THE "GRR" TEAM
2008-2009 REVOLUTIONARY GREYHOUND ROBOTICS TEAM Front row left to right: Dylan, Luke, Erick, Ariel, Mason, Lucy, Barak, Cody.
Atascadero High School, Atascadero, CA 93422
Middle row left to right: Justin, Jack, Dustin, Josh, Sean, Allen.
Back row left to right: Mary, Becca, Rose, David, Adam, Jared, Nate.
TEAM HISTORY:
The Greyhound Revolutionary Robotics team was established by AHS student Earl Eardman in the fall of 2001 under the leadership of AHS Physics teacher (previous team adviser) John Miron. It was the first high school robotics team to be formed in San Luis Obispo County.
The idea of a robotics team blossomed into GRR's first team of 20 students working long hours in a cold warehouse provided by Atascadero business Door Techs. Having no prior experience, the GRR team built their first robot "Stewart", a complicated machine five feet tall, that took 6th place in the Silicon Valley Regional Competition in San Jose, California, March 29-30, 2002. GRR's outstanding performance at this competition as a new team earned them the coveted "Rookie All-star Award" award, qualifying them to participate in FIRST's Championship Competition in Atlanta, Georgia. Sadly, the GRR team could not raise the $20,000 needed for the Atlanta competition.
GRR's wonderful success during their first year of competition spurred interest by the local community, eagerly wanting to support the team in future competitions. Thanks to the wonderful support of local machinist Gary Sigler, the team received the fantastic donation of used machine shop equipment, including a South Bend lathe , MILLRITE and much more. Cal Poly donated to the team a LEBLOND REGAL lathe, a Delta drill press and a Linde Tig Welder. Next Intent donated to the team a JET mill.
As a result of this interest, the GRR team was elated to receive the use of an old, unused auto-mechanics shop on the Atascadero High School campus as a new machine shop facility. The team was now "cooking with gas" with everything coming together in the form of a machine shop and meeting facility for the AHS GRR team. GRR's new machine shop gave birth to its first robot "Spots", for the 2003 competition, named in honor of Gary Sigler's late father. During the 2003 Southern California Regional competition in Los Angeles, the GRR team was awarded the "Judge's Award" for outstanding teamwork and performance.
The team was now well established for the 2004 competition season. Because FIRST's game each year becomes more challenging, so does the complexity of the robots. For 2004, the GRR team created "Uncle Bubba" (named in honor of their team adviser John Miron), a fast-moving, computerized robot having two long, articulated arms that grabbed a 3-foot diameter rubber ball during the game. During the 2004 season, the GRR team attended two regional competitions, one in Phoenix, Arizona, and one in San Jose, California. At the Silicon Valley Regional in San Jose on April 1-4, 2004, the GRR team was elated to receive the "Leadership in Control Award" award for Uncle Bubba's advanced instrumentation and control system, which received considerable attention by one of Apple Computer's founders Steve Woziak, who visited the team in the "pits" several times to study Uncle Bubba's design and construction. At the end of the 2006 season, GRR's Lead Mentor, John Miron, transferred his position to Larry Price. Since then, Larry had been invaluable in directing the team. ###
Prior to the 2004 competition season, in the fall of 2003, the AHS GRR team presented their robotics program to the Arroyo Grande High School to spark interest in developing their own team. The AGHS Eagle Robotics team, under the leadership of team advisor Bill Findley, Electronics teacher at AGHS, immediately formed and participated in the 2004 FIRST Competition season, performing extremely well. The AHS GRR team is very proud of mentoring the AGHS Eagle team, helping provide additional math, science and engineering opportunities and experience for the students of San Luis Obispo County. In the spirit of FIRST's foundation of 'gracious professionalism', both teams occasionally partner together to promote each other and share their programs with the community, to spur interest by school students from grade school through high school. The GRR team is proud of their ability to help generate interest in math, science, engineering and technology.
A great deal of pride grew in GRR as the team reached the finals in the 2008 Las Vegas Regional.
The 2009 build season has finished The six-week "robot build period" began January 5th and ended February 19th. The team competed in the LA and Las Vegas Regionals and won the LA regional. The team got to the quarterfinals in Las Vegas and it was a valuable learning experience and helped to prepare the team for World Championships in Atlanta, Georga. GRR made it to the semi-finals in their division. GRR feels that it is really developing into a competitive team.