Dearest mentors, parents and friends of Gatorbotics:
















The 2006 season of Gatorbotics has come to a wonderfully satisfying close. A team of fourteen young women have just returned from Atlanta , GA where they were invited to compete in the US FIRST national championships for a second year in a row. This is an incredible honor on top of everything these students have accomplished this year. Thank you once again for your dedication and support!

Some highlights of the season:

* The students shipped a fully built autonomous capable robot, complete with sensors and actuators, on February 21, after six weeks of gruelling hard work. Along with this, they submitted a 30 second animation created in 3Dstudio Max, an engaging and well-designed website, and an articulate essay submission for the chairman's award.

* Twelve students and a handful of adults found their way to the Pacific Northwest Regional Competition in Portland , OR the first weekend of March 2006. This team was the first to score a goal in the autonomous period of a match at this regional. Perhaps having shown their cards early, opposing teams then left Rosie the robot with more than a few bumps and bruises. Yet the girls persevered, fall after fall, and worked through trials and tribulations of drive train problems, autonomous code difficulties and more on their own. The team walked away from the Portland competition winning the PNR Regional KPCB Entrepreneurship Award and a real drive to take their learnings to their home competition.

* On their home turf and armed with experience and strategy, the students competed in the Silicon Valley Regional Competition during the third weekend of March. After tweaking their autonomous code, adding bumpers and finding a way to get themselves up the ramp, the girls' efforts paid off. They came out of the first day of gruelling qualifying rounds ranked 3 rd out of 40 teams, behind the two most well-regarded veteran teams 114 (Los Altos) and 254 (Bellarmine). After pairing up with 114 and 1641 (Mojave High) to form the second seeded alliance, they made it to the semi-finals. In the end, the students managed to pick up the SVR Regional KPCB Entrepreneurship Award. But to our incredible surprise and honor, Gatorbotics was also awarded the SVR Regional Engineering Inspiration Award , coming in second place in the most prestigious Chairman's Award competition for their well-roundedness, and their efforts to spread the FIRST values in their community through publicity, outreach and recruiting. This is unbelievable for a second year team. This also won the team a berth to nationals . . . again!

* After a short break, the girls attended the US FIRST national championships at the Georgia Dome last week along with 344 teams from 17 different countries. It was incredibly inspiring to be there and spend time in the pits with hundreds of talented rookie and veteran teams, students, parents, teachers and mentors. The girls finished a very respectable 48 out of 86 teams in the Galileo Division, and started collecting many ideas for the off season. While relaxing and watching the final matches and awards ceremony, to their utter surprise, the team discovered that they were selected for the Daimler Chrysler Spirit Award for their extraordinary enthusiasm and spirit through an exceptional partnership and teamwork. To be chosen out of 344 teams for one of twentysome awards is quite an honor!

And so ends the season with a real bang! We aimed high and finished FIRST. Keep in touch with our off season activities through our webpage ( www.gatorbotics.com) and blogs ( http://gatorbotics-build.blogspot.com/).

All the best,

Hannah, Sophia and Emily