Team History

This year was one of the most successful we have had as a team! Our robot was one of the best machines we have ever built. It performed admirably on the field and its unique design merited the Creativity Award at the St. Louis World Championships. This year was also one of our best off the field. We took home the Engineering Inspiration Award at the Seattle Cascade Regional, and the Engineering Excellence Award in Portland. One of our students was nominated for the Dean's List Award, which she won in St. Louis. Winning two awards in St. Louis was an amazing feat for the team plus our robot seeded in our division.



In the summer we participated in the Burien Fourth of July Parade where the robot was a huge hit for the younger parade watchers, as it launched tubes into the crowd. The team was also on hand to recognize the groundbreaking for our new school building in Seattle. The robot was able to play a special role in handing the shovel to our Principal Reba Gilman. Once again we hosted the Des Moines FLL Regional at our school and all of our skunks turned out to help. We were also happy to see our mentee, team 3574, win the Rookie All-Star Award at the Seattle Cascade Regional and come to St. Louis with us.

This year our team grew significantly in size and became the largest team we have ever had with 51 students. We took part in our local Fourth of July Parade and the Burien Clean-Sweep. We helped with a Rookie Kit-Bot build and hosted a rookie workshop and scrimmage during build season. One of our students also went to Olympia to address our State government about STEM education and our school's applications of STEM.

We started a VEX team to help our freshmen and sophomore students learn about how being on our team works. Our two VEX teams built two separate robots for the competition and in both regionals we attended, we succeeded in making it into the quarter-final elimination rounds.

We had an amazing FRC season. We attended the Autodesk Oregon and Microsoft Seattle regionals and brought home the Website Award, the Safety Award and the Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers Entrepreneurship Award in Oregon and the Regional Chairman's award in Seattle. This was definitely an amazing and successful year for our team!

During the year, we reached out to several local elementary and middle schools to help them experience FIRST and robotics. Our team sent out student members to aid and encourage the development of these young students. We helped Evergreen High School with their new FRC team and were proud to see them win an award at the Seattle Regional. Our team housed members of Team 2904 from Monroe after kickoff, helped them become familiar with the game and rules, and shared a group dinner. We also helped assist other teams in creating their kit bots for the start of the season. Our mentors have continued to act as advisors in mechanical and programming issues within our own team and others. We hosted the FLL regionals, held a pre-ship party for our supporters, and hosted last year's FTC championship.

The freshman and sophomore members on our team competed in FTC in 2008. With a team of ten students we took part in one scrimmage and one competition. We were selected to compete in the elimination rounds of the competition. We also recieved the Motivate Award for our spirit while competing.

Our FRC competition season was rewarding. We headed to the Portland regional with our robot "the Stench" to play the game "Lunacy." We were thrilled to be picked for the finals and eventually the Red Alliance won it all. In Oregon we also received the Delphi "Driving Tomorrow's Technology" Award. We had a strong showing at the Microsoft Seattle Regional Competition coming away with the Motorola Quality Award. We had a large group go to Atlanta where we all had a great time and our robot performed very well. Our team also received a 2009 Web Site Excellence Award which made our web team very happy.

With new organization, we began the build season with an attempt to expand our engineering capabilities with the construction of an Omni directional drive base. This was a new thing for the team and very challenging for the programmers. Unfortunately this task seemed to be too challenging for the team, and part way through the build season the drive had to be altered to a tank drive.

Due to the new organization of the teams, we were able to win the Kleiner Perkins Caufeild, Byers Entrepreneurship award and the Underwriters Laboratories Industrial Safety Award in Portland. At the Seattle Regional, we received the Delphi "Driving Tomorrows Technology" award and the Engineering Inspiration award. This is a very significant achievement due to the fact that we were only a second year team. We then proceeded to win the Seattle Regional, which with the win and the Engineering Inspiration Award, we double qualified to go to Atlanta.

We then went to Atlanta for the National competition. We did not succeed in winning any awards, or winning the game itself, but in the end we placed in the top 25% of the teams at the competition. As a second year team, we had expanded very quickly from an understaffed team with little equipment to a well organized team that was a serious competitor in the game.

Our team began with 18 students. While our coach had previous experience with FRC, none of us (students and parents) had been exposed to FIRST. We looked to our coach for guidance. As one of the students said, "I entered the world of FIRST expecting it to be the same as a math team, or Science Olympiad, but I was in for a big surprise." Late nights, few tools, fewer mentors, learning from each other and making new friends, we soon found ourselves packing the robot into a crate and sending it on its way to the Portland regional. We came away not only with the Imagery Award, but we were introduced to the FIRST ideals in action; gracious professionalism became relevant to the whole team. This was truly different than any other sporting event any of us had participated in before.

From there we traveled to Las Vegas, where we were caught up in the spirit and fun of the competition. We sprayed our hair black and added white skunk stripes, helped other teams in the pits, cheered, and made friends with teams from other parts of the country. Success followed us to Las Vegas as we won the Rookie All Star award and were part of the winning alliance. Now we were qualified for Atlanta, something we had never dreamed about! Our friends from Team 488 demonstrated gracious professionalism when they greeted us at midnight at the airport to congratulate our win! In 3 days, our parent group organized to get all of the team members and 12 parents and mentors to Atlanta.

The Championship was vastly different than the regionals. While we didn't win any awards, in the words of one student, "we had become a team, and I think that even a national title wouldn't be an even trade for what we have accomplished." When we returned, no one wanted the season to end. As a parent, stated, "The FIRST organization is a leader in excellence, encouraging our kids to take their knowledge and spirit, and made a difference in the lives of their teammates, communities, and futures."

We began to look for ways to keep our team together and the spirit of FIRST alive as the summer neared. We took our robot to "Challenge Air" at Paine Field where physically challenged children and youth had the opportunity to fly with a pilot. The smiles and laughs from the children and us told us we were in the right place doing the right thing.

We began our second year with the benefit of more students, more tools, and more mentors on the team. Due to the new resources we had acquired we were able to make several organizational changes within the team. We were able to make organized sub systems within the team that worked selectively on individual jobs as to do these jobs with better quality. With the new organization of teams we were able to create Systems Integration, a team specifically designed for the management of the teams. This team also focused on award entries and scouting, easing the processes and creating a higher level of quality.