FRC Team 2135

Presentation Invasion, or FRC Team 2135, is based at Presentation High School, a single-sex Catholic school for young women in San Jose, CA. Founded in 2006, our team has grown from a handful of students to 40+ active members that participate in the FIRST Robotics Competition. We are an all-girls team dedicated to creating a safe and comfortable environment for our members to learn about STEM-related fields while building robotics skills.

History

The team was formed in 2006 through the interest of two highly motivated students and first competed at the 2007 Silicon Valley Regional. During the early years, work was done in the hallways and classrooms before the school expanded by purchasing a nearby house and allocating the garage for team use. In those first years, the team had varying interest from the overall student body with a size that ranged from roughly 8 to 20 passionate and active members during the year. A small machine shop was built in the garage for students to use as the program grew in experience. The key objectives in developing the program were to obtain the needed tools, teach skills, and provide an experience that gives confidence to female students beyond what they could obtain almost anywhere else.

In 2014, the team had success with a simple but unique design that was well suited to the game and resulted in its first win at the Central Valley Regional. As a result, thirteen members of the team attended the FRC Championship in St. Louis for the very first time, competing with teams from all over the world. In 2015 and 2016, the team worked hard to recruit more members from the student body while continuing to build straightforward designs. There was also an increase in commitment to outreach by mentoring FLL teams, volunteering at FLL tournaments, Maker Faire, and helping with the annual Santa Clara County Toys 4 Tots distribution.

The recruiting effort came to fruition in 2017 as we had 18 Freshman members as part of our total 30-member team. The robot was again well-targeted for the challenge, and the team won for the second time at the Central Valley Regional. The team took 20 students to the FRC Championship in Houston.

Robots

• Mo - 2012
• Steve - 2013
• Atlas - 2014
• Archie - 2015
• Max - 2016
• Crush - 2017