Bit Buckets Takes 1st Place at AZ East Regional

CONGRATULATIONS BIT BUCKETS!

Bit Buckets #4183 took first place at the Arizona East Regional over the weekend! They were also awarded the 2015 FRC Creativity Award. Take a look at their first place trophy here.

With the assistance of their alliance teams, The Sabercats #4146 and Tempe Prep Knights #3944 Bit Buckets triumphed over Hall of Fame team The Holy Cows and their alliance.

Bit Buckets' robot (appropriately named Stack Overflow) was designed and built at Xerocraft. Their robot received quite a bit of notice from others because it was uniquely constructed almost entirely of wood on our Trotec Speedy300 laser cutter! The robot will also be featured in an upcoming book on robotics design!

Great work to everyone on the team!

You can watch footage of the robot in action at the AZ East Regional Competition here and here.

But it's not the end for Bit Buckets just yet.

Their win at the AZ East Regional has elevated Bit Buckets to compete in the FIRST Robotics Challenge Championship in St. Louis on April 22-25. And it won't be cheap. Bit Buckets needs to raise about $20,000 in less than a month in order to fly the team to Missouri and pay the $5,000 entry fee! Our team does not have the deep pockets that most of the other winning teams have.

With that in mind, did you know that you can make a tax deductible donation of up to $200 if you file as single (and $400 is you file as married) to Bit Buckets and receive a dollar-for-dollar tax credit on your 2015 income taxes? It's true!

Click here to donate (and more info here). When you fill out the form, make sure to check the Bit Buckets box. Otherwise, City High will do whatever they please with the money (though you will still get the tax credit). Information about the tax break is available here.

Long story short: if you pay AZ state taxes, donating [up to $200 if you're single or up to $400 if you're married] to Bit Buckets ends up costing you $0 for the 2015 fiscal year as the donation is credited against the amount you owe to Arizona.

And check this out: one of Bit Bucket's previous submersible robots was even featured in the major motion picture Spare Parts, starring George Lopez, Jamie Lee Curtis and Marisa Tomei. It was released in January.