Team 1538 concluded the 2009/2010 season with their 3rd annual Awards Banquet.

Parents, students, mentors and parents came together to celebrate what we've achieved this year, send off the Class of 2010 and introduce our leadership for the 2010/2011 season. Here's a break down of the awards:

Parent of the Year:
Cathy Schultz - For her support of the team while at competition.

Rookie of the Year:
Jeremy Howe - For his dedication and work ethic and the first freshman member of the drive team.

Founders Award:
San Diego County Sheriff's Department - For the services and support they provide our team.

BAE Systems Scholarship:
Julien V-W Long - For his dedication and ability to maintain our robots during competition.

Senior Scholarship 1:
Cameron Parvini - For his leadership abilities, work ethic and for being a role model for other students.

Senior Scholarship 2:
Olivia Perry - For her management of the team.

Our leadership for next year will be:

Director of Engineering: Chris Lutze (Class of 2011)
Manager of Mechanical Design: Gabi Tukeman (Class of 2011)
Manager of Software & Electrical: Virgilio Ilagan (Class of 2011)
Manager of Scouting & Strategy: Cameron Dechant (Class of 2012)

Director of Public Relations: Stephen Whiting (Class of 2011)
Manager of Outreach: Gabby Parker (Class of 2013)
Manager of Chairmans: Kristen Olsen (Class of 2012)

Congratulations to the Class of 2010, to our award winners and to our new leaders! 

Today we learned that we were on of 82 teams invited to the 2010 Indiana Robotics Invitational (IRI) in July. Every year some of the best teams in FIRST converge on Lawernce North High School to compete in the most prestigious off-season event in FIRST. It seems like every year IRI has some of the best matches of the year.

It's an honor to get a chance to compete with some of the most storied teams in FIRST! 

We have just returned from the World Championship in Atlanta, GA!

Wow! As always the Championships were exciting and made for some memorable moments. This year we were randomly assigned to the Curie Division. After finishing 8-2-0 in qualification round we were seeded 23rd out of 86 teams. During the qualification rounds we proved that we were a balanced machine capable of play different strategies. This caught the attention of the 2nd seed, Team 111 from Schaumburg, IL who picked us with the 2nd overall pick in alliance selections. With the 15th overall pick we grabbed Team 2630 from Emek Hefer, Israel. 

After making it through a tough quarterfinal against the 7th seed, our alliance was eliminated in the semifinals by teh 3rd seeded alliance. Although we didn't make it as far as we wanted to, the Championships were an awesome experience.

Hopefully we'll get to compete in next year's Championships in St. Louis, MO!

We just returned from the first ever Utah Regional! For the first time in our history we were the 1st seed after qualification matches. With the 1st pick in alliance selections we picked Team 753 from Bend, Oregon and with the 16th pick we took team 3241 from Ogden, Utah. After sweeping through the quarterfinal and semifinal rounds, we encountered robot problems and were eliminated in 4 matches.

Though, we were eliminated in the finals, we did bring home the Excellence in Engineering Award, the Co-Opertition Award and Regional Finalist. 

With roughly 4 weeks until the World Championships in Atlanta, GA Team 1538 will be working to improve their robot and practicing.

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.