Mountaineer area robotics team 2614

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Mountaineer Area Robotics, known simply as MARS, is a high school robotics team from Morgantown, West Virginia. The team consists of students from the two local high schools, University High School and Morgantown High School. 2008 was the team's rookie year. In 2008, the team traveled to nearby Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for the Pittsburgh Regional sponsored by FIRST. While there, they rose up over all other rookie teams for the Rookie All-Star award. The team traveled to the World Festival in the Georgia Dome and World Congress Center. But the rookie award was not enough for MARS. paired up with team #337 from Logan County, West Virginia and team #357 from Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania just outside of Philadelphia, the three-team alliance were the regional winners. They will be traveling to the World Festival as well.

[edit] FIRST

FIRST, or For Inspiration of Science and Technology, is a world-wide organization that inspires students to build robots for competition. The organization is based on the idea of gracious professionalism, where teams maintain healthy competition while still acting gracious and professional toward other teams. For example, at the competition, in the pit area (where teams keep, repair, and maintain their robot), if a team needs something, such as a part, other teams will pitch in and help them.

[edit] Sponsors

The MARS team is sponsored by several companies. They include the West Virginia University Physics Department (who provided the team with build space, a metal shop, and money), the West Virginia University College of Engineering and Mineral Resources, the Garrett Engineering and Robotics Society (GEARS team #1629 from Garrett County, Maryland not too far from Morgantown) Mylan Pharmaceuticals, the Dominion Post (a local newspaper), Nick's Canteen (a local restaurant located within a short distance from the WVU Physics Department, Tygart Technologies, West Virginia High Tech Consortium, Bakers Ridge Pet Hotel, Cheat Lake Urgent Care Old Colony Realtors, the Monongalia County Board of Education, the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences, Augusta Systems, the Mountaineer Boys and Girls Club, NASA, and the NASA West Virginia Space Grant Consortium.