Timeline
Our team has been around since 2011, around so long that nobody even remembers back then. We have no founding members from when the team started back at Ryle Highschool. Even then, we have several mentors who have been with us for over a decade! This list shows the history of the team, from a small classroom in Ryle, to a giant team with the biggest dedicated area at Ignite.
2012
This year's game was basketball based, and featured one of our first documented robots! In these pictures, you can see exactly how our robot held basketballs and looked on the field. We did learn a lot from last year, but we were still a very new team.
2011
Our team was first made in a Ryle classroom. We started with no mentors other than the teacher that was the coach. We had no idea what was being done, and got our first Mentor in Mr. Lindsey, who is still with us to this day. Unfortunately, no pictures survive from this era of the team.
.png)
2013
This year's challenge was similar to a game of frisbee golf, where teams were tasked with creating a robot that could throw disks into several slots of differing heights. In addition, as you see in this photo, at the end of the match, teams could climb a central tower for additional points.
2014
The challenge for 2014 focused a lot on scoring points and aviation, much like the 2022 challenge. In addition, this was the year we upgraded into a district-wide team! After several years at Ryle, we moved to Gateway and became a team that all of Boone County could join. This is also the year that our current coach, Mrs. Koch joined us!
2015
The 2015 game was all about the need for recycling! It involved picking up and stacking totes on scoring platforms as well as putting pool noodles inside recycling containers. In these photos, you can see our sleek build and the team posing in front of it. You can also see our team's field build, which definitely could be better.
2016
In 2016, the yearly FRC challenge morphed into something a little more medieval. In this challenge, we focused mainly on capturing other team's towers via firing boulders to take them down!
2017
FIRST's 2017 game featured a more steampunk aesthetic and was themed around shooting balls of fuel into a boiler, powering an airship in the center of the field. We also ended up winning a national STEM video contest and ranked 3rd out of 50 teams in the Huntsville, AL tournament this year!
2018
In these photos, we were building a competition robot with multiple motors that control the wheels, telescoping appendage, and winches; a system that operates the arms, and a vision processing system to aid in operating the robot. This year's theme was retro and to win we were required to place power cubes onto a balancing scale until it tipped to one team's side. We also had one of our mentors win the Mentor of the Year award.
2019
For the 2018-2019 season, we built a 4.5‘ tall competition robot with multiple motors that control the pneumatic and low friction wheels, mechanical elevator that raises the robot onto a 2’ tall platform, an appendage to grasp and place field elements, and a camera to aid in operating the robot.
This year we moved to Ignite Institute, and turned into a multi-district team. As long as the student was at Ignite, they could join our team.
2020
We started out strong this year, then COVID happened. We didn't exactly have much competing to do after that, but our team stayed active. We contributed to our community, doing things like 3D printing thousands of mask straps for medical use. Determined to make it through, we remained meeting online to keep all of our members for the future.
2021
The 2021 challenge theme was a continuation of the previous year's theme. We struggled a lot in this year, with few new members and many members graduating. However, even despite this, we participated in all of FIRST's alternative challenge events and recruited for when the pandemic would finally end.
2022
Making a comeback from the Pandemic, we recruited many new members, and made our first new robot in several years. The highlight of this year was our robot falling off of the transversal bar, which is about 8 ft in the air!
2023
This is our most recent year. Our main goal in 2023 and continuing forward into the 2024 season has been to secure a slot at worlds through competition! We have had an extremely large growth of members, and all of them have dedicated themselves to the team. We're super excited to see how things progress this year and the next!
