Team 2449 and History

We are FRC (FIRST Robotics Competition) Team 2449, based out of Tempe, Arizona. Jointing from James Madison Prep and Marcos De Niza High School, the team was started by Shea Ferring and Jose Orosco.

First year: The Rookie kicking it into overdrive

It started out as an idea of Shea Ferring of Orbital science and Jose Orosco of Intel, both seasoned competitors in the FIRST arena: Start yet another team, this time in Arizona. So, they approached Stan Ferris, the local science teacher at James Madison Prep and Sandy Gordon, one of the physics teachers at Marcos De Niza, who both enthusiastically accepted. So, with a group of hard-core students, Team 2449 started on its course with the challenge of getting large, Forty Inch diameter balls around a track, putting them over and under overpasses. As a rookie team, no one knew how tough the competition was going to be. Yet, at the end of the event, we still were wildly successful, coming away with the Website excellence award, Xerox creativity award, and the ROOKIE ALL STAR award, the top award a rookie team can achieve. As such, we traveled to compete in the National competition in Atlanta, GA. With a successful season under our belt, we had no where to go but, well, further out of orbit! Visit that season’s site here.

Year Two: building our way to the moon

The second year was much bigger. With almost double the active students, three new mentors, team 2805 (a local FTC team at James Madison Prep), and an underwater robotics competition team at ASU, we were ready to face the challenge of launching “moon rocks” into trailers of the opposite team. At the same time Team 689, from Hamilton High School, shared space with us due to their lack of it. This partnership won us the gracious Professionalism award. In the end, it was an exceptional season. Visit the season’s site here.