History of SOTABots


SOTABots, unite!
Tacoma School of the Arts (SOTA) was established in 2001 in downtown Tacoma, Washington as a means of alternative education for students with a passion for various forms of art. The public school soon began to gain popularity within the district and the surrounding areas, with as many as four hundred students applying annually for one of the exclusive one-hundred-and-forty spots available in each class. By 2009, SOTA was a well-known, successful school, and the administrators decided to expand their vision. In fall of 2009, Tacoma Science and Math Institute (SAMI) was opened, another specialized school this time focused on science and math education. Like SOTA, the school quickly gained recognition for superior education and learning opportunities, drawing in applicants from all over the surrounding area. After the success of both SOTA and SAMI, school administrators took on the challenge of Stewart Middle School, a local school with unsatisfactory performance. Stewart was opened as part of the SOTA/SAMI/Stewart partnership in fall of 2010, as a feeder middle school with a goal of helping students identify their passions and prepare for higher education.

The SOTABots, team 2557, are a FIRST Robotics team involved in FRC (FIRST Robotics Competition). Renowned inventor Dean Kamen founded FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) in 1989 as an effort to get children and young adults interested in engineering. Since then, the organization has expanded worldwide, and has grown to incorporate every age group. While team 2557 is part of FRC, the highest of all FIRST challenges, there are three other levels of competition; FTC (FIRST Tech Challenge) for middle to high school students; FLL (FIRST Lego League) for elementary to middle school students; and Junior FLL for early elementary students. SOTA started the team in 2007 with a group of exclusively SOTA students, as neither SAMi nor Stewart were a part of the school's family at the time. But as the partnership began to grow, so did the team.

By fall of 2010, the SOTABots team expanded to include team members from SOTA, SAMI, and Stewart, with a combined total team of 80 students and members from the sixth to twelfth grade. The partnership includes a plethora of teams, including four FTC teams, teams 3039, 4053, 5171 and 4054, and four FLL teams, as well as the SOTABots FRC team, team 2557.