For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology

FIRST was founded in 1989 by Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway
Human Transporter. FIRST operates the FIRST Robotics Competition in which teams of high school students, sponsored and assisted by local companies and volunteers, design, assemble, and test a robot capable of performing a specified task in competition with other teams. FIRST also runs the FIRST LEGO League, for children 9-14 years old, and FIRST
Place, an innovative science and technology center, including a hands-on children's science museum.

Week 1
•New game is unvieled
•Game strategy is determined
•Robot concepts are formulated
•Prototypes are constructed
•Design parameters are finalized
Week 2-5
•Robot construction begins
•Programming starts
•Auxillary builds start
•Playing field details completed
Week 6
•Robot is completed
•Robot packaged and shipped
•Short break!
Post-Build
•Practice robot completed
•Practice 2-5 times a week
•Prepare for competition
Competition
•February, March and April on the road


Self injecting insulin pump

Stair climbing wheelchair

Self balancing personal scooter

DEKA

Over 150 Foreign and US patents

Awarded U.S. National Medal of Technology in 2000

He helped create MIT's renowned course "Introduction to Design." Dr. Flowers also received national recognition in his role as host for the PBS television series Scientific American Frontiers from 1990 to 1993 and received a New
England EMMY Award for a special PBS program on design. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He recently received The Joel and Ruth
Spria Outstanding Design Educator Award from ASME, a Public Service Medal from NASA, and the Tower Medallion from Louisiana Tech University. He is a MacVicar Faculty Fellow at MIT for extraordinary contributions to undergraduate education. He was also the Inaugural Recipient of the Woodie Flowers Award by FIRST . Currently, Dr.
Flowers is a director of two companies. He and his wife Margaret live in Weston, Massachusetts.

John Abele, Boston Scientific Corporation
Baxter International, Inc.
DaimlerChrysler Corporation Fund
Delphi Corporation
General Motors Corporation
Johnson & Johnson
Dean Kamen, DEKA Research and Development Corporation
Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers
Motorola, Inc.
XEROX Corporation

The FIRST Hall of Fame recognizes FIRST's exemplary teams and provides them with an avenue for continued, higher-level involvement. A team earns Hall of Fame status by winning the
Championship Chairman's Award, FIRST's highest honor. The Hall of Fame is a unique and collaborative effort that features team-created display booths. These booths portray a team's continued support of FIRST, resulting in an innovative and exciting exhibit that inspires and motivates all teams to strive for the excellence associated with the Chairman's Award.
Team 191: X-Cats
Xerox & Wilson High School
Rochester, NY (1992 & 1994)
Team 151: Wild Cards
BAE Systems & Nashua High School
Nashua, NH (1995)
Team 47: Chief Delphi
Delphi & Pontiac Central High School
Pontiac, MI (1997)
Team 120: Scarabian Knights
NASA Glenn Research Center/Battelle Memorial Institute/MBNA Foundation/Industrial
Technology Institute at Cleveland State University & East Technical High School
Cleveland, OH (1999)

Team 16: Baxter Bomb Squad
Baxter Healthcare Corporation/Science & Technology Group &
Mountain Home Area High Schools
Mountain Home, AR (2000)
Team 22: Double Deuce
Boeing Rocketdyne/FADAL Engineering/NASA JPL/Delta Hi-
Tech & Chatsworth High School & High Tech High
Chatsworth, CA (2001)
Team 175: Buzz Robotics
UTC/Hamilton Sundstrand Space Land & Sea/Techni Products & Enrico Fermi High
School
Enfield, CT (2002)
Team 103: Cybersonics
Amplifier Research/Custom Finishers/Lutron Electronics/BAE Systems/Society for
Biomolecular Screening/Day Tool and Manufacturing Inc/Laboratory Robotics Interest
Group/Harro Hofliger & Palisades High School
Kintnersville, PA (2003)
Team 254: Cheesy Poofs
NASA Ames Research Center/Laron Incorporated/Unity Care Group/Line X of San
Jose/PK Selective Metal Plating, Inc. & Bellarmine College Preparatory
San Jose, CA

YEAR # TEAMS
1992 28
1995 59
1996 94
1997 151
1998 199
1999 269
2000 372
2001 515
2002 643
2003 787
2004 900+
1000
800
600
400
200
0
FIRST Teams

FIRST Scholarships
$4,000,000
$3,500,000
$3,000,000
$2,500,000
$2,000,000
$1,500,000
$1,000,000
$500,000
$0
1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003
Yearly Percentage Team Growth
900
800
700
600
500
400
300
200
100
0
100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
-20%
Competitio ns
Teams
Scaled

•1993: robots on carpet,
•1994: radio control introduced
•1995: moved Nationals to WDW
•1996: Woodie Flowers Award introduced, Human players added
•1997: Beatty/Hammond wins first National Championship of four total
•1998: FIRST village at Epcot, ChiefDelphi discussion board formed, college scholarships
•1999: Alliances, NASA involvement, 3rd partner allowed, Team Forums introduced
•2000: Innovation First controller, score balancing, Dean & Ibot
•2001: 4 vs 0, Championship divisions
•2002: Qualification process for Championships, Chairman’s Award Regional Winner
•2003: Championships in Houston, Scholarships at $3M
•2004: Championships in Atlanta

Beatty Hammond – Team 71
•4 Time National
Champions
•Use Simple Construction
•Lots of PVC
•Masters of Strategy
•Full One-Piece Frames

Technokats – Team 45
•Founding Team
•Pioneered Tread Design
•Shifting Transmissions
•AndyMark.biz
•Andy Baker
•`98 Champions

ChiefDelphi – Team 47
•Swerve Pioneer
•Incredible Team Spirit
•Dr. Joe Johnson
•ChiefDelphi Forums
•Experts in control
•Dewalt Transmissions

Wildstang – Team 111
•Quality
•Complexity
•Do-it-all Strategy
•Raul
•StangSense Auton
•Telescoping Lifts
•Sheet Metal

HotBot – Team 67
•Quality
•Polycarbonate
•Specialization
•Clean Design
•Arm Control

Thunder Chickens – Team 217
Truck Town Thunder – Team 68
Killer Bees – Team 33
Husky Brigade – Team 65

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Team Rush is committed to improving and fortifying math and science education while offering it’s team members an opportunity to develop a fundamental understanding of respect , team unity , competitive spirit , and the gracious professionalism that is the heart of every successful venture. Team Rush has an uncompromised focus on positive moral values, and uses that focus to reach out to it’s community, create world-class design process’, mold future leaders, build competitive robots, and most importantly…have fun!

1996
•Several OSMTech students joint the Brandon High School Robotics Team
•Odyssey of the Mind competitions discontinued
•Sponsored by 3-Dimensional Services
•Anthon’y first year
1997
•OSMTech starts a FIRST Team
•Sponsored by Budd Company
•RUSH acronym is created by Zach Wheeler – respect, unity, spirit, heart
•Use old fruit loops logo
•First appearance of jim holmes…..budd company employee
•Builds a fantastic robot, has lights in interior……wins Motorola quality award in Chicago at Medieval Times
•Create “passive arm design”
•Brandon robot becomes sponsored by Lear - Learhawk
1998
•lose sponsor
•build robot at small machine shop, Denovo
•for simplicity, replicate their previous years arm.
•Compete at a high level despite lack of sponsors
•“Lyron and Justin metal flattening story”
•“bird’s nest cart story”
•Brandon team becomes sponsored by GM Truck, Truck Town Terror, now Thunder
•First appearance by Shannon Schnepp and Justin Ridley

1999
•Team Rush picked up by Chrysler
•Share field with Team 33
•Don’t make their own scrimmage, off to slow start
•Anthony leaves Brandon team to start Team 221 - MI Roboworks
•Rush wins Great Lakes and Chicago regionals with Beatty - 71
•Win most photogenic award in Great Lakes and Chicago
•Go unseeded at Nationals
•221 wins Most Potogenic at Nationals, seeds 6 th , chooses Rush and
Beatty for finals
•Alliance finishes 4 th after close loss to Wildstang and Technokats
2000
•Shannon starts West Side Boiler Invasion – Team 461 at Purdue
•Anthony takes 221 to Michigan Tech
•Rush goes back to the passive arm design
•One of most complex robots for Rush to date
•Two mode drivetrain, passive arm, roller assemblies, worm gear lift
•Mrs. Hughes wins Woodie Flowers Award
2001
•First appearance of six wheel drive for Rush
•First robot to not be blue
•Dubbed the “lama”
•Has simple one piece electronics design
•Has complex lunar landers that get scrapped before first competition

2002
•Crab claw bot
•Grabbers work good
•First multi-motor gear shift design for Rush
•Ballscrew….fails, is removed or at least disabled
2003
•Rush builds first multi-joint robot arm with turret
•six-wheel drive remains
•Uses simple dead-reckoning auton to navigate to the top of ramp…….
•Snag first regional win since `99 at Buckeye Regional
•Shannon’s team 461 wins Regional Chairman’s Award
2004
•Multi-joint arm and turret return
•Six-wheel drive remains
•Have several close calls, no wins
•“no back-up battery story”
•Rush receives Regional Chairman’s Award
2005
•Shannon and Anthony return
•Mutli-joint arm and turret remain, undergo redesign by Anthony
•Upper-joint is never built correctly……suffers all season
•Six wheel drive is streamlined, complex custom gearboxes replaced with Dewalt drill motor transmissions

Chairman’s Award was created to keep the central focus of the FIRST Robotics Competition as our ultimate goal for transforming the culture in ways that will inspire greater levels of respect and honor for science and technology, as well as encourage more of today’s youth to become scientists, engineers, and technologists. It represents the spirit of FIRST; honoring the team that best represents a model for other teams to emulate and which embodies the goals and purpose of FIRST. It remains the most prestigious team award FIRST presents.
DaimlerChrysler Team Spirit Award celebrates extraordinary enthusiasm and spirit through exceptional partnership and teamwork.
Delphi’s Driving Tomorrow’s Technology Award celebrates an elegant and advantageous machine feature. This award recognizes any aspect of engineering elegance including, but not limited to: design, wiring methods, material selection, programming techniques, and unique machine attributes.
Engineering Inspiration Award celebrates a team’s outstanding success in advancing respect and appreciation for engineering and engineers, both within their school as well as their community. Criteria include: the extent and inventiveness of the team’s efforts to recruit students to engineering, the extent and effectiveness of the team’s community outreach efforts, and the measurable success of those efforts. This is the second highest team award FIRST bestows.
Johnson and Johnson – Sportsmanship Award celebrates outstanding sportsmanship and continuous gracious professionalism in the heat of competition, both on and off the playing field.
Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers – Entrepreneurship Award celebrates the Entrepreneurial Spirit. This award recognizes a team, which since its inception has developed the framework for a comprehensive business plan in order to scope, manage, and obtain team objectives. This team displays entrepreneurial enthusiasm and the vital business skills for a self-sustaining program.
Motorola Quality Award celebrates machine robustness in concept and fabrication.
Most Photogenic Award celebrates attractiveness in engineering and outstanding visual aesthetic integration from the machine to team appearance (this award is now called the Imagery Award).
Woodie Flowers Award is awarded to an outstanding engineer or teacher participating in each of the robotics Regional Competitions. Students choose and write about a person on their team who best demonstrates excellence in teaching science, math and creative design. Until 2004, there was only a national winner. In 2004, each regional awarded a winner, who then went into the National pool of awardees.

1997
Motorola Quality Award, Midwest Regional
1998
Judges Award – Against All Odds Award, Great Lakes Regional
16 th place overall, National Championship
1999
Champions, Midwest Regional
Champions, Great Lakes Regional
Most Photogenic Award, Midwest and Great Lakes Regionals
4 th place overall, National Championship
Autodesk Design Your Future Award - Becky Sherman, National Championship
2000
National Woodie Flowers Award – Mrs. Kyle Hughes
National $20,000 FIRST-Kettering Scholarship - Lyron Maxey
2001
Johnson & Johnson Sportsmanship Award, UTC Regional
DaimlerChrysler Team Spirit Award, Great Lakes Regional

2002
Finalists, West Michigan Regional
National $20,000 FIRST-Kettering Scholarship - Seth Henderson
Finalists, Oakland County Competitive Robotics Association
2003
Champions, Buckeye Regional
Finalists, Great Lakes Regional
3 rd place, National Championship Archimedes Division
Motorola Quality Award, National Championship
Champions, Indiana Robotics Invitational
Champions, Ford Sweet Repeat Robotics Invitational
Champions, Oakland County Competitive Robotics Association
Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers Entrepreneurship Award, Buckeye Regional
Delphi Driving Tomorrow's Technology Award, Great Lakes Regional

2004
Chairman's Award, Great Lakes Regional
Woodie Flowers Award - Tim Flickinger, Great Lakes Regional
Motorola Quality Award, Midwest Regional
National $20,000 FIRST-Kettering Scholarships - Bryan Duggan & Kurt Wachowski
Finalists, National Championship Galileo Division
Finalist & 1st Seed, Kettering Kickoff Robotics Invitational
“All Girls” Robotics Champion and Team Spirit Award Winner, Ford Sweet Repeat
Semi-Finalist & 2nd Seed, Oakland County Competitive Robotics Association
2005
Motorola Quality Award, Detroit Regional
Quarter-finalist & 9 th Seed, Detroit Regional
Engineering Inspiration Award, West Michigan Regional
Finalist & 2 nd Seed, West Michigan Regional
Quarter-Finalist & 3 rd Seed, National Championship Archimedes Division
National $20,000 FIRST – Kettering Scholarships – Austin Duggan

1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
Anthony Lapp
Shannon Schnepp
Justin Ridley
Team Rush
Josh Frisch
John Nielson
Jason Markesino