About Us

 Team 2374, the Jesuit Crusaderbots, was founded in 2007 when Nik Bowen, a Jesuit student, approached Dr. Catherine Molloseau, a physics teacher, proposing the possibility of a robotics team after he attended a week-long leadership program in Boston, which included a section on robotics. An informational meeting was held at Jesuit to determine the student body's interest in a potential robotics program. 

There were 38 students in attendance. As part of the meeting, Dale Yocum, robotics program director at Catlin Gabel, gave a presentation on the FIRST robotics competition, shared video clips of the 2007 National competition, and demonstrated their robot. Interested students composed a proposal to start a team which was presented and approved by the Jesuit Administration. 

The result of a follow up parent meeting was the creation of FIRST Team 2374. The Catlin Gabel Robotics, Team 1540, was our “team mentor”, working closely with us our rookie year. Together we initiated the Bunnybots competition, a small-scale robotics competition primarily for rookie members of a team to gain experience. The team met and built their first robot in a physics classroom, until year two where they moved to an English classroom. During the early years of the team, there were minimal tools and equipment.

In 2009, Dan Calkins became the Physics teacher at Jesuit High School and a robotics club coach. That same year the team migrated to an unseated storage shed, our first dedicated work space. The team worked all summer to get the shop ready for the coming season.