Bomb Squad 16 from Mountain Home, Arkansas won the Chairman’s Award at the 2000 FIRST Championship.

The Baxter Healthcare Corporation was challenged to sponsor a team to compete in 1996 FIRST Design Competition. After accepting the challenge, Baxter Healthcare presented the US First Design Competition to the students and faculty of Mountain Home High Schools, where 20 students were chosen to become part of the team. Team 16 challenged these students to problem solve and brainstorm creative designs for their robot, and worked to instill a sense of community between the students.

Since then, the team has continued to spread connect present and past members of the team to the FIRST community.

ALUMNI ASSOCIATION

Inspired by their 20th season, Team 16 recently began the process of reconnecting alumni with Bomb Squad. During the build season, Team 16 had many past members of Bomb Squad visit their building, talk to students, and even allow the team to borrow historic memorabilia. Team 16’s 2015 season had an overall theme of looking at Bomb Squad’s extensive and successful history, and sharing memories with alumni. Team 16 even decided to name their robot “TwoMinute Warning” in honor of early Bomb Squad robots sharing the same name. Now into their 21st, Team 16 wishes to continue this spirit of reflection by encouraging alumni to reconnect with the current team. To jumpstart participation in their alumni association, Team 16 began a quarterly newsletter to introduce the idea to past members. The newsletter is also intended to keep alumni informed on what Bomb Squad is accomplishing and how they are changing. Team 16 hopes to encourage all of their alumni to become involved with FIRST by showing them how much the program means to Bomb Squad students and even other past members.

The Alumni Association encourages donations to the team so that they can continue operating and inspiring students to succeed. Bomb Squad has been gathering information about the education, location, and occupation of their diverse alumni so that they can assess and enhance the impact of Team 16 and the lives of their students. They wish to reach as many of the original Team 16 members as possible and aim to continue expanding their association to accommodate their ever increasing pool of alumni.

Submitted Video