We launched our 2015 season (and 10th anniversary year!) with an early-summer trip to Washington, D.C. This was the second year Team 1816 participated in the STEM/FIRST Robotics National Advocacy Conference, hosted by FIRST Team 27-RUSH, during which representatives of the Team advocated for STEM education on Capitol Hill in meetings with Minnesota’s two senators and four of the state’s representatives. A busy summer of robotics camps for elementary and middle school students followed. In the fall, the Team presented workshops on safety and programming at the Minne-Mini Regional, and also hosted Robot Day at the Minnesota Children’s Museum. Two major highlights of the fall pre-season were the Team’s second annual STEM Career Night, spotlighting the STEM careers of Team mentors and other STEM professionals, and the first-ever Team Retreat, an overnight at a local hotel in which Team bonding (fitness) and Team history (describe 1816 in one word) were key components. In December the Team helped organize and run several aspects of FIRSTRobotics Day in Edina, a day that featured Junior FIRST LEGO League, FIRST LEGO League, and FIRST Tech Challenge tournaments. At the Team’s request, the Mayor of Edina officially proclaimed this day Robotics Day in Edina. As Team 1816 headed into competition season, it boasted a roster of 52 team members, a significant increase in membership from the prior season.
At the Lake Superior Regional, Duluth, in February, 1816 was seeded fifth going into quarterfinals. Although the Team was eliminated in quarterfinals, the Team’s promotion of STEM education and support of other teams was recognized with the Regional Engineering Inspiration Award. Winning the Engineering Inspiration Award entitled the team to attend Championships in St. Louis in April, and also carried with it a $5,000 grant from NASA to cover Championship registration expenses. At the 10,000 Lakes Regional in Minneapolis in early April, the team led tours to several valued sponsors, and assisted several teams from China who were attending their first-ever FIRST regional competition. Mandarin-speaking team members and parents translated for these teams throughout the competition. At the end of the pre-qualification rounds the team was seeded 10th, and was picked by the third-seeded alliance to join them in the elimination rounds. Although the Green Machine was eliminated in quarterfinals, the team came away from the competition with several awards: the Entrepreneurship Award, in recognition of the team’s business plan and fiscal sustainability, and the regional Chairman’s Award, in recognition of the team’s overall success in embodying the values of FIRST. Receiving the Chairman’s Award meant that the team would represent Minnesota in competing for the National Chairman’s Award at the FIRST Championships in St. Louis.
At Championships, the Green Machine joined over 600 FIRST Robotics, FTC, FLL and Jr. FLL teams from 40 countries for an exciting several days in St. Louis. The Green Machine competed on Curie field, and at the end of the qualifying rounds was thrilled to be chosen by the fifth-ranked team as their first alliance partner. Unfortunately, the Green Machine’s alliance was eliminated in quarterfinals. A highlight for the team at Championships was the recognition of 1816’s valued mentor, Mark Lawrence, with the national Woodie Flowers award. This award recognizes an outstanding engineer or teacher who best demonstrates teaching excellence in teaching science, math and creative design. Also at Championships, team mentor Laurie Shimizu (with Mr. Lawrence) presented at a conference session held to brief teams on “How to Make FIRST a Lettered Sport in Your State.” Competition season concluded with the Minnesota State High School League State Tournament at Williams Arena at the University of Minnesota on May 16. The state’s top 30 teams (out of 192) qualified for the event at FIRST regional competitions during March and April. At the tournament, we were pleased and honored to be chosen as an alliance partner by the 4th place alliance. Narrowly missing finals, our alliance ended the tournament in 4th place. At State, we enjoyed hosting a group of children from Simpson Housing Services: It’s always fun to talk robotics with kids! Another great year came to an end with the State Tournament, but we were already looking forward to our summer 2015 D.C. advocacy trip and LEGO™ camps.