History of team 1151

The robotics program at Middle College began in the fall of 2002, when it was initially offered as an independent-study course with Contra Costa College instructor Tom Murphy. As such, the program had no official class meetings, and participants were allowed a degree of freedom with the amount of work they chose to do. When it began at the beginning of the fall semester, it was concerned solely with programming small, pre-built robots, and there were no intentions of building a robot from the ground up.

Around Thanksgiving 2002, Mr. Murphy was contacted by the De Anza High School FIRST Robotics team with the proposition that Middle College form its own FIRST team. He polled the members of his independent-study course and warned them that building a robot was a much larger commitment than they had previously experienced. Even so, the challenge was accepted and FIRST team 1151 was formed.

In December, a grant from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers paid the entrance fee for the Hitchhikers. The team then chose to base its name, logo, and theme on a five-book "trilogy" called The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams. Until the FIRST "kickoff" event in January 2003, where teams received their robot-building supplies, team 1151 didn't pick up many members. The team was then advertised to Middle College students as a flexible way to receive credit for having fun, and many new Hitchhikers joined.