Enthusiasm, dedication and hard work brought home the Industrial Design Award for the B'East Robotics Team 2202 at the FIRST Wisconsin Regional Robotics Competition held March 10 to 12 at the U.S. Cellular Arena.

FIRST is a national event founded by Segway inventor Dean Kamen to inspire an appreciation of science and technology in young people. 

The B'East Robotics Team 2202 is made up of 25 students from Brookfield East High School with volunteer mentors and parent and alumni volunteers.  Mentors include experts in the field who work with the student teams helping them learn technical skills.

The team is composed of many sub-teams each completing specific tasks. Sub-teams include: animation, code (programming), course (builds the practice playing field), crate (packages robot for ship day), electrical, marketing, mechanical, drivetrain, special functions (arms, shooters, collectors, etc.), inventor (model robot before building), video (documents season), and web.

The first challenge involved picking up inflatable triangle, circle and square tubes, and placing them on the rack in order of the FIRST logo. The second challenge was to deploy their mini-bot which attached to one of the poles to climb up. 

One team member is the driver. The coach and the timekeeper watch the playing field to give strategy advice, while a forth teammate throws inflatable tubes for the robot to pick up and use.