Team History

In 2007, a group of 20 high school students came together to form the Lee's Summit North Robotics team in Lee's Summit, Missouri. After spending the six-week build season in a plumbing building, we traveled to Denver, Colorado for our regional. We came away with success, finishing in the top half of all teams and winning two major awards: the AutoDesk Animation Award and the Delphi "Driving Tomorrow's Technology" Award.

2008 brought great changes: new team members, a new game, and a new build site! While the approximate number of members did not change, we introduced many new members to FIRST. In addition to bringing students to the program, our mentors encouraged another group of 25 mentors to join teams around the area. We traveled in March to Minneapolis, Minnesota - a brand new regional. We enjoyed our time there, and while our robot itself did not win, we returned home with another AutoDesk Animation Award as well as the prestigious Engineering Inspiration Award. This allowed our team to travel to Atlanta, Georgia, in April. Our team placed 16th out of 85 teams on our field, and we loved every minute of the Championship event.

In 2009, we approached Lunacy with high hopes. Like the past three years, we had about 20 student members, 10 mentors, and 2 teacher coaches. While most of our team volunteered at the Kansas City Regional earlier in the season, we traveled to Denver in March for our competition instead of competing locally. On the Thursday practice day, a blizzard hit Denver, and an official white-out cancellation was called. While this did pose some interesting obstacles, Friday and Saturday of competition went as planned. Our mentor nominee for the Woodie Flowers Award, Kevin Schimpf, took a big win on Friday of competition. (His award-winning essay can be found on the Awards page.) We placed third going into finals, and while we were knocked out early, we had a great time despite the missed practice day. We came back to Lee's Summit with the regional Chairman's Award, one of our highest honors. (Our essay for Chairman's Award can also be found on the Awards page.) At the national competition in Georgia, our team was seeded 3 out of 87 teams on the Archimedes field, and we were ranked 18 out of all competing teams at the Championship. We feel very lucky to have had the chance to travel to the Championship event.

In 2010, the Broncobots competed in the FIRST Competition "Breakaway." The robots played soccer on a field that had two foot tall bumps. This addition to the terrain proved a daunting task for teams everywhere. To conquer this task, they built a tank drive system with a powerful kicker capable of shooting the soccer balls across the entire field. After the build season, we journeyed to Oklahoma to compete at the Oklahoma City Regional. The team suffered several mechanical failures during the qualification matches, but perfected their designs and was on the winning alliance. In addition to taking first place in the competition, the Broncobots won the Regional Chairman's Award-the highest award in FIRST. Because of these victories, the Broncobots were able to travel to Atlanta, Georgia for the FIRST World Championships. The team competed on the Archimedes field, and we had a blast!

In 2011, the team had to completely restructure itself because of all the graduated seniors and new members. However, the team looked forward to competing in Logomotion. The team had around 30 members, 15 mentors, and 2 teacher coaches. The team competed at the Midwest Regional in Chicago, Illinois. The team made it to finals after earning third seed and becoming the second seed alliance, but got out in semi-finals. The team did, however, end the season with the Website Award and the Quality Award sponsored by Motorola. The team had a great season overall!

The team moved build sites this year and will move into the Robotics Center sponsored by the Lee's Summit School District within the coming months. The team is currently focusing on expanding and recruiting more members. We're excited to have more students involved, and we look forward to sharing our new season with the community. Stay tuned to the blog to keep up-to-date with our team progress. We have been lucky to have so much support and help from mentors, coaches, parents, and friends. Thank you for supporting Team 1987, the Broncobots!