Bears started in 2004, when high-school director Hector Montes decided to form two FIRST LEGO League. It was the first year Mexico had an FLL tournament, and our team managed to garner the “Director’s Award”, which is given to the team that presents a high-quality robot which shows a team with knowledge, ability, integrity, and teamwork, which   are  all

 

essential to FIRST teams. Our award granted us an entry to the worldwide competition, the FIRST World Festival in Atlanta, GA; which made Bears the first mexican team to ever participate in a worldwide FIRST event.

 

 

2005 was another great year, we won the Director’s Award a second time, acquiring a ticket to Atlanta. Our innovating programming also got us the Programming Award and the Effort Award, granting us a pass to the Europe Open in Eindhoven, Holland.

This was the year Manny joined us, who is our oldest team member, being almost 20 and still a coach in Bears.

 

 

In 2006 we won the Programming and Effort awards, with an extraordinary score of 375/400, which is still the record for most points.

 

 

In 2007 we won the Design Award. This inspiring triumph got us two invitations: one for the American Open in Minneapolis, and one to the Asian Open, in Tokyo, Japan. We were the first mexican team to be invited to three different continents, making us a proud intercontinental team.

 

 

In 2008 we won FLL again, but this year was different, this year we decided to open an FTC team. This category had just recently opened, as FIRST changing VEX for TETRIX, making FIRST VEX into FIRST Tech Challenge. We competed in the first national FTC tournament in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon. We won the Connect Award and made it to the finals.

 

 

In 2009 there was a radical change… all of the FTC members had graduated from High School and the team was left with a roster full of rookies. And to add on most of the new team members were new to the school, giving them an extra challenge, but a lot of motivation.Even after this sudden change we managed to win the Inspire Award in Monterrey, which is equivalent to the Directors Award in FLL. We managed to go for the first time to the finals in Atlanta, and we were praised and awarded for our ideals, strategic thinking and real-life problem solving.

 

 

2010 was a year of many achievements. In FLL we won the Creative Presentation Award for our solution to Pulmonary Hypertension. In FTC we got the Connect Award and Motive Award. We also were mentors to the first FTC female team in Mexico.

 

In 2011 we had one of the best seasons we've ever had. For starters, the team had a complete overhaul; we had new coaches (who joined the old coaches), new students, new sponsors, and we got involved in more STEM categories. In FLL we ended up in the top 10 teams nation wide. In FTC we were undefeated and were crowned as the Winning Alliance Captain in the national championship, which gave us our pass for the World Championship in St Louis. Besides all of this we decided to open a VEX team, and even though no one thought we would succeed, we ended up winning twice the national competition plus a Build Award in one of them. With this, we also earned our spot in the World Championship in Anaheim. When april came we left for the 2 World Competitions. First in Anaheim we did great! We made it all the way to quarter finals, positioning ourselves between the top 8 alliances worldwide. We also received the Judges Award because of our work with the Start Alliance. A few days later, in the FTC Championship, our coach received the Compass Award,  and we won the Connect Award, 2nd place Inspire Award (the most important award in the competition), and a nomination for the Motivate Award.