In 2003 even more change was brought to Greater Rochester Robotics. Our partnership with Nortel Networks was at an end. We had only a few thousand dollars in the club account and no new prospect for a team sponsor. We could no longer work at the Nortel Networks facilities and only retained a couple mentors from Nortel. On the bright side our school had just built a brand new Math, Science, and Technology wing where we could work. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to bring the team home and work out of our own school.

We were now in our fourth year and had a number of fourth year seniors who wanted to graduate winners. Faced with little money and no prospects for more we decided to attend two regional events and forego the Championship Event. This year it would be the Buckeye Regional and a return to New Jersey.

At the Buckeye Regional we would make our greatest contacts and have our most disappointing finish to date. After two days of competition we were helplessly buried in the middle of a very good pack and we had not sold ourselves as well as we should have. Because of this we were not picked for the elimination round for the first time in team history. We also went home with a single award.

We knew we had to make some changes before we were to go to Rutgers or our fate could be the same. We made some simple changes to our robot design that we felt would help our robot work more efficiently and be more recognizable. We removed the unreliable bin stacking mechanism and replaced it with a large blocker sign. Our efforts paid off, the judges felt our robot was worthy of the Motorola Quality Award for the robust and durable design. We were also selected by the number one seed, Team 25, to participate in the elimination rounds. This partnership proved to be unstoppable as we went on to win the J&J Regional.

2003 ended in bitter sweet success. We proved that we had a great robot, good enough to compete with the best in the country. Unfortunately, we had no sponsor and no money so that is where our season ended.

2003 History