About the Minotaurs (Team 1369):

       Team Minotaur was started in the 2003-2004 school year at Middleton Magnet High School. We are the only FIRST Robotics Team in the School District of Hillsborough County. The acronym FIRST means “For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology”. The team has participated in US First Robotic Competition the last three years. The team builds a robot to play in the competition game each year during a six week build period that starts in January and the ships the robot to its competition site in mid February. In 2004 the team built its first robot and helped win the Peach Tree Regional Competition in Duluth, Georgia.

 The team is open to all students interested in robotics, programming and engineering. During the start of the year the team participates in learning conferences that provide instruction on how robots are built. A major incentive for team membership is that team members qualify this year for over $8,000,000. in merit and other scholarship money from 59 universities and colleges that participate with FIRST. The mentors for our team are William Vasden (Room #350), Marian Manganello and Lisa Culberson.

A Close Call (How we almost lost our competition):

       We had been working on the programming for our vex robot for several weeks. We were getting ready to attend the vex competition; the whole team was enthusiastic about going to see our robot win the competition. We had everything ready, the drive, the claw, and almost the programming. Brian, our lead programmer, had been working on his code for several weeks, tweaking it to perfection. He was ready to download the code; the team was excited, would it work? Would the design hold up against the stress of competition? Would the construction hold up to the bashing of the vex competition? We placed the fragile robot on the table, ready for Brian to plug in our serial port to download the program. Now here’s where the fuzzy part comes in, the robot was only about 5 inches from the edge of the table and the floor was, well… tile. Brian was anxious and worried about downloading the code to the robot. He told everyone to stand clear of the robot, incase it went into one of its berserk fits, which is what happened the previous time we had downloaded code to it. So we stood clear, as Brian had asked. The code was uploading; 25%, 50%, 75%, and finally 100%. The next thing we saw was a frenzy of people rushing toward the robot as it took its final bound and leap off the table. As we got closer, we could see the robot, shattered and laying on its back, upside-down, a cracked tile underneath. The robot was destroyed, no life or programming left inside its tiny little microprocessor we called the brain. As the team gazed at the rubble of twisted metal and electrical pieces everywhere, which we once had called our robot, we realized we’d have to start all over from scratch. Five days later, we were back in business. Our construction crew had worked night and day to get the robot back into tip-top shape, and the programming had been successfully (and un-destructively) downloaded. We were ready for our competition with not a day to spare. We went on to get second place in the competition and win the “Amaze Award.”