Team 1038

The Beginnings
Team 1038’s first real season was in 2003, however the founders of the club have actually been involved in FIRST since 1994. It began with P&G becoming a FIRST Corporate Sponsor and team sponsor. The first team P&G chose to sponsor was an engineering class in Walnut Hills High School. In 1998 they became Team 144, when FIRST officially started to name teams by numbers. In 1998 P&G decided to transfer its team sponsorship to Northwest High School with lead advisor David Campbell. Bill Vinnage and Norm Reiboldt were the early core mentors at Walnut Hills High School and would continue to help advance the program at Northwest High School and Lakota East High School. The first year at Northwest High School started out rough because the students didn’t understand the commitment that FIRST requires. As the years progressed the team grew and experienced success. During 2001 and 2002, the team rose to the occasion by becoming division champions at the Championship event. Even though the team showed much success over the years, Northwest High School decided to drop the robotics program.


The Transformation
As David Campbell, the team advisor, relocated to Butler Tech/Lakota East High School to teach Network Systems, he decided to bring the FIRST experience with him. Along with him, he brought P&G sponsorship and key mentors from Northwest High School. Team 1038 was created as the 2003 season started. Lakota East had a strong start, winning the Website Award, AutoDesk Award, and the Leadership in Controls Award. The support from both Butler Tech and Lakota East High School, along with new sponsors, helped strengthen the team over the years. 2004 was one of the most successful years at Lakota East as the team won many awards including Curie Division Champions and the Buckeye Region Finalist. Also our great mentor Bill Vinnage, who had continued to support the program by offering his knowledge and experience, won the Woodie Flowers Award. However, the 2005 season was a relatively uneventful year for the team. The team was not able to meet the previous year’s success.


The 2006 season kicked off by holding a mini-tournament for the First Lego League teams in the local area. This was a great success because we were able to teach upcoming FIRST participants about the Robotics Club. As the 2006 season progressed, the team built an amazing robot that went on to win Pittsburgh Regional and were semi-finalists at Boilermaker Regional. The team went into nationals with high spirit and the goal of winning. While unable to win their division, they were able to make it to the semi-finals of Galileo and developed strong friendships with other teams.