VI Shots

This video is the first in a series of videos I will be releasing over the next couple of months related to my trip to Atlanta for the 2008 FIRST Robotic Championship. I took a lot of video there and I don’t want it to sit on my hard drive. Instead, I want to make sure the enthusiasm, excitement and craziness of the competition is shown so that new mentors can be motivated to help the next generation of engineers and scientists waiting in the wings.

From Noozhawk:

The Dos Pueblos High School Engineering Academy‘s Robotics Team came in second in its division, losing only to the team that went on to capture the overall title. There were 86 teams in the division from all over the world, including Israel and Canada. There were 340 teams in the competition.

All told, researching, developing and building the robot cost around $13,000, which was covered by and large by the team’s nine local sponsors: Afar Communications, ATK, Flir Systems, Impulse Internet Services, Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network (LCOGT), National Security Technologies, Raytheon, Renco and Valley Precision Products.

This year’s Team 1717 members are Alex Adams, Meha Agrawal, Daniel Barrett, Erika Bildsten, Will Campbell, Kevin Cheng, Scott Cook, Kieran Dunne, Sahar El Abbadi, Erika Eskenazi, Omar Gonzalez, Val Harbunou, Ricky Hayes, Jasper Jacobs, Wei Jiang, Trevor Johnson, Robert Kim, Matt Logan, Stephen MacFarlane, Scott Martinis, Joseph McDaniel, Zak McFarland, James McKinny, Michael Reveles, Sam Ridgeway, J.R. Riggs, Nico Ruvalcaba, Natalie Schauser, Melody Tan, Daniel Turvey, Wei Wu and Xuyang Zhang.