FIRST ROBOTICS TEAM TO COMPETE AT NATIONALS

FIRST Robotics serves an important and highly valued purpose.  FIRST Robotics is a unique competition in which high school aged participants work with mentors to solve an engineering and design problem during a 6-week time frame.  Each team creates a design and using that design and a common set of materials they build a working robot.

Team Tators Robotics is the FIRST Robotics team for Boise School District.  The team is currently in its ninth year of participation in FIRST Robotics. Each year, 25 - 30 high school-aged students work with a team of 6 - 8 mentors to envision, design, construct, test and improve a robot that can complete the competition task that is assigned in January of each year by the official FIRST Robotics Challenge team. Student team members represent each of the high schools and junior high schools in the District, as well as Bishop Kelly High School. 

This year's design challenge is more of an industrial application, rather than a contact sport/ball manipulation challenge that we have seen in recent years.  The robot designed by Team Tators (pictured) is one of just a small handful of robots in the world that is capable of completing all of the challenges set for this year's competition.  Each year, on the first Saturday in January, MIT and NASA send out the competition season's challenge for that season.  Teams then have 6 weeks to envision, design, build, program and improve their competition ready robot, going from bare sheets of metal and bundles of wire to a fully functioning robot. 

In the 2015 Competition Season, the team has experienced hard work, dedication and great success in competition with their robot, finishing as the Winning Team at the Arizona West Regional FIRST Competition, in April 1 - 4, 2015. At this event, Team Tators was ranked #1. At the conclusion of this event, the team was also awarded the 'Innovation in Control Award' sponsored by Rockwell Automation. 

Team Tators was also a Finalist team at the Utah Regional Competition, in March 11 - 14, 2015. At this event, Team Tators was ranked #3. The team was also awarded the 'Excellence in Engineering' award sponsored by Delphi. The lead mentor for the Boise team, Mark Wibbels, an engineer with Hewlett Packard, was also the recipient of the Woodie Flowers Award at this Regional Event for his outstanding mentoring contributions to Team Tators.

Team Tators now looks forward to participating in the World FIRST Robotics Championships in St. Louis, MO., from April 22 - 25, 2015.  In the 2015 FIRST Robotics Season, approximately 3,000 teams participated from around the world.  Again, Team Tators is currently ranked in 14th place out of the 3,000 teams.

Click here for more information or to watch the FIRST Robotics Championship Events online during the competition, visit: