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.

We’re proud to announce a news partnership with a Seattle-based media outlet you may have heard of – The Seattle Times – as The Waterland Blog and four of its sister sites (along with three other local blogs) are now part of The Times’ innovative local news site partnership!

What does this mean for us? Hopefully, more exposure for our stories (as well as for Southwest King County area news), as The Times will now be posting and linking to content originally created by us. Also, we will now be “official” partners with them, which means we’ll be posting more relevant stories from their outstanding staff, including such luminaries as Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter Susan Kelleher, who just happens to be the sister of one of our best friends (screenwriter Tim Kelleher).

We see it as a definite win-win for both parties, as well as for our Readers.

On a personal note, just seeing the iconic, classic old-school Seattle Times logo on this site gives me goosebumps. When I was a kid in sixth grade, I “published” my first “newspaper” called The Seattle Star (yes, I stole the name from a defunct old Seattle paper), and I remember spending hours hand-drawing its logo to look just like the font used by The Times. I think the logo was the best part of that publication, which consisted mostly of jokes stolen from Mad Magazine, and for which I charged 25-cents to any sucker family member who’d take pity on me.

Amazing how life comes back at you with surprises isn’t it?

Here’s what The Seattle Times has to say about our partnership (here’s a link to their announcement):

The Seattle Times is expanding its partnerships with local news Web sites with the addition of eight more sites today. That brings the total number of partner Web sites to 27. (See the complete list, along with their latest headlines.)

Partnering with The Times today are:

• Shoreline Area News and editor Diane Hettrick.
• My Edmonds News and editor Teresa Wippel.
• The B-Town Blog (Burien), as well as four other sites operated by Scott Schaefer: The Waterland Blog (Des Moines), Normandy Park Blog, Tukwila Blog and SeaTac Blog.
• Surrounded By Water (Mercer Island) and editor Ellie.
  

The Times’ effort to build community-news relationships began last August with the launch of the Networked Journalism project. Read about that project here.

The other partner sites are:

• Capitol Hill Seattle Blog
• Central District News
• Fremont Universe
• Magnolia Voice
• My Ballard
• PhinneyWood.com
• Queen Anne View
• Rainier Valley Post
• Seattle Local Health Guide
• West Seattle Blog
• White Center Now
• Aurora | Seattle
• Beacon Hill Blog
• Eastlake Ave. Blog
• Kirkland Views
• MLTnews.com
• Redmond Neighborhood Blog
• Seattle Beer News
• Three Sheets Northwest

The Seattle Times is reporting that Gino Turrella, a Des Moines man, has been convicted of 19 felony counts for threats he made against Boeing, Shell Oil and Chevron Oil.

Turrella was convicted Friday (Nov. 6th) in US District Court in Seattle after a jury deliberated about five hours following a four-day trial.

According to the Times, Turrella was convicted of:

• 2 counts of making interstate communications with threat to injure persons
• 7 counts of making threats by instrument of interstate commerce
• 1 count of possessing a firearm during threats of violence
• 9 counts of identity theft

He faces between 5-10 years in prison. His sentencing date is scheduled for Feb. 19th.

According to documents, Turrella made eight threats via email in May of 2008, posing as other people by using accounts he’d created himself. The threats included one to Boeing in which he claimed that he was going to bring a gun and go on a shooting rampage, as well as detonate himself as a suicide bomb.

When Turrella’s home was searched, police discovered over 100 firearms.

When you do a Google Search for Turrella, you’ll see that he was also quite active Commenting on various websites, oftentimes with fiery language.

Read the full story here.