Team 1629 was formed in 2005 and quickly adopted a "steady wins the race" philosophy that has helped us win the 2006 Chesapeake Regional Competition, the 2008/2009 Engineering Inspiration Awards, and the 2010 Chesapeake Regional Chairman’s Award. These honors allowed Team 1629 to compete in the FIRST World Championship four times. Although we may have many accomplishments and achievements, none of them would have been possible without the support of our community, families, and partnerships.

Team 1629 believes that true success does not come by accomplishing one goal and 'resting on our laurels'. Rather, the team believes that sustainable success is a product of a consistent and disciplined approach of strengthening our team’s partnerships and resources, community involvement, and Legacy over long periods of time. Partnerships are at the heart of Team 1629’s impact to its community.

Team 1629's partnership with our county government provides us with a 6,000 sqft meeting space known as Garrett Engineering and Robotics Society (GEARS). This includes a full sized playing field for practicing each year’s game and holding scrimmages with other teams. In return, our team has helped expand the minds of families, students, and officials in our rural Appalachian county to the fact that technology is very much alive and well. Careers in the field of engineering, science, and technology are slowly, but surely, becoming more popular among the students of our county, thanks, in part, to the efforts of our team promoting FIRST. Our programs and success have acquired the attention of local and state government officials (including, the staff of both Maryland US Senators).

The team’s partnership with the school system provides us with a large portion of the funding required for each season. The team provides a “varsity sport for the mind” placing academics on an equal basis with traditional sports such as basketball, football, and soccer. In our Appalachian area, this is quite an accomplishment! The excitement and support Team 1629 generates provides a finishing touch to the many Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) initiatives being implemented in our area, including a $50K MSDE STEM grant to measurably increase interest in STEM studies/careers. Since FRC Team 1629 is a varsity sport, students must maintain grades or be placed on academic ineligibility – the same as traditional varsity sport programs, but our standards are one grade higher than the other varsity teams.

The school system partnership is further reinforced by the ongoing attendance of important school officials. The Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Wendell Teets, has attended every one of 1629's regional events and has traveled with the team to each World Championship. In addition, both high school principals, members of the county's Board of Education, Assistant Superintendent, and Directors of the high schools' Career and Technology Education regularly attend regional and world championships. Dr. Teets already has both our regional competition dates (and St. Louis) put down in his calendar! Lastly, Dr. Teets is very outspoken about his support of FIRST (FLL, FTC, and FRC) in what he calls “athletics for the mind” and declares FIRST events as exciting as any state soccer or football playoffs.

Equally important is Team 1629’s partnership with local organizations: Beitzel Corporation/Pillar Innovations, Wilson Supply, Garrett Container Systems, Inc, and GEARS. Much of Team 1629’s success is the direct result of the guidance and support provided by these organizations. Each organization provides mentors (during business hours), materials, and hard dollars. We hold an annual sponsor luncheon to show our gratitude to our multiple sponsors. Mentors travel to our competitions for suggestions, support, encouragement and advice. Without these partnerships, Team 1629 would not be the success it is today.

Team 1629 really does value its mentors. For example, every year our student members host a “Valentines Day” dinner for the mentors and their spouses. With the invariable last minute tweaking of the robot, all work stops at 5:30 pm as the spouses start arriving and the lights are romantically dimmed. Mentors and their spouses truly feel appreciated through the team’s gesture – even though at 7:00, the lights come on and everyone says “back to work!”

In prior years, 1629 had the opportunity to share its control system beta testing experience with the entire FRC community. By sharing our knowledge, we were able to assist rookie teams that needed a little guidance from a more experienced team. We worked closely with neighboring WV Team 2614 and presented at the Baltimore Area Alliance FRC team workshop in addition to hosting several open-house/presentations throughout the fall. One of our alumni has created a close bond between our team and Team 836 by mentoring both of us. We share scouting data at competitions and work together on mini-bot design competitions to share results with other teams. Our Chairman’s Award sub-team even helped mentor their team to form a stronger Chairman’s submittal.

Many of our team members began their FIRST journey in FLL or FTC teams. Because of this, we support ten FLL teams and two FTC teams within our rural county. The idea to use engineering notebooks came from our FTC teams. In 2009 when Maryland FIRST FLL modified the competition rules, many teams were struggling to find a competition venue. Team 1629 rose to the challenge and planned, set up, and hosted the First Annual Garrett County FLL Qualifier that attracted nine teams. Maryland FLL officials attended and were very pleased with the results! This year we had 16 teams compete in the Second Annual Garrett County FLL Qualifier!

Team 1629 has carefully developed a reputation for helping other teams and gracious professionalism. In the 2006 Chesapeake Regional, 1629 was the number one seed and captain of the winning alliance. 1629’s gracious professionalism was well noted during the final round of the elimination matches when our alliance extended our timeout on behalf of the opposing alliance, allowing them time to finish needed repairs on one of their robots. This experience cemented forever the virtues of gracious professionalism to all in attendance and set the example for future Team 1629 students. During the 2010 Buckeye Regional, we shared our Google based real time scouting results on a computer screen in our pit area with all other teams. Lastly, we leverage our website to share everything we do with other teams around the world.  Our commitment to gracious professionalism is further reinforced by the creation of our “Gracious Professionalism” sub-team, whose duty is to find teams that may need help and provide assistance as needed.

As a beta test team for the new control system in 2009, 1629 focused our Gracious Professionalism sub-team on becoming a specialist in using the new control system and solving related issues and problems. Our team was among the first to successfully install the system on our robot and perform all the required operational tests. We gained a lot of experience during this process, and our team maximized their opportunity to spread this knowledge to the FIRST community by being “control system experts” at the DC competition, actively assisting other teams in preparing for the inspection process, and answering any software questions.

Team 1629 is also active within our community. Our team is designing, building, and bringing to life an animated fire plug robot (Sparky) to assist our local fire departments. He will be used by firemen to help with educational demonstrations given at elementary and middle schools. Sparky will be able to move, talk, and bat his eye lashes! He will be a great friend of the children and will help firemen bring fire safety awareness to children in a fun and interactive manner.  We also do demonstrations at our rivalry soccer games between the two high schools that comprise our team, Southern and Northern.  We use the 2009/2010 Breakaway robot to promote robotics during half time by shooting soccer balls into the goals. Other popular community involvement programs in which our team participates include Relay for Life (raising money for cancer awareness), Special Olympics (blind skier and Deep Creek Dunk), Dove Center, Savage Man Triathlon, Maryland Food Bank, and Hospice.

Even with all the help from our amazing sponsors, we still have to do some fundraising. Instead of merely sending out letters asking for donations, we prefer to put some "elbow grease" into our fundraising efforts. On Saturday mornings, our team is usually at local gas stations, pumping gas for tips. On busy holiday weekends, we camp out in front of local businesses and set up shoe shine stands. Working for tips, we shine the shoes of local business leaders while talking about the amazing things we do at FIRST. At local town festivals, our team is famous for our $2 fresh squeezed lemonade, where we continue to spread the FIRST message with pride.  Lastly, in 2010 we held our first annual “Punkin Chunkin”, a contest of throwing pumpkins using Trebuchets and Catapults.  We had over 250 spectators and are looking forward to the Second Annual “Punkin Chunkin” in October 2011.

Lastly, we believe in FIRST Legacy.  Our alumni have gone on to help 4 other FRC teams and one of our FLL teams is educating elementary kids.  FIRST Legacy leads to self sustained exposure to science and technology.