmer

  • Zach

    Lead Documenter / Stats

  • Renny

    Programmer

  • Tyler

    Builder / Tester

  • Adwin

    Builder / Prototyper

  • Desmond

    Programmer / Driver

  • Oliver

    Builder

Meet the Mentors

  • Nick

  • Mike

  • Ian

  • Pickle Man

    Mascot