UFH: Brandon Martus

[Bharat Nain]

Hey Brandon,
Congractulations for being the ninth Unsung FIRST Hero.. Feels great doesn't it, especially after working hard for 7 years? Good Job:)

[CD47-Bot]

Thread created automatically to discuss UFH Honoree: Brandon Martus (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/ufh.php?action=honoreedetail&id=17/).

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/ufh/image/1086050710brandon_martus_jpg (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/ufh.php?action=honoreedetail&id=17)

Name: Brandon Martus
Date Honored: 05-31-2004
Years involved w/FIRST: 7
FIRST Team(s): Delphi/DaimlerChrysler &, Pontiac Central High School (0047)
Role: Webmaster
Quote: “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing." - Socrates
Bio: Brandon Martus is one of the behind-the-scenes FIRSTers, and by behind-the-scenes, we really mean 'behind the computer screens'. Brandon has been running ChiefDelphi.com for seven years, giving the FIRST community an invaluable service that many of us use religiously. Working as a programmer and developer for Chimes, Inc. in Troy, Michigan, Brandon has been working and developing CD since 1998.

Brandon recalls one of his first triumphant FIRST memories for us: "One memory I have of FIRST is way back in 1998 when I first started working on the website. The forums didn’t work at all, and I remember working on trying to get the forums to do something for the longest time. Everything I tried failed; everything I found while searching for help failed. Then all of a sudden I stumbled upon the problem and was able to open a new thread. I was so happy that I had gotten something working; I jumped up and ran around the house yelling with excitement. I guess you could compare it to when you got your first robot moving, or won a regional or something." Brandon gives us this nugget of advice: "That memory is proof, to me at least, that you should never give up when things aren’t going your way. Keep trying and eventually you will be successful."

Brandon's list of accomplishments and contributions to the FIRST community are anything but few. "I've maintained the Chief Delphi website for the past 7 years. I was asked to help finish up the forums when an engineer at Delphi didn't have time to finish them. I taught myself Perl and took on the task of making the forums work. And now 7 years later, I guess I'm still working on getting that done (and loving every minute of it). I think I've learned pretty much everything I know about website programming from working on chiefdelphi.com.

In the past seven years I’ve been the sole developer for the website, working on any new features as well as maintaining the existing forums and other features. In the beginning, I worked on adding features such as the ability to save users’ team, location and team role information, to make it easier to form an identity on the Chief Delphi forums.

From there, I worked on adding a section to the site where people could upload pictures of their robots, their competition experience, and other FIRST-related activities. The Who-Am-I gallery was created so that people could have their picture show up next to their posts. This was added so other users could see who was posting the ideas and views, and possibly recognize them easier at a competition.

I also developed a similar area to store white papers written by teams from all around FIRST. Teams could upload their technical and team-related documents and make them available to everybody via our website. To date, there have been nearly 200 documents stored in this system, accounting for nearly ¼ million downloads. In the summer of 2002, I worked on developing a FIRST-related pari-mutual betting game, called the Chief Delphi Ventures System. The system was loosely modeled after the pari-mutual system used in horse racing. Users could bet points on the outcomes of events, in hopes of ending up with the most points at the end of the season.

In order to highlight some of the great discussions on the forums, I wrote a system in which people could spotlight their favorite quotes. If they saw a quote that was worthy of being remembered, they could suggest it to be spotlighted for all to see and remember.

I’ve worked with the Unsung FIRST Heroes committee and integrated their volunteer recognition system into the forums. A similar system has been created to honor the past Woodie Flowers Award winners, as well. I’ve written some custom features into the forums, which provide external content for other FIRST teams’ websites. Teams can show a random Chief Delphi Spotlight on their website, for instance. There is also a script available that will show recent Chief Delphi activity on external websites. I’ve also worked with Andrew Schenk from Team 201, and provided their scouting database with images straight from our image gallery on a team-by-team basis.

I’ve also volunteered some time this year, along with David Kelly of Cyber Blue (234), to provide FIRST with a website to collect the Woodie Flowers Award submissions. Teams can log in to nominate a mentor for the award. Judges can then log in and use the system to judge all of the entries. After viewing the WFA website, FIRST asked us to help write a system which allowed them to judge the Website Award. We developed a system where judges could log in and rate the websites on a regional scale."

Brandon was nominated four times by four different people (a UFH record, to date) and was our first to be nominated. Congratulations to Brandon Martus, our thirteenth Unsung FIRST Hero.


Nominated By: Joe Ross, Will Hanashiro, Mike Martus, miketwalker

[Jessica Boucher]

Congrats, Brandon! You deserve this!

And I'm still totally jealous my dad met you before I did. Bah.

PS - Weee! I got to this thread before Morrison! :D

[Amanda Morrison]

Congratulations to Brandon Martus on being honored as our ninth Unsung FIRST Hero.

______________________

All business aside: My Shrine to Brandon Martus. B, I hate you. SO MUCH. And you smell funny.
And you're incredibly cool and probably my best FIRST friend. Here's to many more random FIRST trips, crashing on your couch, meeting your friend Jose, my first Red Robin, notes on your car, making you do my bidding on the forums (yeah right), getting to be as tall as you for twenty seconds, letting you meet my Crazy Polish Grandma, Justin on the phone and Vance's "I heard that back in like, oh, second grade", your dad TOTALLY knows my name, and most of all, being privileged enough to be your midget friend who makes you carrot cake (your favorite) and oyster crackers (you're hooked). Oh yeah, and crushing your trachea. I hate you, B. And you totally deserve this.

[Mike Schroeder]

Congrats to Brandon, you really deserve this, thanks for all the work you put into CD :)

gee i wonder who that guy is next to you, who ever he is he has a nice taste in hawiian shirts (i liked that hawiian shirt.... to bad they were all given out/taken away from me)

[Rich Wong]

HURRAY FOR BRANDON!

CONGRATS TO A MOST DESERVING WINNER OF UFH.
:)

[miketwalker]

Brandon definitly deserved this. Awesome job!!!! :)

[Elyse Holguin]

Brandon definitly deserved this. Awesome job!!!! :)

ditto what he said :)

[D.J. Fluck]

Well deserved!

Congrats!

[Ken Leung]

Brandon Brandon Brandon... Just about the most famous person in FIRST beside those other big FIRST personalities. Whether you care to admit it or not, you are directly responsible for making an impact in a lot of FIRST participants' life, including mine. Your hard work on the Chief Delphi Forum made this site one of the most important experience a FIRST participant can ever have. I for one opened my eyes when I found out about this forum. I've met all of my FIRST friends because of this site, and so did thousands of other users.

We are extremely lucky to have you here working behind the scene 24/7, there are not many human being who contribute their time so selflessly for the greater good of a community.

Now if only we have a Brandon out here in California we will be all set.

Most of my memories about Brandon is back in the days when I post a lot and at great length, I had to either ask Brandon to open locked threads so I can post in them, or setup little corners so I can post my old newsletter. I must've asked him to help me out thousands of times. The most I remember about Brandon is how supportive he was whenever I made long post about something. He usually said "hey I saw you exceed the word limit again, haha, good job!". It really made me feel the effort were worth it.

Thank you Brandon, we will be all lost without you.

[Karthik]

Brandon,

With all the great work you've done, you totally deserve this recognition. We all speak a lot about the "FIRST community", well this community wouldn't be as tightly knit if it weren't for all your efforts. This website brings a lot of people together, I don't think it's impact is really fully recognized. You've done an amazing job over the years.

[JohnBoucher]

Congrats Brandon,

I cannot imagine what the FIRST community was like before you started CD. There must have been total chaos. Perhaps riots and worse yet …. snail mail.

This is a well-deserved honor. FIRST is 24/7/365. It’s a comfort to sign in and always see new activity and other members on the board. You have given us community and place to belong and for that I am grateful.

It was a pleasure meeting you in Atlanta and I hope to see you next time around. Keep up the good work.

JohnBoucher

Also if you’re having problems with Jess, I can send you some pictures that you can use at your discretion.

[Arefin Bari]

Congratulation brandon, you have put so much work into this community... you definitely deserve this... every time i have problem with cd... the name that screams out of my mouth is brandon... you earned it... congrats man...

[Andy Grady]

Brandon,

This honor is long overdue and well deserved. Lets face it, without you and your constant support of this website, there would be no FIRST community. I think we all owe you a debt of gratitude for all the wonderful friendships that we have developed over the years through this site. You have truely changed FIRST for the better over the years. Thank you and congrats!

-Andy Grady

[RoboMom]

Brandon has been, without exception, so incredibly helpful with every question I've thrown his way. A class act. Thanks for being there.

[Steve W]

Brandon,

With all the great work you've done, you totally deserve this recognition. We all speak a lot about the "FIRST community", well this community wouldn't be as tightly knit if it weren't for all your efforts. This website brings a lot of people together, I don't think it's impact is really fully recognized. You've done an amazing job over the years.

It's TOTALLY against my nature to agree with Karthik BUT he hit the nail on the head.

You are the best! Just don't let it go to your head. See you at Wonderland. :D

[Ashley Weed]

Congratulations Brandon!
....You have made CD an absolutely amazing place, thanks for all you do.

[Joe Matt]

On behalf of all my teachers, you deserve a slap...

for all the time I've spent on CD.

Good job, and keep up the good work. Remeber, because you're the UFH, you have to work *even harder*. So now it's Make Brandon Work Half Month!!!!!


PS- What type of cold medicine were you on in that picture?

[Jay H 237]

Congratulations Brandon! :)

It's been said before and I'll say it again. Without you this forum wouldn't be the forum it is today. Heck, without you Chief Delphi (.com) wouldn't exist at all! The UHF award is long overdue but well deserved by you.

Keep up the great work! :cool:

[JVN]

Brandon,
Without you... the FIRST community would not be the way it is today.

Thank you for ALL you have done, not just for the community, but for me personally. You've certainly had a positive impact on my life, and I really do appreciate it.

I'm happy to see you honored (finally).
It just shows that worthy candidates can't hide from this honor forever. ;)

You really are the man.

Your Friend and Un-worthy Fan,
John

[AndrewMorrison]

I know you have probably heard enough of it but... Congratualtions Brandon, you definately deserved this.

[Max Lobovsky]

Brandon,

I have only been involved in FIRST for a year, but I can already see that you deserve this. In your own unique way, you have help to expand the FIRST community beyond competitions and teams. Thanks for everything you have done for FIRST.

[Ken Patton]

Congratulations, Brandon!

You have done so much for this community - you created it's nervous system, you helped it grow and build so many new inter-connections, you've given all of us a place to go where we can experience all of the great FIRST feelings.

Thank you for doing it! What an amazing set of accomplishments you can be proud of!

Ken

[Will Hanashiro]

its been said a few times before, but i have to repeat it... this honor is long overdue. i've never even met brandon, yet he somehow managed to change my whole FIRST experiance for the better. without the work that he put into CD, there would have been a giant hole in my FIRST experiance, and for that i am truely grateful.

thank you brandon martus for your dedication, inspiration, and genuine love for FIRST; and may your hard work continue to change the lives of today's youth!

[Andy Baker]

Brandon is great.

When he and David Kelly set up the WFA website (http://www.firstawards.org/), it was amazing to see Brandon's effort.

Once the WFA committee got done giving their input on the site, nominators began to to through the process to input their entry. Brandon attended to each person's question and concern in a very timely manner, just like he does on this site.

Brandon is an amazing benefit to the FIRST community. Countless teams benefit from his efforts each day.

Thank you Brandon!


Andy B.

[Astronouth7303]

Congrats!

Despite the short time i've been on, I know you so deserved this. ChiefDelphi is great. (Read: really wicked awesome) Big thank you for hosting FIRSTwiki (firstwiki.org). And thanks for the patience to read through all my questions/comments/bugs. :p

I think we all agree:
Thanks for everything!

[LauraN]

Karthik said it best- without the Chief Delphi forums, FIRST would most definitely not be the same. For one thing, I wouldn't be half as addicted to it as I am now. =)

My first reaction when I saw Brandon's name as the UFH was "You mean he hasn't gotten it yet?!"

Granted, there have only been a handful or so thus far, but even FIRST rookies like myself recognize Brandon as one of the "big names" in FIRST. (Now there's something to be proud of. ;) )

I mean come on, how many spotlights are there about how much work we make you do? =D

Congratulations!

[Beth Sweet]

Brandon, one of those people who stays on the sideline, but does everything. What a great person to give this award to. Congratulations Brandon!

[Eric O]

Congratulations Brandon!

This network of relationships that have been created due to this Chief Delphi website is amazing. Your dedication to this site is also incredible. To have developed and improved the chiefdelphi.com website to what it is today makes you ever so deserving of this award. It was excellent to meet you in Atlanta this year. Keep up the good work!

Eric

[D@ve]

Wicked Awsome Guy! We just recently met in Atlanta and I realised how tall you realy are :ahh: .............But in all honestly you totaly suprised me how much you enjoy doing first as much as i enjoy it. You my Friend are a First class act. :)

Dave Ferreira

[David Kelso]

Hey Brandon....

Very nice award for a very deserving person...You do as much as anyone to keep FIRST alive during the whole year. We all appreciate your efforts and dedication to this site and to the FIRST Community.

dave

[shyra1353]

Congratulations Brandon ... definitely long overdue and very well deserved ...

Can't wait to meet you at Wonderland this weekend !!

[Joshua May]

A definite congratulatios to Brandon on this honor, it's LONG overdue.

[Elgin Clock]

Wow.. look what I found. I was wondering when I would be able to use this :p

Brandon: My middle name is Lee ... because thats what my Mom and Dad named me.
They named me after the actor in The Crow who died of a real bullet in the movie prop gun
I'm a LEGEND;
or so the goth guy at Hot Topic said one day.
I was like "Dude. I was like 14 when that movie was made."Well.. Not a legend in that sense, but a legend among FIRSTers none-the-less.

Congratulations Brandon!!
A well deserved, and long awaited UFH honor for a great guy!!

And Brandon, don't try to hurt me for quoting you.. or worse, delete my ChiefDelphi.com account!! :ahh: :ahh: :ahh:
I would be very sad if either of those happened.:(

[mtaman02]

Brandon Congrats on being the 9th. Unsung Hero. You truly deserve the recognition for everything you've done to not only help make Team 47 be much more recognizable with the CD Forums but for the help and hope you have given other teams that there really is a dedicated area that holds the answers to many vets and rookie teams questions. Maybe the next big step is to nominate you for the Woodie Flowers Award. =)


Once again brandon you deserve and Congrads.

[DCA Fan]

::bows down:: we're not worthy... :p
Congrats on the honor, you really deserve it..I think you more than anyone else has lead to the creation of more year round FIRST addicts :-P

[Ryan Dognaux]

Congrats Brandon, you deserve this big time.

[Katie Reynolds]

Way to go, Brandon! You totally deserve this honor. Without you, there would be no Chief Delphi forums ... then what would we all be doing??? :confused:

Keep up the AWESOME work!

[Aaron Lussier]

What can I say that hasnt all ready been said? Great job Brandon.

Your the man now, Dawg!

-Aaron

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Brandon,
Congrats buddy! Most of us use this site like it was our personal office, never really keeping in mind that someone like you is in the background clearing out the junk and putting the file drawer back in shape. Thanks for backing us up and thanks for putting up with all my weird questions. Time to celebrate!

[Brandon Martus]

Wow.

First off, I need to say thanks to people on Chief Delphi: My dad, Joe Johnson, Mike Aubry, the rest of the coaches, engineers and students. This is their site .. I just make sure it's online. I am very lucky to have been asked to work on this site.

Second .. I was hesitant about letting the UFH committee put me up as the next honoree. I realize that I do a lot for the FIRST online community, but I know that there are so many other more qualified Unsung FIRST Heroes out there that should have been honored before me. Please, please, please go and nominate someone. It only takes a few minutes. UFH is a great program .. it lets people know they are appreciated, and gives them a nice boost to help them continue making a positive impact.

Third .. I have to thank all 6800+ users. Without all of you, I wouldn't be doing this. You keep the discussion going, and I'll make sure the site is here to let that happen.

I do this site, and continue to do this site, for many of the the same reasons you all do FIRST. The students do it to learn and have fun. Without this site, I wouldn't know half as much as I do about programming interactive websites. I was never on a team as a high school student, but I have come away from the FIRST experience with so much new knowledge and many ideas that I use at my job on a daily basis. The coaches, engineers, and other mentors do it to inspire the students and make them to appreciate science and technology. I know that by helping keep this site online, I am helping coaches, mentors and engineers spread their knowlege, ideas and inspiration to so many people around the world (students, coaches, and other engineers).

I owe it to the FIRST community and the awesome users of this site to keep working on this site and making it better. I will do so until someone from Chief Delphi pulls me away from it and tells me to stop.

I abused my unlimited reputation-giving power, and individually replied to most of your thank-you's via that. Check out my responses on your user control panel (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/usercp.php?) if you haven't already.

Thank you all again.

[Jeff Waegelin]

Sorry I joined the party late (I've been off CD for 2 weeks 'til today), but congratulations, Brandon! :)

[Ricky Q.]

Alright Martus, now that you have given it up and replied I'll chime in....When I first got involved in FIRST in 2002 I really had no idea what it was all about. Then one day I stumbled onto ChiefDelphi and its all a blur from there. My FIRST experience has been made whole because of this site. I have learned so much, met so many new friends, and been able to communicate with people who share the same interests that I do. This site is truly the best resource out there for FIRST teams, the information that flows on here is just amazing and I don't know what FIRST would be like without it.

Thanks for all the hard work and effort you put into this, we all appreciate it.

Ricky

[Ryan M.]

Hey, I didn't even notice the new Unsung FIRST hero until today... :)

Cangratulations, Brandon! You deserve it after all the work you've put into this website. With out you, the FIRST community would still be stuck on their own little forums, limited to only their own to team to ask questions of. I know that everyone out there has been helped many times by what has been said on these boards, and you were the start of it! :)

Congrats.