In the fall of 1999 Greater Rochester Robotics, GRR, was formed by an alliance between Nortel Networks and Churchville-ChiliHigh School. The team was open to any Churchville-Chili student in grades 9-12 and any child of a Nortel Networks employee. Because of this, we had 35 team members from 5 different schools in the Greater Rochester area. Led by 2 teachers, a handful of engineers from Nortel Networks, a few parents, and other Churchville-Chili residents, we all learned how to build a robot together. That year we attended our first ever FIRST Regional event at RutgersUniversity. GRR was awarded the Rookie All-Star award on Friday and on Saturday was picked by team 303 to play in the elimination rounds. There we went on to play to the Final Round and was awarded with the Finalist Trophies and Medals. Due to our success in New Jersey we decided to attend the National Championship in Orlando, Florida at EpcotCenter. We again competed in 2 days of competition and were picked last for the elimination round by Team 22, where we were unfortunately knocked out in the first round. Despite our loss at the National Championship we were hooked and decided to continue on for the next year. We knew bigger and better things were to come.