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On Tuesday, June 17^th a delegation of 8 students, two teachers and 6 engineer, community and parent mentors spent the day on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. meeting with the offices of Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand,  and the offices of Representatives Dan Maffei and Sean Patrick Maloney.  They received a private tour of the Capitol, courtesy of Senator Gillibrand, before a wonderful meeting with Congresswoman Louis Slaughter.  They finished off the day with a visit to Senate gallery to watch the voting a of the new Assitant Attorney General.   Rolling Thunder was one of 17 robotics teams from 14 states who were in DC as part of the 2014 FIRST National Advocacy Conference, organized by newly minted Championship Chairman's Team 27 Rush.  The students discussed with NY legislators the need for an increase in both the numbers and diversity of workers who are trained in STEM fields and how funding for Elementary, Middle and High School programs like FIRST Robotics can help achieve that goal.   Prior to the legislative meetings students received two days of training on how to effectively meet with legislators and specific information on the bills that establish funding for K-12 public schools.

You can check out all of our pictures from the trip here!

We're rolling out to St. Louis today for the Championship Event! We are so excited and so honored to be going to Champs for the 10th year in a row!

Be sure to Like Us on Facebook (click on the Facebook link to the right -->) for lots of fun pictures and updates. And you can keep track of how we're doing and watch us play on the Newton Division here.

Good luck to all the teams!

We are so honored to have won the Chairman's Award at the Finger Lakes Regional this past weekend! Our team definitely works hard throughout the year, trying to make our own mark on the world and in FIRST. Thank you to all of our friends and family, our school, our sponsors, and our community for all of your support, collaboration, and help!

We had a fantastic time at the inaugural New York Tech Valley Regional this past weekend at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY. There was a lot of great competition! Thank you to all of the volunteers, including many 1511 team members and friends for making it an awesome weekend!

We were seeded 7th, making it to the semi-finals, ultimately being eliminated by the winning alliance, Teams 1126 (from Webster), 229 (Clarkson), and 20. Congratulations to those winning teams! It was well-earned!

We also were honored with the Engineering Inspiration Award, which qualifies us for Championships. This is the 10th year in a row we have qualified for Champs! We are so excited to head back to St. Louis in April. And a big thanks to NASA who sponsors all the Engineering Inspiration winners by paying for the Championship registration fee!

Come check us and all the other great teams out at the Finger Lakes Regional March 27 - 29 at the Gordon Field House at RIT! It will surely be some great competition to see.

We finished our robot on Tuesday, sealing it up just under midnight!

Now we'll be finishing up robot 2 for the drivers to practice on and the programmers to write some additional code.

Come see our robot and all the other awesome robots at our two competitions!

New York Tech Valley Regional at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, March 13 to 15 in the ECAV Arena.

Finger Lakes Regional at Rochester Institute of Technology, March 27 to 29 in the Gordon Field House.

It's free and runs all day (8am to 5pm). Find us wearing our red camo and come cheer with us!