[Brandon Holley]

Originally Posted by Jardanium

2479 is an interesting one, I'm not quite sure they had a team in 1993 though. As far to my knowledge, the only team in North Minneapolis back in 1993 was one based out of North High School. We had a mentor on our team whose son was on the team back then. (the stories she told and yearbook she showed were so interesting!) This mentor had told us that the team lost the support of their primary sponsor, Honeywell, and died out. That team was never numbered either, so there really is no traceable history of them competing. We helped support the growth of a new robotics program at North High School, who now competes under 5637.

I'm not sure if the original North High School team has connections to 2479 or not, but from what I've heard, it isn't likely. We also supported the "rebirth" of 2479 these last two years based out of the Minneapolis College Prep Charter School, however the school shutdown last year, along with the rebirth of the Phoenix. It's a shame that a team has to die out when the school closes, however I have hope that maybe we'll see 2479 end up somewhere again, just like they did when the team started with us back in 2014.

We have seen a bad retention rate when it came to teams sustaining in urban areas, with lack of funding, schools closing, or teachers leaving being common results. It's been a problem we've been working to solve in Minneapolis, but obviously some (like 2479) die off without being able to do anything about it. It's really hard to keep a team sustaining when a school closes and their entire student base separates to two high schools with FRC Teams.

From what I've seen lack of funding, school closings, and mentors leaving are the most common factors for teams dying out, but I wonder what else could cause it.

If you spend some time digging through the Tecknokat's History Project: http://www.technokats.org/history-project/ you may be able to trace some of the early goings of the team.

These documents helped a lot in piecing the story of 125 together. We learned a ton about our team and were able to reestablish some connections to help get the full history back. Our team goes all the way back to the beginning in 1992, but we missed a year in 1995. The team that existed back then split into a couple different teams in 1997 which is why our rookie year is 1998.

Best
Brando