D'Penguineers
Encyclopedia
Team 1717, the D’Penguineers, is a FIRST Robotics team associated with the Dos Pueblos High School
Dos Pueblos High School
Dos Pueblos High School is a high school located in Goleta, California, west of Santa Barbara. Located adjacent to the foothills on the edge of the Goleta Valley in an area known as El Encanto Heights, it serves a student body of approximately 2,300 in grades 9-12.Dos Pueblos, or "DP" or "DPHS", is...

 Engineering Academy (DPEA)
Dos Pueblos Engineering Academy
The Dos Pueblos Engineering Academy is a four-year program at Dos Pueblos High School that provides generally exceptional students with experimental science education. The coursework is designed to provide the academic foundation necessary to support the students' participation as Team 1717 in the...

 in Goleta, CA. The D’Penguineers have won multiple awards at the regional and international levels of the FIRST Robotics Competition
FIRST Robotics Competition
The FIRST Robotics Competition is an international high school robotics competition organized by FIRST. Each year, teams of high school students compete to build robots weighing up to , not including battery and bumpers, that can complete a task, which changes every year...

, and participate regularly in outreach programs for junior high and elementary schools. The team was highlighted in the book The New Cool
The New Cool (book)
The New Cool: A Visionary Teacher, His FIRST Robotics Team, and the Ultimate Battle of Smarts is a 2011 non-fiction narrative book by American writer Neal Bascomb. It follows four FIRST Robotics Competition teams through the course of the 2009 season...

.

History

Team 1717, consisting of the 32-student senior class of the DPEA, began their first season during the 2005-2006 school year, under the direction of DPEA founder and director, Amir Abo-Shaeer
Amir Abo-Shaeer
Amir Abo-Shaeer is an educator. In 2001, during his first year of teaching, he established the Dos Pueblos Engineering Academy on the Dos Pueblos High School campus. In addition to being the Director of the DPEA, he teaches physics, engineering, robotics, machining and manufacturing...

. Since then, the D’Penguineers have participated annually in the FIRST Robotics Competition
FIRST Robotics Competition
The FIRST Robotics Competition is an international high school robotics competition organized by FIRST. Each year, teams of high school students compete to build robots weighing up to , not including battery and bumpers, that can complete a task, which changes every year...

, developing new techniques for student education, team communication, team collaboration, and build season preparation.

Pre-build season

Preparations for the robotics build season begin at the launch of the school year, where Team 1717 students take both an Advanced Engineering class and an ROP
ROP
ROP or RoP may stand for:* Rop rock shelter, an archeological site in Nigeria* Ranger Orientation Program, a training program in the United States Army to train soldiers to be leaders in the 75th Ranger Regiment....

 FIRST Robotics class. During the months leading up to the competition, students begin to specialize, in areas such as computer programming
Computer programming
Computer programming is the process of designing, writing, testing, debugging, and maintaining the source code of computer programs. This source code is written in one or more programming languages. The purpose of programming is to create a program that performs specific operations or exhibits a...

, CAD, electronics
Electronics
Electronics is the branch of science, engineering and technology that deals with electrical circuits involving active electrical components such as vacuum tubes, transistors, diodes and integrated circuits, and associated passive interconnection technologies...

, and machining
Machining
Conventional machining is a form of subtractive manufacturing, in which a collection of material-working processes utilizing power-driven machine tools, such as saws, lathes, milling machines, and drill presses, are used with a sharp cutting tool to physical remove material to achieve a desired...

 working with mentors from the surrounding community. Throughout the year, the students are exposed not only to this educational specialization, but they also learn to manage the business aspects of the team--they also make up presentation teams, apparel managers, travel planners, and account managers, among others. The process of the actual creation of a robot, from initial brainstorms to paper planning to physical building, is a concept foreign to most high school students, and the pre-build season is devoted to developing the skills and team unity necessary to have a successful build season.

Build season

The FIRST Robotics Competition
FIRST Robotics Competition
The FIRST Robotics Competition is an international high school robotics competition organized by FIRST. Each year, teams of high school students compete to build robots weighing up to , not including battery and bumpers, that can complete a task, which changes every year...

 begins in January, when the game is revealed, and continues for six weeks, until the completed robot is shipped. Team 1717 assembles to watch the game video, and the build season is off to a running start. Over the following six weeks, each student on Team 1717 will spend over 360 hours working to collectively design, build, and program their game robot, as well as strategize and organize to find the most effective way to play the game.

Competitions

Once the Team 1717 “PenguinBot” has been shipped, the D’Penguineers attend regional FIRST Robotics Competitions
FIRST Robotics Competition
The FIRST Robotics Competition is an international high school robotics competition organized by FIRST. Each year, teams of high school students compete to build robots weighing up to , not including battery and bumpers, that can complete a task, which changes every year...

 and compete for their chance to go to the international FIRST Championship. In past years, Team 1717 has attended regional competitions in San Diego, Los Angeles, Sacramento, and Arizona, and have qualified for the FIRST Championship in Atlanta, Georgia for three consecutive years.

Awards

  • 2006 Southern California Regional: Rookie All-Star
  • 2006 Arizona Regional: Rookie Inspiration Award
  • 2007 San Diego Regional: Imagery Regional Finalist
  • 2008 San Diego Regional: Delphi “Driving Tomorrow’s Technology” Regional Champion
  • 2008 Los Angeles Regional: Delphi “Driving Tomorrow’s Technology” Regional Champion
  • 2008 FIRST Championship: Finalist - Galileo Division
  • 2009 Sacramento Regional: Motorola Quality Award, Regional Winner
  • 2009 Los Angeles Regional: General Motors Industrial Design Award, Regional Finalist
  • 2009 FIRST Championship: Championship- Motorola Quality Division Finalist -Galileo
  • 2010 San Diego Regional: FIRST Dean’s List Finalist Award, Quality Award sponsored by Motorola, Regional Finalist
  • 2010 Los Angeles Regional: Engineering Inspiration, Regional Engineering Inspiration Award, Regional Winner
  • 2010 FIRST Championship: Quality Award sponsored by Motorola
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