Team 1538 - The Holy Cows
Team 1538 has grown since its modest beginnings as a group of five friends competing in the BotBall competition. Team 1538 is now 30 members strong with 5 mentors supporting in every aspect of the competition, from design and building to public relations and marketing.
In the Fall of 2004 Mike Kurland, Chris Richardson, David Giamanco, Zeke Koziol and Jon Jack shed their BotBall past and joined the FIRST Robotics competition. The team number assigned to them was 1538. In FIRST your team number is everything, the lower your team number is the more respect you yield. The team, still unnamed, received a $6000 grant from NASA which covered their sign up and registration fees.
On January 8, 2005 Team 1538 hosted a Kick-Off event for Team San Diego, a coalition of all San Diego's FIRST Robotics teams. Later that day the team decided to call themselves 'Fistful of Motors'. After six weeks of building, the teams first robot shipped on February 22, 2005. The team sat and waited until March 30th when they would depart for Las Vegas to compete in their first regional competition. When the team arrived in 'Sin City' they had little driving practice but prevailed, finishing 18th overall and being picked by the 6th seed alliance for the finals. Their alliance was knocked out in the quarter-finals and they packed up and went home tired and hungry for more.
The off season fueled their hunger for more FIRST. They helped build the field for and competed in the 'Battle at the Border', an off-season scrimmage hosted by Madison High School and finished 2nd overall with their alliance finishing 3rd in the finals. The team even helped represent FIRST at a media party at the San Diego County Fair. A competition later hosted at the fair saw they finish 2nd in Show, 2nd in Points and Best Overall. Team 1538 then shed the name 'Fistfull of Motors' and picked 'The Holy Cows' as their new name. After an intense period of recruiting the team doubled from 16 members to 32+ members.
Please visit our robotics team website for further information. www.team1538.com