Team History

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In 2001, the Cybearcats began as the Orange Crush team at the Delphi invitational competition held in Pontiac, Michigan. The team was formed late and received their kit more than two weeks after all the other teams. However, we were able to make a very strong showing.

In 2002, the team was making a two year plan to join US FIRST as a rookie team the next year. We planned on attending some smaller, cheaper competitions. After being featured in a local newspaper article we received a call from our main sponsor, Rick Urschel, who had competed in Robot Wars and was interested in getting involved. Suddenly, we were getting numerous sponsors and we had enough money to start our Rookie Year a full year ahead of schedule.

The Cybearcats team was formed at Wheeler High School in 2002 and competed in 2003 in the US FIRST Robotics Competition. As a Rookie Team, we were selected as an All-Star Rookie Team at the Western Michigan Regional and were selected to go to the semi-finals. At the Indiana Robotics Invitational that summer, we won the best showing by a Rookie Team. Several other teams presented us with various awards including Best Rookies and Best Autonomous Programming awards.

In 2004,

In 2005,

In 2006,

In 2007, we competed in the “Rack and Roll” game at the Midwest Regional. We made a very strong showing, becoming first-seeded. During the final rounds, we built a strong alliance and managed to place second overall. We built a defensive robot, becoming aggressive in preventing the other team from scoring. It turned out to be a good idea, because it carried us to the final round.