Des Moines’ Aviation High School’s Skunkworks 1983 Robotics Team won the Chairman’s Award Saturday (March 27) at the 2010 Microsoft Seattle Regional competition held as part of the FIRST competition at Seattle’s Key Arena.
FIRST stands for “For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology,” and is an organization that was founded by inventor Dean Kamen in 1989. Its purpose is to develop ways to inspire students in engineering and technology fields. The organization is the foundation for the FIRST Robotics Competition, FIRST LEGO League, and FIRST Tech Challenge competition.
Here’s the announcement from the group’s website:
FIRST Team 1983 – AHS Skunkworks Robotics received the Chairman’s Award at the 2010 Microsoft Seattle Regional. This is the highest award presented at a regional. The Skunks thank the many people who believed in us and helped make this and all we do happen.
Our robot, Pelè Le Pew, performed well. Team 3049, Team Knights, chose teams 1983 and 2660 to be part of their championship alliance. After four matches, our alliance was eliminated in the quarter finals.
The Microsoft Seattle Regional was held March 25 through March 27, 2010 at the Key Arena in Seattle. Sixty-four teams from three countries competed.
Here’s info on the Skunkworks 1983 program from the school’s website:
The Aviation High School robotics team is registered as Team 1983 Skunkworks with FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology). To learn more about our team’s connection with FIRST and the impact it has on the team and its members, go to our About FIRST page. Team 1983 is affiliated with Aviation High School (AHS). AHS provides the facilities, coach and some of the mentors. The PTSA at AHS has been an avid sponsor of our robotics team. To learn more about Aviation High School and AHS PTSA, how they support robotics and what we do for them, go to our Aviation High page. While robotics is our theme and passion, Team 1983 recognizes that FIRST calls upon them to do more than just build robots. Skunkworks can and should have an impact on students, school, the surrounding community and even other FIRST teams.
Here’s a video on the competition from KOMO-TV:
Also, our news partners at The Seattle Times have a story on it as well – click here to read it.
