Page 2 « 2009 Season

Team 1731 competed in the regional tournament in DC, and we are proud to have made it to the quarterfinals, be chosen as part of the top 3 alliances, and awarded the Xerox Creativity Award for Innovative Design. There was a huge amount of attention for this first ever regional to be held in Washington DC. It was a huge success with well over 1500 high schoolers, along with their college and adult mentors, competing on 65 teams. There were several thousand spectators over the 3 days, including several US Senators and Representatives, all coming to see what this robotics craze was all about. This was just one of 44 regional tournaments to be held this year for over 1,500 teams across the country and around the world (including Canada, Brazil, and Israel).

As you may have seen on NASA TV, we actually garnered a lot of attention, due to our unique approach to propulsion. The judges honored our team with the Xerox Creativity Award for Innovative Design. The judges were very impressed with our use of 4 specialized fans to provide thrust and control for our robot. Although a couple of other teams used fans for propulsion, we fabricated specialized fans and control mechanisms allowing us to use them for directional control as well as thrust. This meant we were the most maneuverable robot on the field and one of the most powerful. The play-by-play announcer highlighted our unique design every match we were in, which of course generated a high volume of traffic past our team pit with many teams, judges, and spectators asking about our design and our sponsors.