Welcome to the Cyber Blue 234 homepage! This year marks our 12th season as we unite students and engineers in projects of science and technology, as well as spreading the FIRST message to everyone we meet. Our robotics team, from Perry Meridian High School in Indianapolis, Indiana, has grown to include partnerships with our generous sponsors: Allison Transmission, Rolls-Royce, Morris Machine, Indiana Workforce Development, many community business sponsors, and our Proud Grandmas. Explore the great resources available on CyberBlue234.com. There's lots of helpful information!

On March 3, Cyber Blue 234 traveled to Kansas City, Missouri, for the Greater Kansas City Regional Competition, along with 59 other teams. Amid cheers of our own team and the members of our alliances, we made our way to a drafting position to play in the Quarter Finals and have a chance to win it all. Unfortunately, we lost in the Quarter Finals, but we played great, fair matches and had a blast cheering on all of the other teams, seeing some old friends and connecting with new ones. We enjoyed visiting the pit areas and learning about our fellow teams and how they operate. Though we didn’t make it to the gold in the Finals, we won the Entrepreneurship Award for our detailed Business and Continuity plans and the way we professionally handle ourselves at competitions and in our community. The Greater Kansas City Regional Competition was an exciting competition, and it has gotten us excited for the rest of the competition season.

Cyber Blue had a successful weekend at the Boilermaker Regional. We ended the qualification rounds as the 5th alliance seed captains. We made it all the way to the finals and became runner-ups at the event. At the award ceremony we also won the Chairman’s Award, the most prestigious award in FIRST. We would like to thank all of our families, friends, and fans for your tremendous support at the event!

Cyber Blue reaches out to the community in many ways. With the money raised from the 2009 IRI charity auction, we are supporting Hunger Inc., a southside food pantry. Our team members divided into groups and shopped for needed items. We then delivered the food to the pantry, weighing it in and preparing it for the shelves. Thus far, our team has donated approximately 800 pounds of food.

Cyber Blue is a key host of the Indiana Robotics Invitational (IRI) and has helped this event grow from 20 teams in 2000, to 72 teams in 2009. Our entire team, including our Parent Crew, volunteer at this off-season tournament. Working closely with Team 45, the TechnoKats (founders of the IRI), and Team 1024, the Kil-a-Bytes, this event has become both an excellent Robotics Competition as well as providing a high level of community support."The best of the best" are attracted to this popular off season competition.

Improvement and Innovation—two words synonymous with the Cyber Blue brand of robot. To up our level of robotics knowledge, Cyber Blue partnered with a FIRST-oriented company, Team 221 LLC, to write instructions for their C.O.T.S. swerve drive system, WildSwerve. To test the swerve console assemblies and write the instructions, Cyber Blue formed four small groups that each wrote/edited instructions for assembly. In addition, our team collaborated with 80/20 Inc. for a quick but durable chassis to complete the testing of the WildSwerve system. This type of drive was completely new to Cyber Blue; we hope it will yield more options for future competition. We will continue to test the experimental robot to evaluate performance and discover new avenues of improvement.

Our team participated in American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life on June 13 and 14, 2009 to help raise funds to fight cancer. We raised $1,100 with the help of our sponsor, Rolls-Royce. Seventeen students and 10 adults participated in this 24 hour event. While at least two Cyber Blue team members were walking during the entire event, other members were demonstrating our Lunacy robot and helping children operate smaller VEX robots. We also sold nachos and cheese to raise additional money for the ACS. Some of our members also contributed money to purchase luminaries to remember both those that have lost the battle against cancer and cancer survivors. The event provided an opportunity to contribute to a great cause, promote the message of FIRST, and reflect on the need to continue the fight against cancer.