FIRST Tech Challenge · Team 36596 · Portland, Oregon
Horizon — Building towards what’s next
A community nonprofit robotics team in Portland, Oregon, founded in 2026 by captains and leads from three existing FIRST Tech Challenge teams.
Supported by
About us
Who we are
We are Horizon (FTC 36596), a dedicated group of high school students based in Oregon that seeks to become the best in the robotics program named the FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC). Originally founded in 2026 by leaders from three existing teams, our community, nonprofit team seeks to combine experience from some of the most dedicated students in the world to learn new skills, spread knowledge, and create excellence in everything we do.
Champions
The largest FTC CAD competition held to date
Horizon won Chain Reaction in July 2026, the summer the team was founded. The entry was Ender — a complete robot modeled in software and judged on the design alone, with no field to test it on and no driver to cover for it.
- where we placed
- 1st
- team submissions in the field
- 80+
Ender, as entered. Horizon competed as 788 here, which is the number on the side panel.
Latest
What we have been posting
We post build progress, competitions, and the shop on Instagram.
@horizon36596The team
Who is on the team
Between the people on this team there is a World Championship division finalist, a robot that finished fourth in the world by OPR, an Inspire award, and the two most referenced FTC robots on Onshape.
Levin
Design / Build / Programming
Third year in FIRST
Saket
Design / Programming / Business
Sixth year in FIRST
Nippurn
Design / Build / Business
Fifth year in FIRST
Nico
Design / Build
Fifth year in FIRST
The program
What the FIRST Tech Challenge is
The FIRST Tech Challenge is a robotics competition for middle and high school students, run by FIRST, the largest nonprofit robotics organization in the world. Every season a new game is announced, and every team gets the same few months to design, build, program, and campaign a robot for it. Students come out the other side with mechanical, software, and nontechnical skills that the program is quite deliberately trying to send into the next generation of engineers.
- students competing worldwide
- 100,000+
- teams across the program
- 8,000+
2024–25 season
firstinspires.org
Photos from the FIRST Championship.
Support the team
Why sponsor Horizon
We run our own fundraisers, but sponsorship covers the largest share of what a season costs — the parts, the registrations, and getting a robot to competitions. It also funds everything these students give away, and this is a team of people who have been giving their work away for years.
Mentoring other teams
Horizon members share what we learn with seven other FTC teams, through in-person meetings and ongoing online support.
Corporate and collegiate connections
Our team connects with adults to share what we are doing in FIRST and learn from their experience. Our mentors include students at MIT and employees at Offset Robotics.
Public resources
Our members build and maintain resources for the whole community, including a Simplified Parts Library with more than 24,000 references and a configurable 3D printable spool with more than 1,300. Our own software library is in development now.
Social media
Our new team Instagram account reached over 2,000 unique visitors in less than a week. We are growing that presence to put our work in FIRST in front of a much larger audience.
If your company or organization wants to put its name on a team that is going to be worth watching, we would like to talk.
business@horizon36596.org