About Team 1540

The Flaming Chickens after winning the 2008 Oregon Regional

Team 1540 is an organization at the Catlin Gabel School in Portland, Oregon. Each year, we compete in the FIRST robotics competition (learn more about FIRST by visiting our About FIRST page) as Team 1540 - The Flaming Chickens. In our first year, 2005, Team 1540 won the Rookie Inspiration Award and the Best Website Award. In 2007, won the most prestigious of FIRST’s awards, the Chairman's Award! Our Chairman's Award qualified us for the World Championship in Atlanta, GA. In the 2008 season, we and the other two teams on our alliance won the Oregon Regional along with the Engineering Inspiration Award. In 2009, we won the Engineering Inspiration award again at the Oregon Regional and the Website award at the Las Vegas and the Oregon Regional. View a complete list of our awards here.

This extra-curricular activity has grown significantly since its rookie year, and for the 2010 season, we had a record 25 members. For pictures and more information about these dedicated students, visit our Members page. We have acquired a wealth of knowledge and experience as we now enter into our sixth consecutive competition season.

In addition to our high school FIRST team, Catlin Gabel has had FIRST Lego League Teams for many years. These middle school teams provide a great foundation for our high school team. We host two FLL regional tournaments at Catlin Gabel every year, where middle schoolers get to compete as well a chance to tour Team 1540's lab to see what high school robotics is all about. And on the flip side, we high schoolers have a great time mentoring the middle schoolers and watching their excitement grow as they see the kinds of things FIRST robotics makes us capable of.

Our team is organized into departments that specialize in different areas. These departments include Software, Fabrication, Control Systems, and Marketing. Students interested in joining a particular department are encouraged to work to earn certifications in these areas. To learn more about our departments, check out the Departments page.

We are active year-round which allows us to work on a variety of projects. In the fall, members go through a certification process unique to each department. After achieving a certification or two, members build practice robots called "Bunny Bots". Some of these robots are used to test new ideas, while others teach new members the basics of how FIRST robots work. After they are built, we engage in a competition with other teams around the greater Portland area. After the kickoff where we learn this year’s task, we concentrate the competition and building the most competitive robot we can. Nearly everyone is in our lab almost every day after school, working hard to create a masterpiece in the 6-week build season.

Currently we are ending our build season and our team is working on the final robot, Pyro.

Thanks for visiting Team 1540!