Team 2537 was formed in 2007 with only 7 students and a handful of mentors. Made with the most rudimentary materials such as chicken wire and wood in the modest Atholton wood shop, the early robots were typical of a rookie team. However, to call Team 2537 anything other than a Robotics Club would be an overstatement.
Fall 2013 saw the birth of the new Team 2537. We focused not just on engineering excellence but on FIRST values–being a role model for other teams, expanding outreach, supporting other FIRST teams, and providing a well-rounded experience for all team members. Team 2537 experienced explosive growth during this time, to a team of 72 active students.
The 2013-2014 season was a renaissance for Team 2537. Our business team’s won the Entrepreneurship Award at the Greater Washington DC Regional Competition while our robot finished for the first time ever as a finalist, and our Integration Captain was selected as one of the Dean’s List Finalists at the Chesapeake Regional Competition. In the off-season, Team 2537 was the alliance captain and won the Battle of Baltimore, followed by a finalist finish at the ILITE Robotics off-season IROC event.
In 2015 and 2016, we continued our success. Both years, we won the Entrepreneurship Award at the Greater Washington D.C. Regional AND celebrated a team member’s success as a Dean’s List Finalist. Additionally, in our 2015 year we were picked by the 4th seeded alliance at DC to compete in the quarterfinals and the 6th seeded alliance at Chesapeake. We were one point off making it to the 2015 semifinals at Chesapeake.
2017 – 2019 Marked a big rise as it was by far our strongest series of seasons. Not only did we win the Entrepreneurship Award in Greater Washington D.C Regional again in 2017, we made it to Worlds in St. Louis, Missouri. We went on to be part of the winning alliance of the Tesla division at Worlds! We continued to make it to worlds the following two years, setting a 3 year streak for us. We also focused heavily on increasing our involvement in the community. In 2019 alone, The Space RAIDers held/participated in more than 20 outreach events totaling more than 100 hours of community service ranging from teaching Girl Scouts about STEM to presenting at the Maryland State Legislature. These successes, based on our new team priorities, reinforced the message that FIRST is more than building robots. FIRST is a philosophy for growing both the technical, social, and professional skills for future success.
Like many other teams though, 2020-2021 was a rough time for us thanks to the COVID-19 Pandemic. We lost many mentors and most of our financial backing, along with most of outreach momentum. As the season structure returned to normal for the 2022 season, we only made it to be qualified for our District Championship event. Despite the fact we didn’t make it to worlds, we were grateful to be back at all! From 2022-2025, we’ve been slowly building up our team once more, planning outreach events with new facilities to rebuild connections, and getting new mentors to help for the team. We received a judges award in 2023, and a Team Sustainability award in 2024 for our expansive team wiki and documentation. Our team has been working tirelessly to keep up our team spirit, image, and strength following the Pandemic, and while its been difficult, we are working our way back up.
Space RAIDers 