FIRST, For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, is a charitable organization founded by Segway inventor Dean Kamen. The goal of FIRST is to promote the fields of science and technology to students and encourage kids to become involved in the professions of engineering, science, and technology. FIRST aims to make science and technology as cool and exciting as athletics and music through engaging, hands on programs for various age levels from preschool to high school. Along the way FIRST also establishes the idea of "gracious professionalism", the belief that you can perform at your highest level while simultaneously helping others achieve their best. FIRST also encourages community involvement and instilling the inspiration of engineering in others. Spanning the globe with hundreds of international teams, tens of thousands of students and mentors, and currently celebrating its 17th year of engineering excellence, FIRST is a dynamic organization inspiring the leaders of tomorrow to reach new heights.

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On August 31st Team 1334 displayed our robot at the FIRST demonstration at the CNE along with nine other FRC teams and two FLL teams from Ontario. This year, we were indoors in the Direct Energy building and had a partial Breakaway field set up to simulate a competition. Many people came to our booth with questions about our robot construction, team events, and funding. Our robot performed superbly in front of thousands of observers all day, and we generated a lot of interest in our team and in FIRST.

July 16 was a gorgeous summer evening, and over 30,000 people enjoyed the tastes, sounds and demonstrations featured in downtown Oakville during the Midnight Madness celebration. Team 1334 was joined this year by team 3161 (our spawn team from Holy Trinity) and team 771 from St. Mildred's- Lightbourn School to help promote robotics in our community. This year we were located in front of Circus Chocolates on Thomas Street, and we had lots of room to run all three robots and demonstrate our prowess at this year's soccer like game "Breakaway". Crowds enjoyed watching the robots block eachother and kick soccer balls, and the younger kids explored the NXT Lego robots which were programmed to perform tasks on our FIRST Lego League tables set up to feature last year's FLL competition challenge. We answered lots of questions, introduced many people to the FIRST program and enjoyed seeing many of our current sponsors and friends again at this fabulous event! If you missed Midnight Madness, you can join us for our next presentation at the CNE on August 31 which will feature several FIRST teams playing matches of soccer! Hope to see you there.

Thank you one and all for participating in our fund raiser on June 12! It was a fabulous community event which featured Oak-Land Ford and Kennedy Ford providing ten new vehicles for our guests to test drive. A barbecue, bouncy castle, face painting, music, and drive simulator added to the all day festivities at Oakville Trafalgar High School.

Team 1334 robots were on display, and hundreds of kids and adults had a chance to drive our robots from the 2009 and 2010 seasons and test our Lego robot creations with the help of our team members and the students they mentor on our affiliated FLL teams.

We are incredibly appreciative of the support from our sponsors for this event which included Ford who donated funds to our team for each test drive, Circus Chocolates and Black Forrest Pastry Shop for the scrumcious desserts which were donated to our barbecue, Dietrich's Meats which donated hot dogs and hamburgers, buns donated by Cobs Bread, and Sobey's and Fortino's markets which each donated beverages. Special thanks to Drivewise for the drive simulator and Airbounce for providing the bouncy castle.

Team 1334 has returned from a successful and inspiring trip to Atlanta to participate in the 2010 FIRST World Championships. Over 350 FRC teams competed from April 15-17 at the Georgia Dome, and it was fabulous to work with the best FIRST teams on the planet. We attended seminars which delved deeply into the details of design, strategy, team building and specific mechanical areas of interest, and is was truly amazing to see the vast array of other robots displayed in the pits and on the four playing fields. Working with members of other teams and the many important professionals who attended this event made this a unique learning experience which further heightened our enthusiasm for robotics, science and technology.

Many thanks to all the sponsors, mentors and parents who made this exceptional experience possible!

Team 1334 was honoured to receive the FIRST Engineering Inspiration Award on April 3rd at the Greater Toronto Area Regional for our exceptional work in spreading interest in the field of science and technology to our school and community. The winner of this award earns a spot in the World Championships in Atlanta, Georgia, and we will be competing with some of the best FIRST FRC teams from around the globe on April 15-17, 2010. We are busy finalizing travel plans and finishing technical details, and we look forward to this great experience for our second season in a row! Thanks to the hard work of our mechanical and drive teams, our robot competed successfully in the Greater Toronto Regional. We advanced through the ranks of fifty two teams in the qualifying rounds to be appointed one of eight alliance captains and chose our partners for participation in the final rounds.

Thanks to all the support from our sponsors, parents and mentors, and congratulations to all other FIRST FRC teams for their success this season.

Team 1334 was honoured with the Gracious Professionalism Award for strong execution of the ideals of FIRST through our outreach work and team spirit at the Waterloo Regional where we competed this past Thursday through Saturday. In addition, one of our team members, Evelyn Wainewright, was honoured with the Dean's List Finalist Award. This is a new award that is given to only two outstanding students competing at each Regional.

The competition field was fierce, and unfortunately, due to intermittent robot problems throughout the tournament, we did not progress into the elimination rounds this time. We were able to fix several issues in between matches and measures are being taken to ensure that we are fully operational for the Greater Toronto Regional next week.

The FRC team we helped to start this year, the Tronic Titans aka “The Devil Spawn”, from Holy Trinity Catholic School (team 3161), did exceptionally well. They qualified as an alliance captain and formed a strong alliance with 610 and 1535. They were also honoured with the Rookie All-Star Award that earned them a place at the World Championships in Atlanta, Georgia!

Our next competition is at the Hershey Centre in Mississauga on April 1st through 3rd (9-4) where we aim to win a spot in Atlanta. We hope you can come out to cheer us on!