What is FIRST?

     FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) is a program for high school students grades 9-12 in which teams students and adult mentors collaborate to build and program a robot from scratch within a six week time period.  The year's theme and game is introduced on the kickoff date, which usually lies on the first Saturday in January.  At the end of six weeks filled with intense building, programming, testing, troubleshooting, and practice; the robot is bagged up and tagged, where it will remain untouched until the weekend of the competition.

     For our 2015 season, we will be scheduled to compete on the 12th and the 19th of March in Kokomo and Lafayette Competiton.  Robots compete in alliance of three, generated completely by random draw.  Facing off against another alliance of three, our team consisting of two drivers, one human player, and one coach will collaborate with our alliance and attempt to score as many points as we can within the two minutes human driven and fifteen seconds automatic period.

     What happens after that?  Individual teams are selected to compete in the finals by schoolyard pick.  Large alliances face off in a tournament style until a winner is crowned.  Our team competition history is found below.

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     The Taylor Robotics team was founded after Charles Short asked the Kokomo TechnoKats (45) to put on a demonstration at Taylor High School. Mark Pendergast became the first Coach of the team. It was too late to start competition the first year, so a robotics club was formed to experiment on an old TechnoKat robot. We met in a regular classroom.

     The 2006 season was our first competition season. With a NASA grant and financial help from Delphi, Duke Energy and Dr. Richard Lasbury, we were able to compete. We had seven students and two mentors. We met in the Home Economics room of the high school. Our robot was built with hand tools and made out of plywood. Our first competition was the 2006 Boilermaker Regional at Purdue University. The game was “Aim High,” and the objective was to shoot NERF basketballs through a 3 foot hole in the wall at the end of the field or push them through three feet wide soccer goals near the floor on the same wall.

     The robot boasted some advanced technology for a rookie robot. Although we did not get the camera system working, we did field a reliable autonomous mode based on dead-reckoning that was able to score about 75% of the balls. It used two wheel drive and had a conveyor system to pick up balls.

     We were seeded 13th after the qualifying rounds and were selected for the finals by the 7th seeded alliance. We lost in the first round of the finals.

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2006 - Aim High
Boilermaker Regional: Seeded 13th
Selected for the finals - finished at quarterfinals

2007 - Rack and Roll
Boilermaker Regional: Seeded 36th
IRI: Seeded 68th

2008 - Overdrive
Boilermaker Regional: Seeded 26th
Selected for the finals - finished at semifinals
IRI: Seeded 42nd

2009 - Lunacy
Boilermaker Regional: Seeded 8th
Leader of the 5th alliance - finished at quarterfinals
IRI: Seeded 10th

2010 - Breakaway
Boilermaker Regional: Seeded 28th
Selected for the finals - finished at quarterfinals

2011-Logomotion
Boilermaker Regional: Seeded 28th
Selected for the finals - finished at quarterfinals
IRI: Selected for finals - finished in 2nd place

2012- Rebound Rumble
Boilermaker Regional: Seeded 19th
Selected for the finals - finished at quarterfinals
IRI: Selected for finals - finished at semifinals

2013- Ultimate Ascent

Queen City Regional: Seeded 22nd
Awarded 2013 FIRST Unique Design Award
IRI: Selected for finals- finished in 2nd place