History

                 FIRST team 2996, Cougars Gone Wired, was founded in the fall of 2008 by a few dedicated students and Bryce McLean, an engineering and mathematics teacher at Coronado High School. It blossomed from there, gaining nearly 50 students by the beginning of the 2009 build season.

                From that very first season, Cougars Gone Wired has gained considerable success, but not without challenges. Given the complexity of building a robot and the team’s inexperience, the robot for 2009 Lunacy was built to be what the team jokingly called “Dozer” for its ability to do little but push other robots around on the field. With little competitive success on the first day of competition at the Colorado Regional, but energized by receiving the Website and Animation awards, the team returned to the final competition intent on enjoying the rest of the time at competition, because it was pretty clear that Dozer would not get into the elimination rounds. However, thanks to the kindness of the­­­ 1^st seeded team: FIRST team 399 and their partner FIRST team 1332, the Cougars not only made it to the elimination rounds, but were part of the winning alliance. Between that victory and winning the Rookie All-Star award, Cougars Gone Wired made it to the International Competition in Atlanta, Georgia.

                Inspired by previous success, the Cougars went into the 2010 game Breakaway with the aim of creating a robot that would be able to competitively play the game.  This met with limited success, as at the Kansas City regional they didn’t place highly in the standings or receive any awards; however, at the Colorado regional the Cougars were awarded the Entrepreneurship, the Industrial Safety, and the Autodesk Excellence in Design awards as well as making it to the semi-finals in competition.

                2011 Logomotion is team 2996’s most successful season to date. Winning the Entrepreneurship award for the second year in a row and being knocked out in the semi-finals at the Kansas City regional fueled the team’s excitement, and at the Colorado Regional, Cougars Gone Wired hit the ground running. The first evening saw several personal triumphs with senior Scott Von Thun receiving the FIRST Dean’s List Finalist award and Bryce Mclean, the team’s “Big Kahuna,” receiving the Woodie Flowers Regional award. The second evening saw two team triumphs: making the quarter-finals and being awarded the Regional Chairman’s award. This time around, the international competition was much more successful. The Cougars ended in the 7^th seed in the Curie division.