Team Tater Rocked the Competition

I just returned home from the 2007 Pacific Northwest Regional FIRST Competition in Portland, OR. FIRST stands for For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology. Every year, there is a competition between high schoolers across the country to design and build a robot that can do certain tasks. My brother BJ (far left) participated in this year's competition with a group of students who go to the Dehryl Dennis Professional-Technical Education Center (Tech Center). BJ goes to the Tech Center for 2 periods a day and takes a welding class - he was the main welder this year on his team's robot (Team Tater). And boy did his team rock! They won round after round, and were ranked 3rd out of 54 at the end of all qualification matches. They advanced to the finals, where they breezed through the quarter-finals, but lost in the semi-finals round to the team who went on to win the competition. I'm so proud of my brother - he worked so hard on his robot, staying up many late hours. And I'm so happy that his team did so well at their first robot competition. Team Tater took home the "Highest Rookie Seed Award" for the highest ranked team in their first year of competition. Way to go BJ!