Team 4450 urgently needs help in fundraising to get to the World Championship in St. Louis. The team needs to raise $24,000.00 for travel and hotel accommodations before they depart April 26th. Please make your tax deductible donation to the Olympia School District Education Foundation or donate online through STEMPALS HERE.
The Olympia Robotics Federation (ORF), team 4450, is the Olympia School District’s cross-district FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) team. This season, 2016, ORF’s alliance placed fourth at the FRC Pacific Northwest Championships (out of 64 teams in the PNW), earning the team a berth at the FRC World Championships in St. Louis. Team 4450’s success is the culmination of an intense six-week build and two-month competition season for this cross-district team which combines students from Avanti, Capital and Olympia high schools.
Latest Press Release….
26 Local Students Beat Out 2500+ Teams for Chance at World Championship of Robotics!
This past weekend, while most South Sound students were lounging on spring break, 26 motivated students from Capital, Olympia & Avanti High Schools and their robot named USS Kelvin were hard at work competing for a highly coveted spot in the World Championships of Robotics. More than 75,000 students from 24 countries competed in this year’s FIRST Robotics Competition, including 26 local students who make up the Olympia Robotics Federation FIRST Robotics Team 4450 (“ORF”).
64 top seeded teams from Washington, Oregon and Hawaii competed at the Pacific Northwest District Championship in Portland, Oregon April 7-9, 2016. Competition started on Thursdayafternoon and continued through late Saturday. After the first day and a half of competition, Team 4450 ended Friday afternoon as the number one ranked team. With two matches left to be playedon Saturday, ORF’s team handily won the first match to keep their top seed ranking. Any competition is not without its ups and downs though. During the final match of the qualifying rounds, “USS Kelvin’s” shooter broke, dropping them into 4th place. Nevertheless, ORF earned a spot in the playoffs and the opportunity to be the 4th place alliance captain. As the alliance captain, using their customized scouting data app programmed by two students, Team 4450 picked two excellent teams work with, Team 2557 the SOTABots from Tacoma, WA, and Team 4061 the SciBorgs from Pullman, WA. ORF was disabled by their opponent and lost the first playoff match. However, the alliance came back and won the second match –or so we thought! The rules are complicated, and despite a terrific showing, the team lost the second match on a penalty and was knocked out of the quarter finals. Despite not making it further in the District playoffs, ORF and its alliance partners earned enough points from their combined excellence throughout the season to earn one of the 32 coveted spots from the Pacific Northwest District to compete in the World Championships in Saint Louis in 2 weeks! ORF is currently ranked 15 in our District of 158 teams, and beat out 2500+ other teams worldwide to compete at this level.
Team 4450, also earned the prestigious FIRST award for “Excellence in Engineering” at the Pacific Northwest Championship for robot design of their robot the USS Kelvin and for their development of a unique live scouting app used by many teams to strategize play. This is the third time in four years the team has qualified to compete at the World Championships, which is a huge accomplishment. They placed 11th in their Division the first time, and 5th in their Division the 2ndtime, so the team has high hopes for this year. Both rankings put them in the top 50 teams in the world in prior years.