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Team 980 2010 Wrap-up

The 2010 FRC season has been a remarkable year for Team 980. We competed in four events, earning the Motorola Quality Award in Arizona and Finalist Trophy in Los Angeles. We participated in the Indiana Robotics Invitational and hosted the SCRRF Fall Classic at John Burroughs HS.

FRC Team 980 ThunderBots is now a 501(c)(3) public charity. Corporate and individual contributions to our team are fully tax-deductible. Our Paypal “Donate” button makes supporting Team 980 simple and provides a receipt for tax records.

JBHS students formed Robotics Club: Team 980, boosting our membership.

We have started a partnership with the Burbank Tournament of Roses Association. Team 980 members will become involved in float design and construction and will be provided work space for building our robot.

For more info (including 2011 plans), please look at our FRC980_2010_Wrap-up.

Students need to register in FIRST STIMS: https://my.usfirst.org/stims/site.lasso

More information on the 2011 will be posted over the next few weeks…stay tuned!

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Prepping for the 2011 FRC Season: 5 weeks to Kickoff!

The 2011 game challenge will be unveiled five weeks from Saturday! The Team 980 Kickoff event will occur on Jan 8 at TBD site.

Team 980 is registered for Regional competitions in San Diego (Mar 10-12) and Long Beach (Mar 24-26) and the FIRST Championship in St. Louis, MO (Apr 27-30, return on May 1).

Before the kickoff event, Team 980 needs to prepare for the season.

Here’s our “Things To Do” preparation list:

Students sign-up in STIMS the official FIRST participant registration site.
Work with Burbank Tournament of Roses Association to secure and prepare robot build site.
Learn SolidWorks CAD skills. Team 980 has access to 25 student “seats” for SolidWorks 2011. We will have a couple of high-performance workstations in our design center. Team 980 students will be able to install a 1-year licensed version of SolidWorks on their own computers for design robot parts. Start with a on-line robotics design tutorial (9 units, less than 2 hours viewing time):
Develop fund-raising strategies to pay for travel expenses. Championship travel, lodging, and team meal will be $750 (TBD) per student. FIRST will soon release details for team member sales of a new energy-saving LED light (a big technology improvement over compact fluorescent lamps). Look here for more information about FIRST Green e-watt savers.
Spread the word about FIRST to friends, teachers and members of the community. NASA has just announced major long-term support to the FIRST program. The story is in the Reddit Top-10!

Be ready for the 2011 season!

Check this website and the Robotics Club Team 980 Facebook group frequently for updates. Team members can also checkout the Robotics Club Team 980: John Burroughs group for more information.

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Robotics Club Team 980: John Burroughs HS

The Robotics Club Team 980 of John Burroughs HS held its first meeting, Friday (Oct. 22) in the school’s Woods Shop (Mr. John Benne, instructor). Seniors Aaron Rifkin, Galina Malakhova and Alex Martinez introduced a large group of students the FIRST Robotics Competition program. We are VERY pleased that 17 students have expressed interest in joining Team 980. Recruitment is an important part of getting ready for the 2011 season and we’re off to a great start!