Send a Wave to Houston!

Oshkosh FIRST Team 2826 Wave Robotics is a community team that welcomes public, private, and homeschooled students from all over Winnebago County.  Wave is driven by volunteers and a public-private partnership, receiving support from Area Businesses and the Oshkosh Rec Department with a home base located in Oshkosh North High School.  Our students are committed to raising awareness of STEM and opportunities within the trades and manufacturing industries through their own learning and the completion of more than 2,000 hours of outreach annually. Wave Robotics punched its ticket to the World Championship by winning the Impact Award at the Central Illinois Regional March 16th.  The FIRST Impact Award is the most prestigious award at FIRST, it honors the team that best represents a model for other teams to emulate and best embodies the mission of FIRST. It was created to keep the central focus of FIRST Robotics Competition on the ultimate goal of transforming the culture in ways that will inspire greater levels of respect and honor for science and technology, as well as encouraging more of today’s youth to become science and technology leaders!  The Championship is held in Houston, Texas April 16-21, 2024 where they will compete with 600 teams, from thousands, all over the world.  Unlike other High School Championships, the FIRST Teams are required to pay a registration fee of $5,750 to participate in the Competition.  In addition to that, we are projecting a minimum cost of $1,500/student and Volunteer Mentor in travel expenses. (We put 4 in a hotel room!).  With two Regional Competitions, our families have already spent $900/student for this fast-paced hands-on learning experience.    We also have some unfortunate timing in that our trailer that carries the robot, pit, shop and other competition supplies has been rendered unsafe and has exceeded its expected life span.  It will need to be replaced.  As it was aging, we had been looking into replacement options and anticipate the cost to be between $8,000 and $10,000.  We greatly appreciate your generous support and would welcome you to the opportunity to support our trip to the 2024 Championship, sponsor a student, mentor, or purchase of the trailer.  THANK YOU so much for your consideration and support!