Wow! What an incredible weekend. We are enthralled to announce (in case you haven't already heard) that The Holy Cows were recipients of the 2010 San Diego Regional Chairman's Award, making us the winners for the 2nd year in a row!
While we were not the Champions at the San Diego Regional robot-wise, our drive team, pit crew, and engineering department in general worked diligently and tirelessly to produce a robot which blew the judges away at competition and made it to the semi-finals. They overcame all obstacles and got through the most difficult of matches. For this, on Friday we were rewarded with the Excellence in Engineering Award. Hats off to all that contributed to the production of Daisy Bell. Special recognition to our operator, Jeremy Howe, who, after the defeat of our last match on Saturday still managed to keep a smile on his face and say "You win some, you lose some".
Our impact on the school was truly revealed Friday when over 100 students and faculty became a sea of black and white in the stands. The Holy Cows have always had supporters, but we have never seen them become so involved in the game. One senior even remarked "I didn't think robots could play soccer. This has to be the coolest thing I have ever seen our school do".
Last but not least, gigantic thanks to David Berggren, Jon Jack, and Bill Berggren, our fearless mentors. Though they would deny it, there is no way The Holy Cows would still exist today without them. Their insight and knowledge provide team members the confidence and opportunity to learn, experience, and grow. Over the years, the team has become a well-oiled machine under their guidance, and will continue to reflect their year-round passion, support and love for all of its members.
This week, we started to prototype the chassis of the robot, as well as our various sub-systems. Now we are testing all the prototypes that we have made.
California FIRST Regional Director Jim Beck also came to check in on us during this first week of build season.
On the 13th, a BBC crew came and filmed us for their TV Channel over in England. They were interested in FIRST, so we showed them our prototypes for the 2010 competition season, and we also demoed our 2009 competition robot.
Last Saturday the Holy Cows hosted FRC teams from all over San Diego County at the annual kickoff event, where FIRST announced the game for this year's competition: Breakaway! Below you can find the game animation, explaining the objective of the game. Good luck, teams!
This first week back from Winter Break, The Holy Cows were in their school's "intersession". The team cleaned up the work space and geared up for build season.
The Holy Cows will be featured on WealthTV's "Giving Back" tomorrow at 3:30PM PST! Remember to tune-in or set your DVRs!
The Holy Cows were followed through build season, the San Diego Regional and the World Championship by WealthTV's camera crew. The show offers a glimpse at what last season was like for The Holy Cows and what FIRST is about.
This past weekend The Holy Cows volunteered at a FLL tournament in Santa Ana, CA. The Cows ran the judging, ran the tables and helped escort teams to and from their respective pit areas. You can see pictures here.
All the teams did a great job! We would like the thank Lynn Crockett and John Rose for giving us the opportunity to give back to our community.
We had a very busy Saturday last weekend. Many of our juniors and seniors had SATs, the Team San Diego Fall Workshops were held at High Tech High, one of our Seniors was busy mentoring a FLL team at an FLL Qualifier and our team volunteered at the Albert Einstein Academy's Lantern Festival.
The weekend went very well. Jim Beck, our Regional Director said this year there were fewer problems with the Fall Workshops than any other previous year. The Albert Einstein Academy was thrilled with our support and our 2009 robot, Daisy May.
Two of the FIRST LEGO League (FLL) teams we mentored did very well at the Preuss FLL Qualifying Tournament. Brick-Brick-Boom (Explorer Elementary) won the Champions Award, which qualifies them for the December 5th Southern California State Championship. The second FLL team we mentored finished second during robot rounds and are confident they can earn a spot at the State Championship this weekend at their next qualifier tournament.
