Robotics World Competition

I have been a part of FIRST robotics teams for the past five years. This year I joined the Sotabots, my school's FRC robotics team.  FRC is the largest of FIRST programs and completions, with robots that can weigh up to 120 pounds and complex challenges like this seasons Ariel Assist (If you would like to learn about this year's challenge the video can be found here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxp4dkMQ1Vo). Joining the SOTABots was a life changing experience for me. The journey started six months ago on January 4th, at kick off, where we first learned about the game and the challenge. After kick off, teams had just six weeks to design and build the robot. We then bagged it up on Febuary 18th during a student organized auction. During this season of build I practised such skills as vinyl pressing, programming in Jscript, web design, organizing and outreach. One of the outreach projects that really stuck with me was four of us going to Mary Bridge Children's Hospital and cheering up kids with robots we had brought along. There were really two moments during the trip that stood out to me. The first was laying on the floor and showing a three year old named Carson how one of the robots we brought worked and watching him make loud noises in order for it to move in the direction he wanted. The second was my friend and teammate Brian talking about programming and science with an eighth grader named Alex who had not had a long conversation with anyone since he got to the hospital and him opening up to Brian around STEM and robotics.

After six weeks of build and another couple of practice using the practice bot, a duplicate of our competition robot, we started competing. We have competed three times in the past five weeks. We made it to finals at two of those and in the third we made it to semi-finals. Over the course of the three competitions we have won three awards: one for gracious professionalism, one for entrepreneurship, and one for team spirit. We are currently ranked fifth in the district (Washington and Oregon) and in a couple weeks we are going to the District Championship in Portland. After Portland we will go on to the World Championship in St. Louis

That's where you come in. Robotics has been a passion of mine for so long and being able to go to the FRC World Championship would be a dream come true. Unfortunately plane tickets and hotels cost money, as well as the entry fee into the championship as the competitions cost a lot of money to put on. My family has been able to support my participation in FRC until now. I now need your extra support in order to raise the $1,400 necessary to pay all my expenses. Any size donation would be most appreciated!

FRC, Robotics, and FIRST are things I am passionate about and things that will help me throughout my life: teaching me skills, giving me job opportunities, and helping me develop into a leader and a innovator. Going to Worlds would be the next step.

Thank You, Oscar Lewis