It's the team's eight year and we're still going strong. Our legal status has changed a bit over the last year- we became a non-profit organization and are now known as the FIRST Robodogs Booster Club. Our divisions haven?t changed though and all five of them (Engineering, Graphics, Marketing, Parents and Operations) worked hard this season to bring the Robodogs to victory at the VCU Regional competition and carry us on to Championship.

Our parents kept the team afloat, as usual, keeping us fed and watered and transported. They also built a practice field for us to work on. Of course, our sponsors are essential in our success. EMC, Hunter, Carabbas and NCSU continued to give us their support. Qualcomm also joined our list of supporters towards the end of the year.

Engineering built a great robot on a very grueling and fast-paced schedule. When Base designed and proposed a new drive system, the team struggled to reach a decision- would it be better to keep the old, familiar drive system or try to use the new, and potentially better one? The team voted and, in the spirit of Innovation of Science and Technology, Engineering used the new drive system.

Graphics had a few conflicts to deal with of its own. The school servers kept crashing and Graphics lost many files. The team fell behind schedule and wasn?t able to finish completely but we?re proud of what they did accomplish.

The team finally made it through build season to the VCU Regionals. The first day of VCU competition, we preformed really well but our performance became less and less successful as the day went on. We kept our fingers crossed and we were picked by Team 1086! Team 1522 joined us in the alliance and we slowly eliminated teams as we fought our way through the final rounds. Finally, we were at the final round. The entire team held their breath as we waited for the results. And then- we won! And we were going to Championships.

Championship was exciting and Engineering again worked hard to make our robot successful. We didn?t get picked for a final alliance and the team was disappointed, but proud of how far we had come.

The team worked harder this year to reach out to the community. We contacted other North Carolina teams to create more inter-team unity and revive NC FIRST. We also mentored the Apex FLL team and participated in Science Nights and Open Houses. We also organized scrimmages and social events between us and other teams in the area. We ran several fundraisers, organized a canned drive and a toy charity drive.

The team did a lot of planning and organizing this year and we hope that we will make the team even better next year!