Your Worst FIRST experience

[Richomundo]

What was your worst first experience? I love FIRST, but i have had my equal share of good and bad experiences.

Mine was when i was temporarily kicked off of the team for sabotaging a bowl of cashews. We built our robot at the team captains house because we had nowhere else to build it. We weren't allowed to build the robot at school because the Shop Supervisor hated the lady that ran our team... but anyways thats besides the point. I was kicked off the team for a total of 6 hours, approximately a week before our Los ANgeles Regional... Since the high school only had 5 members willing to be on the team this year (not one student from last year, which kind of tells you something) we imported 3 8th graders to help us build our robot and join the team early because 5 people can't build a robot. So apparently i sabotaged a can of cashews by filling it up with water. Now being a mature high school student, drowning cashews isn't my thing. Sounds like an 8th grade thing to do, not a 10th grade thing to do. So i was kicked off and (being the only programmer there ) i was also told i had never been an asset eve nthough i had done programming. At the LA regional our team had no motivation because we had been belittled and attacked by this woman etc etc etc... after our rounds were over we hooked up a few laptops and played starcraft against eachother and proceeded home. No party, no celebration, and definately no spirit to return next year.

However the FIRST experience was fun enough for the dissatisfied members of the team (everyone) to branch off and form another robotics team for next year on the same team.

[Joshua May]

What was your worst first experience? I love FIRST, but i have had my equal share of good and bad experiences.

Mine was when i was temporarily kicked off of the team for sabotaging a bowl of cashews. We built our robot at the team captains house because we had nowhere else to build it. We weren't allowed to build the robot at school because the Shop Supervisor hated the lady that ran our team... but anyways thats besides the point. I was kicked off the team for a total of 6 hours, approximately a week before our Los ANgeles Regional... Since the high school only had 5 members willing to be on the team this year (not one student from last year, which kind of tells you something) we imported 3 8th graders to help us build our robot and join the team early because 5 people can't build a robot. So apparently i sabotaged a can of cashews by filling it up with water. Now being a mature high school student, drowning cashews isn't my thing. Sounds like an 8th grade thing to do, not a 10th grade thing to do. So i was kicked off and (being the only programmer there ) i was also told i had never been an asset eve nthough i had done programming. At the LA regional our team had no motivation because we had been belittled and attacked by this woman etc etc etc... after our rounds were over we hooked up a few laptops and played starcraft against eachother and proceeded home. No party, no celebration, and definately no spirit to return next year.

However the FIRST experience was fun enough for the dissatisfied members of the team (everyone) to branch off and form another robotics team for next year.

My team built last year's robot with 4 people. :D

I can't really think of a bad FIRST experience, really, I can't.

[Richomundo]

My team built last year's robot with 4 people. :D

I can't really think of a bad FIRST experience, really, I can't.

Well FIRST is GREAT i love FIRST but it was my team that sucked. so maybe the thread should be changed to "Every team has had dysfunctions, what was your worst?"

[Bharat Nain]

Well my worst experience in FIRST was during the build season when our team advisor(WayneC) got a stroke. It was hard to manage but when a team is a team, anything is possible. So we got thru the Build season with the HUGE load of problems, we survived :)

[Joshua May]

Well FIRST is GREAT i love FIRST but it was my team that sucked. so maybe the thread should be changed to "Every team has had dysfunctions, what was your worst?"

I did some thinking, and I found one. At SoCal in 2003, a 5th year Senior on my team decided it would be "fun" to drive another team's robot in the pits, nearly running over some of their team members. So then we got chewed out and possibly could have been disqualified, that was a bad moment. :(

[Mike Ciance]

Well my worst experience in FIRST was during the build season when our team advisor(WayneC) got a stroke. It was hard to manage but when a team is a team, anything is possible. So we got thru the Build season with the HUGE load of problems, we survived :) i have to agree with Bharat here, this the early part of this season were some of the team's darkest hours, mainly because of Cokeley's stroke, but him not being there also had a bad effect on the team's operation. I think we handled it fairly well, but it still hurt us a lot. When Cokeley was incapacitated, it really emphasized how important he is to the team, and how much he does for all of us. He's really an amazing guy. He is so dedicated to our team. He got hospital leave, after some convincing, and attended the New Jersey Regional ALL THREE DAYS with a walker and an eyepatch. All the shifts in command caused problems that surfaced later, and Mr. C handled them as best anyone could. If you're in need of a role model, talk to Wayne Cokeley.

aside from that, i think my worste FIRST experience, at least at the time, was in the 2002 Nationals when I temporarily lost my job as "Battery Mike." We were ziptying the battery plugs into the plug on the robot because they would come out sometimes. There was one battery in particular, #2, where the cord was very short, and it had always worried me. It was my job to change the batteries and ziptie the plugs so they could not possibly come out. Well, in one of the qualification rounds something went wrong. I used battery #2. It had been fine in other rounds, but this time I messed up. The robot lost power the instant it started. I was accused of not tightening the ziptie and fired as battery boy. It was a mystery to me, at first, how this had happened, but over time i figured out the whole chain of events based on other experiences and careful thinking. The battery cord was short - when I put that battery in I usually had to put hard to get it to click. That time I didn't realize it was the #2 battery and didn't push hard enough - it was never fully in. When I ziptied it, I didn't tighten the ziptie as much as I should have. With this little bit of extra space, the plug had enough room to pull out more, and the metal stopped touching, causing complete power loss to the robot. There were some other stories going around as to how it happened. Somebody told me that a member of the drive team had changed the battery after I left and done it wrong. Whatever the error, I was just glad when it was all over. Our head engineer, Mike Lubniewski (the guy TeknoBrahma claims to be) came over and apologized to me, and told me I could be the battery boy again. I finished up the season as battery boy, and was officially named "Battery Man" by Big Mike.

[Joshua May]

i have to agree with Bharat here, this the early part of this season were some of the team's darkest hours, mainly because of Cokeley's stroke, but him not being there also had a bad effect on the team's operation. I think we handled it fairly well, but it still hurt us a lot. When Cokeley was incapacitated, it really emphasized how important he is to the team, and how much he does for all of us. He's really an amazing guy. He is so dedicated to our team. He got hospital leave, after some convincing, and attended the New Jersey Regional ALL THREE DAYS with a walker and an eyepatch. All the shifts in command caused problems that surfaced later, and Mr. C handled them as best anyone could. If you're in need of a role model, talk to Wayne Cokeley.

Now that is a worst FIRST experience, but it did seem to come out OK.

[Elgin Clock]

Well FIRST is GREAT i love FIRST but it was my team that sucked. so maybe the thread should be changed to "Every team has had dysfunctions, what was your worst?"
Just be aware - as you already all shoud know - that this is a public forum, and the things written here can be seen by everyone and anyone.

Try not to air out your team's dirty laundry here, unless it is well in the past and you can all laugh about it now.

That said; post away!

[Solace]

our team has had its problems, but the worst was probably the rookie year. though we had some funding, unrealistic engineers who didn't understand the concept of a deadline, accompanied by a steadily decreasing student interest, almost doomed our entire team. It was only because one individual finally stood up and singlehandedly built the robot (in the last two weeks) that we were able to pull through. It wasn't that bad of a bot either, we managed to take it on to win the rookie all star award at NYC in 2001. In the end, it wasn't a bad year because we did badly, but because no one really had any fun/

Our team dynamic has since improved dramatically, and we've managed to integrate students much more exstensively into the build process. However, the effects of that first year were long lasting, and it was only very slowly that we evolved to the state in which we could enjoy FIRST in the way it was intended.

[Matt_Kaplan1902]

My worst expirence in FIRST was at this years Midwest Regional. Our team was in the pit area voting on going to the team social or to go around town for the night. There was one student who decides he wants to go into town so he tries to force (literally force) kids into putting their hands down. Enraged I yelled at this person and he proceded to step up to my face. At that moment I felt that we were no longer a team and it saddened me that had to happen in the pit area were all other teams could see what was going on.

[dez250]

Like Elgin said not everythign should be posted here, but instead of just hearing what your worst experience was, lets change this thread a little. If you are going to paost a bad experience you had in FIRST, why dont you also post what you did to correct that problem, and/or what was learned from that situation.

[sanddrag]

At that moment I felt that we were no longer a team and it saddened me that had to happen in the pit area were all other teams could see what was going on.I'm with you on that one. I've done the same thing and had the same thing done to me. Additionally, I have been a spectator to such events. In the pits, often it is easy to forget there are others watching. So nowadays, I remind the team that our individual actions reflect on the team as a whole, whether we want them to or not.

I think the Pit Announcers should make an anouncement like every hour on the hour for people to stay calm, happy, and relaxed. It would do good things for the atmosphere.

As for my bad experiences besides that one, in 2003 I designed the robot frame and the teacher would not let me build it for a whole week until the other subsystems had their designs and dimensiosn finished. I insisted that these frame pieces had nothing to do with the other subsystems. Anyway, after the worst week of arguing in our team's histotry, I the teacher gave up and said fine, go build the frame. So I went and built it. Then he comes and asks what size the outside is. I tell him 35x29, just like the plan. And he comes up with some other plan that says 35.5x29.5; he comes up with the new numbers by counting squares on the graph paper on which this new plan was drawn. Anyway, he tries to make me recut all the pieces for the frame and implied that I would have to pay for the wasted material because I was not following the plan. I insisted that I was correct and the dimensions had been run by all the engineers and subsystems and they were fine. He still kept on that it was not to plan spec. After abotu 3 hours back and forth on that. I finaly just went home in anger. I came back later and recut the frame, hastely because I was pissed off. But I did it because I knew we would get nowhere unless I did.

Now we had a 35.5x29.5 frame, 1 fairly happy teacher, and one very angry student (me), and 1 week wasted.

The reason I can post this whole story is because it has a great ironic ending. At a pre-ship scrimmage, we noticed our low profile robot got lost in the sea of bins. We wanted to add flags which mounted on the outside of the frame rails, but with them and hardware, we were over the size limit. The teacher finally realized the reason I left a good margin of space beneath the limit, and now this year, our frame is 35x29. :)

Another bad experience was the 2004 LA regional Quarterfinals. But that is not a story I can discuss here much further than saying: I hope it was

I think to counter this thread we should make one called Your BEST FIRST experience (not including winning or awards).

[Richomundo]

I think the Pit Announcers should make an anouncement like every hour on the hour for people to stay calm, happy, and relaxed. It would do good things for the atmosphere.

I think to counter this thread we should make one called Your BEST FIRST experience (not including winning or awards).

i might get annoyed with the announcement after a full day in the pits... I was going to make this best/worst experience, but i realized that the responses would be way too long.

The good of FIRST outweighs the bad, though, and i hope to recruit a whole bunch of new people for it next year. :D :D

[Billfred]

but when a team is a team, anything is possible.

That was our fatal flaw this year, IMHO.

I'd guess about twenty of us were at Palmetto, and I think only one or two of us were cheering, except during our match, when the number would jump to about five.

[Lisa Perez]

This wasn't during the FIRST season, but during the time period we had to turn in our registration fee. My worst experience was when my coach took me and my co-captain aside to tell us that there would be no 573 for the 2004 season. I came out of the room teary-eyed and wanting to punch a wall..

But we were still able to participate in FIRST on 1! So I guess out of all bad things come something good.

[Joe Matt]

I've had loads of bad experences, but hey, that's part of ANY group. I won't post them here, ones that pertain to our team and other teams. But I just wanted to post to say that you are not alone, there are problems, as is anything that's run by people who have emotions and egos.

[Will Hanashiro]

hmm... my worst FIRST experiance would have to be when i got my fingernail ripped off on a surface grinder. but it also showed me that we were much more than a team, but we were a family. the concern that came after me being in the hospital was overwhelming... and it made me proud to be part of a wonderful family. in the end, my fingernail grew back, and the family is as strong as ever.

realizing that my driving career on 322 has come to an end is also kind of depressing, but i'm also looking foward to the contributions that i can give as a college mentor.

[Barry Bonzack]

My team had some issues this year as well. Working our hearts out for 6 weeks, and ending up with a robot that didn't move all UCF regional wasn't even the worst of them. However, of course, I am totally addicted to FIRST, and the good always outweighs the bad. I'll deffinately be back next season.

[Mike Schroeder]

My Worst FIRST experinence is probobly reading this thread, if its anything that FIRST's competitive spirit has taught me, its to take the good with the bad,
Telling 1500+ people your worst experince isnt gonna change them, the only thing that can change them, is by learning from these mistakes/bad experince,

All i have to say is that this isn't very Inspiring

[Dorienne]

My worst experience was last year when a team member was talking about me right in front of me. He was a very rude guy, and he acted like he was God Himself. Anyways, I was doing something I can't remember what, and he just started talking about how useless I was, how stupid and annoying...and I just lost it. I ran outside crying up a storm. One of the guys on our team sent out the other girl on the team to talk to me...and after about 10-20 minutes of crying and people trying to help me, I was okay. I just hated the feeling of uselessness and pain I felt. Robotics was a way to get away from the people who were rude and tormented me. It gave me a release, and was the only place I felt needed and loved. It's a lot better now, and that experience will soon just be a faded memory.
--d0ri

[-PauL-]

oh god.....in atlanta, we were hanging out in my friends room around 10 that night, and it was pure hell. there was alot of stuff going on between the team members, so people were coming in and out, crying, yelling..... we just wanted to watch a movie. Anyway, we started to kick people out, and not let them in. well, one kid on out team, who was somewhat large wanted to come in the room. we wouldnt let him, and we closed the shades on him. after a few minutes, we hear a knock on the window, so we open it up, and he had his pants down right on the window, shaking it up and down.......there are some things you just cant unsee.......**shudders**....as for the competition, nothin's bad really, except when the FIRST cordinators are on a power trip, it gets really annoying....thats about it

[Lisa Perez]

I have one more! But it's probably more of a funny/scary experience. Anyway.

We were just walking back from a restaurant in Cleveland last year, the day before the Buckeye Regional. For some reason, the team splits up. Oh yeah, someone had to stop by 7-11. Getting back on track, so 10 of us are walking back to the hotel, 5 are walking elsewhere. It turns out that this guy who just got released from jail approaches the other group, shows them his jail ID (at the same time saying "Want to see my jail ID?"), and asks them for money. Obviously, they ran like no other.

So we get back to the hotel at around the same time because we started running as well (just because it was dark and we were getting creeped out by some very, very sketchy people) and the other group tells us the story. But it was pretty funny afterwards, we started sneaking up on and scaring the living daylights out of each other. We always manage to turn a bad situation into a good one..

[sanddrag]

One bad experience (I wouldn't say the worst) was at the 2004 Phoenix regional when we broke our pneumatic relief valve. Not one team in the arena had a spare relief valve. Spare parts did not have one spare relief valve. We even offered to trade team members for the relief valve. There was not one spare relief valve anywhere in that arena. We lost probably 2 or 3 matches just due to that.

Anyway, a sort of scary experience was when we had to go to the Six Points Hardware store to get a new one. This guy told us it was about a block away. It's great he told us about it, otherwise we would have been out for the regional. Anyway, luckily an arena staff employee gave us a ride on the golf cart out to the street. But from then on, it got a little scary. We go out in the street and there are a bunch of "questionable figures" lingering about the sidewalk. I really wanted to go back behind that gate of the arena parking lot but I knew we needed that valve. Luckily I had my friend (this really big guy) with me but even still I kept my hand in my pocket on my leatherman tool knife for the whole way there. By now you can probably tell this wasn't the best part of town. Run down buildings, grafiti, etc. Anyway, looking for the hardware store (which was supposed to be a block away), we got a little lost because it was more like 5 blocks away and Phoenix has big blocks. On the way there, we encountered a new "Adult" store opening just a couple doors down. The payoff of this adventure was when we got to the hardware store. This was like the absolute greatest hardware store I have ever been to. And they had our valve. Once we got the valve, we went back the way we came. Very soon, we encountered a very deranged man yelling "Five Dolla Bubble! Five Dolla Bubble!" And he had a bubble gun and was running through traffic spraying bubbles everywhere. When he saw us, he started coming toward us trying to sell us some bubbles. We went the other way, and then so did he. Finally we just picked up the pace and dodged down an alley. That wasn't the greatest idea. There was this homelss guy coming down the alley with a shopping cart full of who knows what. When we tried to stay on the side to avoid him, he moved over. Luckily he passed us without incident, but that is because he was too busy cleaning his crack pipe! We eventually got back to the arena parking lot to where we walked in the driveway. There was a car coming out and for some reason my friend stands in the middle of the driveway with his hand out like he's a policeman or someting (my friend gets stupid ideas like he's a cop sometimes). My friend then steps aside and the car takes off with the guy screaming profanity and making obscene gestures. Anyway, the guy in this car obviously not with FIRST. Then we got back inside, installed the valve, and it has worked like a charm ever since.

Some story huh?

EDIT: I forgot to ad that on our way to the hardare store, on every telephone pole there was a wanted add for this guy for homicide. Then on a couple poles there were a couple different wanted ads too. Scary huh?

[Joshua May]

I have one more! But it's probably more of a funny/scary experience. Anyway.

We were just walking back from a restaurant in Cleveland last year, the day before the Buckeye Regional. For some reason, the team splits up. Oh yeah, someone had to stop by 7-11. Getting back on track, so 10 of us are walking back to the hotel, 5 are walking elsewhere. It turns out that this guy who just got released from jail approaches the other group, shows them his jail ID (at the same time saying "Want to see my jail ID?"), and asks them for money. Obviously, they ran like no other.

So we get back to the hotel at around the same time because we started running as well (just because it was dark and we were getting creeped out by some very, very sketchy people) and the other group tells us the story. But it was pretty funny afterwards, we started sneaking up on and scaring the living daylights out of each other. We always manage to turn a bad situation into a good one..

Yeah, in 2003 we walked from our hotel to a local Denny's, at the SoCal Regional. Keep in mind that the surrounding area of USC is pretty much the infamous South Central. So we were getting pretty freaked out by all the shady characters, and to add on I was wearing a bright red shirt and walking next to a guy in a blue shirt. Not a good idea...

[Richomundo]

Yeah, in 2003 we walked from our hotel to a local Denny's, at the SoCal Regional. Keep in mind that the surrounding area of USC is pretty much the infamous South Central. So we were getting pretty freaked out by all the shady characters, and to add on I was wearing a bright red shirt and walking next to a guy in a blue shirt. Not a good idea...

yeah you know us big time gangster robot kids... lol :D :]

[MrToast]

My worst FIRST experience came while we were prototyping our hook. There's this guy (adult actually) on our team that's a little difficult to work with. He had this idea for a hook: There would be a tall (like really tall; about 4') screw onto which another shaft would be screwed. Spinning the screw would cause the shaft to rise, and a hook would be on the end.

So he made his hook, which turned out to be this 50+ pound monstrosity. The screw turned at about 40 RPM, which meant it took about 5 minutes for the stupid thing to extend fully.

It wasn't this that really bothered me. What really took the cake was that this guy absolutely REFUSED to listen to any other ideas. He was adamant that his hook was the way it was going to be, that it was the best, that everything else was going to suck, etc. We had about $5000 of machine shop time donated to his screwy (haha) hook, which was a full 25% of the entire shop time we had. And we didn't even use the stupid thing.

Ugh I wanted to throttle him. :mad:

MrToast

[Jeff Waegelin]

My worst FIRST experience is sortof a personal mistake. I was human player during the 2003 season, and did a remarkably good job. I played 47 straight matches without dropping a single bin, or receiving a single penalty. I'd done all sorts of risky moves, like carrying all four bins at one time (most people carried them 2 and 2) and running stacks across the field with no problems. Then, in the first match of the division quarterfinals at the Championship, I missed my balance ever so slightly, and dropped my 4-stack. I knew, as soon as I stepped on to the field, that it was going to fall, but there was nothing I could do to stop it. I tried to recover the bins, got flagged for a penalty, and then missed the 10-second timer (the only time I missed it all season). On top of that, the scoring table disabled our partner, Chief Delphi, instead of our robot, causing us to miss autonomous and lose the match. It felt terrible to know that losing the match was my own personal fault. Fortunately, we managed to come back from a first-round loss and win the series, but it still remains my worst FIRST experience.

[LauraN]

Well I'm going to go with the theme of telling a bad experience and explaining what I learned from it...this is a good one, I promise.

It sounds cliche and it sounds like something we all already know, but I really think it is something we need to experience in order to learn: I learned not to judge people before I met them.

There were two people from Team X who really did not get along with my team. There had been problems for a long time and then there was a big issue with these people spreading negative things about our team to other teams. This was definitely a very frustrating and hurtful experience and I would say it was probably my "worst FIRST experience."

Most of these problems occurred at a regional, and on Friday morning our team was upset to discover that we were to be allied with Team X for one of our qualifying matches. We were all upset and apprehensive about having to interact with this team who we thought harbored such negative feelings towards us. A teammate and I decided to approach the team awhile before the match to try to "break the ice."

We went to their pits and before we knew it we were standing around with them for almost half an hour, talking about the competition, congratulating each other on standings, comparing the designs we used on the robot, and talking about school and friends and other everyday topics. They became one of our favorite teams and we cheered each other on throughout the whole regional, and to this day I'm still in touch with one of their members.

So I have definitely learned my lesson about judging people before I meet them.

Happy endings are good. =)

[CourtneyB]

When i was in like 6th grade, and my sister was on the team, i went to the national championship. Our team was taking a team picture. Everyone was in it and about to take the picture. Me and my dad were standing on the side just watching. I really wanted to be in the picture just to be in it to just tick off my sister. So how they were going to take the picture was just regular but in the very front two students from the team were laying down on there sides. So my dad dared me to run in front of the two boys and block there faces so I can be in the picture, and that hed give me 10 dollars to do it. So i ran infront of the two boys laying down (i layed infront of them to block their faces), right as they took the picture. Everyone was yellin at me and gettin mad at me. And my dad was just standin there laughin. So i got really emebarresed so i told my dad i was goin to the pit area to walk around for a little bit to get away from them all. So i guess my dad forgot i told him that i was goin to the pit area to walk around, so everyone was wonderin where i was and thye got scared i guess, so everyone basically except the drive team and the important people went looking for me like almost all over disney haha.
Finally, I showed up, and they got even more mad at me, because 1. they thought i stormed off gettin lost and stuff and 2. they all missed one of our matches because of spendin time looking for me when all this time i was in the pit area. I felt bad, but it truly was a bad experience for me even though i hadnt been on the team at that time, so it could of been used against me in the future when i joined the team. My dad always brings it up to me, and i always tell him its his fault because he really embarresed me and i was nieve for takin that bet haha http://www2.wildstang.org/gallery/2000_Nationals/WildStang_team_pic_2 as u can see in the picture, everyone gave me mean looks haha

[AsimC]

My worst FIRST experience has to be at the 2004 nationals during our chairman's interview. Our team was the last team to be intereviewed, it was around 4 oclock and 24 teams had gone before us. We started to present when half way through one of the judges FELL ASLEEP on us. This judge had their eyes closed and was not writing anything down or never asked us any questions, while the other judges were. I mean, I understand that it was a long day for them, but is it fair to not care at all?? That was a bad experience by itself and what made it worse was the fact that the rest of the judges ripped us apart on very small details that only teams that have alot of money would respond to. I tried to explain to them that we were just an average team, but they didnt seem to care. To me, it seemed like all they cared about was how much money one team could spend. This experience temporarily made me lose my faith in FIRST, but i got over it after a week, mainly b/c im obsessed with FIRST and I love whats its doing around the world.

[Richomundo]

This experience temporarily made me lose my faith in FIRST, but i got over it after a week, mainly b/c im obsessed with FIRST and I love whats its doing around the world.


The good in FIRST definately outweighs the bad, and the bad isnt even FIRST, its a tiny tiny percentage of a few people.

:) :) :) :mad: :) see the bad guys?

[Soukup]

All Animators would know what I am tlaking about....

IN my junior year (3 years ago) we had worked real hard to get our animation done. Thats when they still gave you 10 weeks to get it done. SO the robot had already been shipped and we were working at a team members house nearly every day for 4 weeks. There were 6 of us, and most of us had just learned to use this program for any benefit. Basically after about 1 week of hell and chris pulling an overnighter we were finally done. I got it to the shipping store 25 seconds before the FEDEX guy showed up. ANyways, we did a really product that would have easily been top 25, but it got disqualified. NO real reason, (well they gave us a bunch of reasons but none of them had anything to do with our animation) stuff like no title screen, no credits, no team name, no team number... it was the most puzzling email in the world. We all read this thing and felt our hearts sink to the floor. We could have understood if it had something to do with our animation, but it was like having 10 weeks of your life thrown away. Ive only cried three times in FIRST, and that was one time.

Well next year, we turned our anger and frustration into motivation. We used everything we had and won 3 regional animation awards. And when our name was annouced at GREAT LAKES that would have been the second time I cried.

Moral of the story.... crying in FIRST IS OKAY.... :)

[akaria]

My worst FIRST experience had to be the VCU Reginal this year on the second night. The two other people in my room got really really sick, just like alot of other people there (if you were there you know what i'm talking about) and i had to nurse two very very sick people, untill my mom showed up ^_^, and my room reeked of puke the entire night :eek: gag hack

[Peter Matteson]

I'll just say being a young mentor who gets mistaken for a student leads to frustration in occasions when some one needs to talk to an adult and doesn't believe how old you are. There three of us on my team 24, 24, and 25 who had to deal with this at three competitions.

[Andy Baker]

I gotta say that my worst FIRST experience was in 2003, when myself and a TechnoKat teacher were responsible for not getting our robot to the Pittsburgh Regional. We both messed up with coordinating the shipping from the St. Louis Regional from the prior weekend.

It ended up getting there on Friday.

To make matters worse, we had to re-wire the drive base when it finally got there. Our first 5 alliance partners were not happy.

The silver lining to the could was that we spent all day Thursday helping other teams.

Andy B.

[Steve W]

I gotta say that my worst FIRST experience was in 2003, when myself and a TechnoKat teacher were responsible for not getting our robot to the Pittsburgh Regional. We both messed up with coordinating the shipping from the St. Louis Regional from the prior weekend.

It ended up getting there on Friday.

To make matters worse, we had to re-wire the drive base when it finally got there. Our first 5 alliance partners were not happy.

The silver lining to the could was that we spent all day Thursday helping other teams.

Andy B.

And to think that we felt sorry for you. You must admit that a lot of teams were pulling for you even if they weren't your partners.

[Joshua May]

All Animators would know what I am tlaking about....

IN my junior year (3 years ago) we had worked real hard to get our animation done. Thats when they still gave you 10 weeks to get it done. SO the robot had already been shipped and we were working at a team members house nearly every day for 4 weeks. There were 6 of us, and most of us had just learned to use this program for any benefit. Basically after about 1 week of hell and chris pulling an overnighter we were finally done. I got it to the shipping store 25 seconds before the FEDEX guy showed up. ANyways, we did a really product that would have easily been top 25, but it got disqualified. NO real reason, (well they gave us a bunch of reasons but none of them had anything to do with our animation) stuff like no title screen, no credits, no team name, no team number... it was the most puzzling email in the world. We all read this thing and felt our hearts sink to the floor. We could have understood if it had something to do with our animation, but it was like having 10 weeks of your life thrown away. Ive only cried three times in FIRST, and that was one time.

Well next year, we turned our anger and frustration into motivation. We used everything we had and won 3 regional animation awards. And when our name was annouced at GREAT LAKES that would have been the second time I cried.

Moral of the story.... crying in FIRST IS OKAY.... :)

I know exactly how you feel. I was the team's sole animator for 2003, our rookie year nonetheless, and I worked the entire 6 week son getting that animation perfect, I swear I actually got maybe 1 hour of sleep in the last week. However, at the end of the 6 weeks, we had to give back the computer, so I gave a CD with all of the files to another guy who would render it and then we sent it off to FIRST. Well, he rendered it in the wrong format of all things, and we didn't get judged for it. And, the wrong file was sent to FIRST anyways, so if you look on the DVD, it's just really weird.

I got over it though,I was able to fix the animation before our venue at the local fair, and got some really good comments from it.

[Rez648]

Mine (and my team's) worst experience was at the Midwest Regional last year. At our hotel after a day of competition, one of our coaches was carrying around the team's $2000 laptop that had all of our stuff on it (website, newsletter, programming, etc) and he set it down at the hotel's front desk to check in and accidentally leaves it. Well, guess what happens...someone steals it. After calling the police, the cops searched each one of our rooms and questioned nearly all of the team members. To this day, the laptop has not been recovered.

Of course, the laptop was replaced and we still remind the teacher of his mistake. It is a humorous topic now, but last year, it was the worst thing that could happen.

[Alex Salomonsky]

My worst experience was during the 2003 season when our team didn't have a good scale to weigh the robot, so the chairmen, a teacher and I went to the boys lockerroom and asked if we could borrow the scale they used to weigh wrestlers ( it was the only scale available at the time). The allowed us to use it, but of course, a bot can't fit on that scale, so they said, hey Alex you're strong, we'll weigh you then you pick the bot up and we'll subtract your weight from the robot.

So I get on the scale then i picked the bot up by only two pieces of metal cuz they told me it was strongly bolted there, and i stood there, which sucked. The two of them took there time as i stood there dead-lifting the bot. As soon as they said the weight, on cue, obe piece slipped off cuz stupid freshies forgot to put nuts on the bolts. the nice 110 lb robot feel on my left foot and it hurt like crap. The teacher and chairmen had a nice laugh at my pain.

[greencactus3]

As soon as they said the weight, on cue, obe piece slipped off cuz stupid freshies forgot to put nuts on the bolts. the nice 110 lb robot feel on my left foot and it hurt like crap. The teacher and chairmen had a nice laugh at my pain.
yes i know how that feels. at least i was just holding one half of the robot up and crawling under it rather than dead lifting it, but...
the painful part is, that the freshmen didnt file all the corners very well and sharp corners rubbing against skin only results in getting the robot prematurely colored... not funny!

[#1Transgirl1140]

Alot of things happened on our team and weren't really dealing with the robot. It mostly delt with our members. One of our drivers from our rookie year was still expecting that he was still going to drive, and the rest of us thought that he was slacking off a bit UNTIL his postion as driver got threatened. A new member to our team, but was on another team ended up driving. The other team memeber put up a fight to drive at West Michigan, because we won as rookies. He ened up driving and that cost us a higher seed then what we ened up with. The worst thing that happened but was also very funny was when the allaince picking happened, the team that was supposed to pick us couldn't read there own writing and called out the wrong number....1040. We were so mad. I was also upset since we tried for the Chairman's Award and thought we had a good chance, but 141 ended up getting it. oh well, the judges thought that we were pretty good for a second year team, but not as good a 141

[Izzy_Stradlin]

well i have to agree with my fellow team member..paul...about the hell that was going on in our room and a certain someone dropping their pants in our window..that was awful!!but the one thing that was awful in atlanta....THE UNDERGROUND MALL!!!! omg was that awfull..no FYE ..no music store ..that were actually open..i cant survive like that!! I NEED MUSIC!!! but yea i mean come on..closing a 6!! what a whoot...and all the stores were, were official Atlanta merchedise it was awful...and really there was nothing to do there..me and my friends sat in the hotel room and watched Twister and Navy SEALS all day...oh and cant forget Apollo 13 ..but the competition..the only bad thing was..that someone STOLE my cell phone!!! it sucked..someone..probably off the streets took my cell phone when i changed into my viking costume..yes im the Viking from team 230..but im retired now..lol...remember the boat?? ( yea team 230 knows what im talkin' bout!) other then that it was great..esp. the wrap party!!

[RLopez]

I have to agree with the VCU "epidemic". I was one of those "sick people". Omg, it was awful. The first day i was fine.. then the second day... like most of our team was sick; a few in the hospital. and i was fine in the morning, but after that.. i just went downhill and i got soo sick.. i ended up winning this year's "upchuck award" for the team awards that were given out in this year's team party. :]

[Izzy_Stradlin]

lets see..i just thought another worst FIRST experience for me...and that was 3 years ago..first year i was on the team..2002 i think it was..and we were at the Long Island Regional....and i was being followed by some guy..who was madly in love with me from another team..I think it was the Pyschotics from New York..i wont speak of the name but anyways.. he couldn't remember my name!! lol..so me and my friends devised a plot so that he would leave me alone..i mean i know it sounds mean but if you had a bf at the time and you were being followed even when you told him you had a b/f..wouldn't you do that ..well maybe at the time it was fine but now that i look back it might have been alittle cruel...it was so odd..and he wrote me all these letters (couldnt spell for his life..too much drugs..seriously) but he was really cute i might add..lol...but then he got the crazy notion that he was training to be a SEAL at 17 (just because he saw my navy SEALs pin on my jacket that night)..but anyways..that was my worst experience at a competition.. :D

[Adam Y.]

I'll just say being a young mentor who gets mistaken for a student leads to frustration in occasions when some one needs to talk to an adult and doesn't believe how old you are. There three of us on my team 24, 24, and 25 who had to deal with this at three competitions.
This is unrelated to first but it sure is a lot better than being mistaken for a fifty year old person while only being eighteen. Of course it was at a funeral but still I dont look that old. I have had very little bad experiences in First. Though the worst has to be the feeling of nervousness whenever we use the robot. Its like giving birth to a baby. I don't care about winning I just want the dam thing to work. Though I feel really dumb for not thinking of using ripstop nylon. It is soo much lighter than the fabric we used on our robot.

[Alex Salomonsky]

I have another stupid freshmen experience that caused me much pain. We were showcasing the bot to a bunch of 8th graders having a shadow day at our school (When kids follow a high schooler for the day to look at the school, in case someone didn't know), well one of the freshmen on the team, who had no business there, found out we were showing it to the 8th graders, came to the room (none of us saw him) and said something stupid like "and we have neat joysticks," what the idiot didn't see was that the bot was on and operational, and I was in front of the bot explaining that once we file the front and put bumpers on, it will be finished. Maybe we should have turned the bot off, but no one was near the controller so we didnt bother. Well the idiot said his remark and pushed forward on the joystick, and "bam." I took a robot ram into my shin. Man, that hurt worse then the drop on my foot the year earlier, plus this time i was bleeding. He was lucky that I'm a nice, and patient guy, and the fact that assualt and battery is a criminal charge, otherwise, I'd release a lot of anger on his ugly face.

As you can tell, I take a lot of punishment from people's mistakes, we have a car wash next saturday, hopefully someone doesn't knock me into on-coming traffic.

[OneAngryDaisy]

My worst experience would probably be this past year's regional.. (that is, our first regional)- we also had a bad scales misfortune.. When we shipped we figured we might be 5 pounds overweight, but at our first regional we weighed in over 15 pounds heavy. What makes it worse is all morning long our pit crew had waited around the pits because our controller wasn't working (we practically owned teh innovation FIRST guy all day long)- we went through countless wiring changes and board changes until it was determined something wasn't updated (I myself never got involved with electrics) Anyway, the inspectors asked to weigh our robot midday just for inspection, and we found out we were over 145 pounds. By then it was around 7:15, and pits closed in 45 mins... most of the other teams were gone by then, so we had massive space to work. It was an incredible team effort, and even the 'spirit' kids were spotted drilling out wheels. We rushed to the weighing station, at around 7:57 and weighed in at 129.8.

Next morning we come in and promptly go to weigh again. 130.1... we somehow gained .3 pounds overnight, so some more drilling and removing of parts occured.. To make it worse, we didn't move in our first few matches thanks to the same board issues, and our first 5 matches were useless. I've never seen our team be that down, ever, it was truly depressing. All we wanted was a fresh start at our 2nd regional, and we did improve there being selected 5th...

from the down low to the top (losing 15) to the down low wasnt easy. especially for a 5th year team who had NEVER experienced anything like this..

[plutonium83]

I dont want to get into detail here but...

My worst experience was trying to deal with a disgruntled team member, who was kicked off the team(definately for the right reasons). He took pictures of our robot in development and posted it on a website that was advertized.

Personally, I could really care less, since it was about 3 weeks into the season. But our team made it a really big deal and in my opinion, it gave more power to the abuser.

Eventually everything died down, we got the site removed and (somewhat) reconciled with the member, although he is still banned from the team. We went to Canada and we won, so everything turned out ok in the end.

[JVN]

We went to Canada and we won, so everything turned out ok in the end.
Moral of the story:
As long as you win, everything is okay. :rolleyes:
/moral



Brandon-
Can we get a more sarcastic looking smiley face? This one just isn't cutting it.

John

[plutonium83]

Ok, fine. "We did well" :D

[Libby Ritchie]

We had a retired machinist that donated his shop to our team to build in a few years ago. Unfortunately, he had breathing problems, causing panic attacks. He had been in and out of the hospital the weekend before we shipped the robot. As soon as he got back home, he was back out in the shop wanting to help us again. The only nights he missed working with us was when he was in the hospital for two days.

Three days after we shipped the robot, I got a phone call from one of our students, who lived next door to this man. When I got there, I was horrified. He had a panic attack and couldn't deal with not being able to breath well...and he killed himself.

Our kids were mortified, wondering what we could have done to make a differerence or if there was something that we could have said or done to prevent this from happening. This man's wife comforted US and thought that if anything, his love for the kids and the team was something that actually kept him around for a bit longer. We attended the funeral and even said a few words at his funeral. It was by far...the worst thing we've experienced as a team.

[Michael R. Lee]

Getting tackled in 2002 at KSC Regionals by people from Heatwave (312) cause we had won when like three of us went over to say good game. I tried to dodge out of the way but I was in the middle..... broke my safety glasses, watch, and sunglasses. :( Good pairs of glasses too...

[Michael Hill]

ok, the TechnoKats split up into 4 vans this year. Let me start off by saying this had to be the most fun/frusterating trip. On our way to the Midwest Regional up in Chicago, our team got split up in a traffic jam. Let's just say the other 3 vans made it, but our van ended up going past 6 Flags Great America. We wanted to skip the regional and hang out there, LOL JK. It was closed. We finally called one of the student's dad, who just happened to live in Chicago to get us back to where we were supposed to be. We finally made it.

The second worst would be the second night at our hotel up in Ypsilanti. It was a bad regional for us, but that night was just bad. One of our team mates came into our room, and we were all horsing around. He tried to tickle everyone, but Mike Sholty, who happend to be a wrestler in middle school, was laying on the bed when he was getting tickled. He told him to stop...he didn't stop tickling, so Mike threw him into the wall and left a pretty big crack. We now call that hotel the "Paper Thin Inn."

[techtiger1]

I have had disagreements with some things. Like the way allience partners are picked and of course the fact my teamates never let me sleep. lol but i have to say i have enjoyed the whole FIRST experience. Overall it has been alife changing experience for me. Thanks FIRST and all the people who help to make it run as smoothly as it does. :D








T man
aka Drew Disbury
team#1251 THE TECH TIGERS
2004 ucf regional rookies of the year :D

[Cory]

worst thing that happened but was also very funny was when the allaince picking happened, the team that was supposed to pick us couldn't read there own writing and called out the wrong number....1040. We were so mad.

I have a story extremely similar to this, which has become one of my favorites that I tell people. Dont be confused by the title of this thread though, this was definitely not a terrible experience :)

In 2002, our robot did absolutely terrible at SVR. We tried too much, and didnt get much of it to work. We scored the single highest point value match at the regional, and made it to the semi finals, but none of it was due to our own success.

Nationals was an entirely different story. We were doing really well the entire time, in 4th place most of the time, then 7th and 8th for awhile, and never lower than 11th in Einstein. Obviously I am biased, but we thought we had one of the top single goal robots in our division.

We headed into our last match in 7th place, and stunned that we were likely going to end up in picking position. We were up against Team 16 (Baxter Bomb Squad, who had an AWESOME ball robot in 2002). We did what we could to hold our own, but they were really too much for us, and practically cleared the field of balls.

The final score ended up being 52-48, which dropped us down to a tie for 11th place. The irony here is that had the scores been reversed, we would have moved into 1st, or 2nd place in our division. Instead, we ended up being the number 9 team after alliance pairings, and didnt play.

It gets even better though. Throughout the weekend we had developed a good relationship with a team we played well with in one of our first matches, and had been told that they wanted to pick us in the alliance pairings. When it came time for them to pick, they made a mistake and chose Team 10, who did not exist.

A lot of people on my team were pretty mad, but I was ecstatic to have even made it to a position where we could be picked, after all our struggles at regionals, and things like that happen. In the end, everyone was able to see that things like this arent that big a deal, and accomplishment cannot be judged by where you finished, or how many medals you bring home.

Some outsiders may think that this was a pretty terrible moment, but that one competition was one of the greatest experiences I have ever had.

And to really get back on topic, I don't think my worst moment ever is really appropriate to be posted here :D

Cory