Founding
In 2011, a handful of parents involved in the local FIRST events came to the rescue of Champaign's FLL Qualifier after sponsor funding was pulled. These parents formed Illini Robotics, the non-profit organization whose primary mission was to run events for local FLL teams. After some funding from JC Penny through Illinois 4-H, Illini Robotics mission shifted to include the formation of an FRC team, Ctrl-Z!
Ctrl-Z was founded in the 2011 by passionate students, parent and college mentors! We started as FTC Team 5203, Brains on Bots before transitioning to FRC for the 2012 season. In the past 7 years, Ctrl-Z has grown to a successful, award-winning team of 34 students with students from 9 local high schools with the help and support of numerous coaches, mentors, and parents!
2012-2018
In our first year, Ctrl-Z competed at the 2012 Midwest Regional in Chicago, winning the Coopertition Award! In the 2014 offseason, we attended our first offseason event in Rockford, R2OC. Since 2015, we have attended two regionals each year, the Midwest Regional in Chicago and the Central Illinois Regional in Peoria. In the summer of 2016, Ctrl-Z hosted it's first ever SYRA summer camp for local 3rd - 8th graders! In the fall of 2017, we started Ctrl-Y, our FTC team. In 2018, Ctrl-Z won the Regional Chairman's Award at the Central Illinois Regional, qualifying the team for the FIRST World Championship for the first time ever! In the fall 0f 2018, we formed another FTC team, Ctrl-X!
Today
This year, Ctrl-Z ranked 11th overall at the 2019 Midwest Regional winning the Innovation in Control Award. At the Central Illinois Regional we won the Regional Engineering Inspiration, qualifying the team for the World Championship for the second year in a row! From April 25th-27th, you can watch our matches here!
Learn more about our team's achievments and competitions results here!