Did You Catch 'Em Being Good?!
 

To catch someone being good means exactly that. Catching someone in the act of doing something nice, kind, gracious, helpful, or beyond the call of duty.

We often catch someone being bad and we love to talk about it, gripe about it, complain about it. There are already enough threads that lean towards griping or complaining. This one is about praising or highlighting or thanking.

We can apply this to the 2012 Championship Event or, if you have a memory of catching someone being good during the season and want to share that, please do.

I'll start off with a fun one. The yoyos at the Championship Event. One of the sponsors, Boeing, provided yoyos as giveaways and did so, cheerfully. It was a lot of fun to see kids of all ages with yoyos and having fun with them. It was delightful to see the sponsor reps having fun and enjoying talking to everyone, too.

Who did you catch having fun or doing something helpful, kind, thoughtful, or nice?

Jane

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Adam Freeman from team 67 picking up a piece of garbage off the floor that was not his on his way out to the competition field.

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Amir Abo-Shaeer, even though he was pressed for time to get to his elimination match, still stopping to sign my New Cool book and even left a message.

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The FTA's were fantastic. We had one come to us while we lost coms in a match, then followed us from the field to our pit and helped go through everything to try and find an issue. Even before that, we had put in a request and had help right away.

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Rob Jenkins and all the FTA/CSAs on Archimedes. The one time our robot died during a match, they were all over at our robot working on it at the side of the field after the match. We never did find a specific issue, but they were very helpful in working with our drivers to understand exactly what happened.

Next couple times we were out there Rob specifically came up and asked us if we found anything or experienced any issues after our matches.

Rob was also our FTA at most of our Michigan districts and MSC. So we all felt comfortable knowing he would be there for us if anything happened.

THANKS Rob, Jerry, and Oliver!

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Don Rotolo took his inspector hat off and put his mentor hat on to help a team re-wire their entire robot into compliance a couple hours before matches were to start. Working with him was one of the highlights of the weekend for me.

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So I didn't catch someone in the act so much, but I got to experience what makes FIRST great. 1114 Simbotics came by our pit (why ours, I don't know) on Friday looking for a Digital Sidecar, which we lent to them. They used it all the way to Einstein and will we shipping it back to us soon. Team 2403 Plasma, on the other hand, saved our butts on Saturday when our center Plaction wheels shattered and loaned us their two spares, now we are sending the replacements for the shattered ones to them. What other sport can you do that in?

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Justin Foss of 2168 coming over to our pit while the issues with 2168's robot where still being worked out to give some advice on how to reduce the compression on our shooter, without his advice we probably wouldn't have been able to shoot at the middle hoop in hybrid like we did at championship. He did this without even thinking about the fact that our next competition was also his next competition, he just wanted to help.

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Pick just one or two? That's impossible! :)

Inside my team...
Nathan - a first year student - volunteering to take extra scouting shifts!

Mollie - another first year student - for her optimism when given a big task. She replied with such simple words, "we got this, it's ok." And they did have it and it was ok.

The approximately dozen students who took a Team 148 button to bring back to one of our kids who is a big (huge) 148 fan and couldn't come to St. Louis.

I bet I could tell a story for each of the kids on the team. Hmmm maybe that's a good idea to share with my team.

From adults - Judy V. for giving me a tiara to wear on Friday. So unexpected!

The team leader from a Hawaiian FTC team, for the cute flower for my hair!

The adults from the Columbus Corps Team 4188! Each time I met one they said thank you to me for the help I had given through e-mails in prepping their team for St. Louis. It was so sweet! And that simple act of saying thank you made me feel so good over and over again!

And the folks from Sheperd Expo Services for being so magnanimous when we hosted the All Rookie Meet and Greet in their space! I'm sure they were happy to have us leave! :D

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These teams helped another team overcome an illegal servo issue:

399 - Window Motor
3929 - Window motor hub
3476 - Two nylon spacers used in mounting the window motor

No questions asked when coming into their pit. I just said, "Do you have this to help a team" and they gratefully handed over the parts.

This is why I love being a part of FIRST

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Here's a good one:

Lead Robot Inspectors Chris Paulik, Jeff Pahl and Chuck Dickerson (with Chris and Jeff being LRI's on Curie and Archimedes) approached my team (3940) regarding some robot rule non-compliance on Friday. This was after we passed inspection Thursday morning, while I was busy inspecting other robots.

They came up to me after pow-wowing around our robot before a match began. I was on the other side of the field, and wondered why a bunch of yellow hats were around our purple robot. Then, they huddled by themselves for about 2-3 minutes and came over to me.

Chris tried to keep a straight face and told me that our robot was illegal. I asked why this was the case. He said that since our air cylinders were covered with yellow tape and our plastic air tanks were painted purple, we were violating the rule that did not allow this sort of modification, although he knew it was cosmetic. All four of us joked about this for a little bit, agreeing that this is a rule that inconsequential. Then, I said "seriously, are you gonna make us change these tanks and take off the yellow tape?" They said yes, since another inspector on another division made a team do this previously on Thursday, they need to be consistent. Although I did not agree with their interpretation of this rule (or we would not have painted the tanks in the first place), I agreed that they were correct in their enforcement, and proceeded to go back to my team and pose the situation to them.

So, as we were waiting our turn back at a practice field, we took a knife to the yellow gaffers tape on the cylinders and some fingernails to the tape on the plastic tanks. Within about 5 minutes we had all of this rouge stuff off of our pneumatics. Our pit captain, Sarah, when to the Curie question box and asked for the LRI. Chris came over and Sarah talked to him about what we did to fix the problem.

While this was funny, it was also awkward for those inspectors to address me with this issue, since I was also an inspector. They were graceful and correct in their ruling, and understood why I disagreed with their interpretation of the rule. However, they still made us comply. Chris, Jeff, and Chuck were in a bind with this issue, and handled it well.

Andy B.

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Well, seeing as I was a spectator this year, looking to learn more about how the top teams build their robots, some teams were particularly helpful.

1114: I walked by their pit and stopped for quite a while to look at their robot. I asked if I could take pictures, and they said yes, like most teams would. After I eyed the robot for a while longer, they asked if I had any questions, also normal. One thing led to another, and soon, I was getting almost a full tour of their wonderful machine :eek:. It was amazing, a STUDENT (not a mentor) told me each how almost each and every part was made. I learned so much from this team. It was amazing!

1629: When walking by their pits, I asked about their tank treads. Eventually me and my Dad got into a discussion with them about structuring not only an FRC team, but a whole district of teams, from JFLL to FLL to FTC to FRC, and funding it all too! U-City might be seeing some major changes around here thanks to them!

Also, if you would mind me adding a third, all of the teams who hosted a conference that I went to see (Karthik, 359, 365 and the hall-of-famers, and 79). These were fantastic, thank you guys so much!

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This one happened at Orlando week 2 but starts about 9 weeks prior.

79 Decided to program in C++ this year due to an influx of mentors that knew it and a really rookie programming team. We trained them on C++ and they coded the robot alongside the mentors. (That's the boring part of the story.) However, when the time for Orlando came around it turned out that every single software mentor was volunteering for some role or another leaving our students in the position of being without any support from us at their first regional as a programming student. Without any coaching from us they set up programming help for other teams there. Not just in C++ but in Java and LabView as well... Apparently a few of them knew each language and, on the fly, figured out the WPILib enough to help program other teams robots.

Imagine my surprise when a couple of them came running up to me exclaiming how much fun they were having helping other teams program their robots.

I'm very proud of these kids... I just wish they'd saved some energy for programming 79's bot (they all wore themselves out and fell asleep in the stands by the end of the day).

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Please post as often as you would like.
Add as many memories, thank yous, and highlights as you choose.
In short, write a book.

:)

Jane

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A number of people from Team 525, The SWARTDOGS, (along with our alliance partners, The Pink Team) helped us fix our ball collector mechansim after they inadvertantly broke it in a collision at the very end of Curie QF3-2.

Thanks again, guys.

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My personal favorite part of the year was when the mentor of team 3396, Imperium Machinamentum, came to team 216's pit at Waterloo and thanked us profusely for the help that we had given them, last year! It really caught my attention and made me think about how much of an impact you can have on others!

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Big Al Skierkiewicz and his crew of inspectors on Newton for their sage wisdom and their help to improve our robot each day.

Jim Hackbarth, who was quick to jump to help other teams whenever he heard an announcement in the pits.

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James and Kelcey on Archimedes were two of the field reset crew and they were awesome. With a few other people we got a good system down that allowed us to quickly set up then have time to goof around and dance on the barrier between matches: definitely a highlight of my trip. They both cheered on teams, said good luck to drivers as they got set up, and genuinely cared about doing a good job. AWESOME volunteers.

Tim (one of the mentors from my team, 33!) came by the field with a coffee for me when I desperately needed the extra energy boost. So appreciated.

The drivers from 67: LOVE these kids. Always make me laugh. So dedicated. After they lost in the finals on Archimedes, they both shook hands with their opponents and congratulated them. Very classy high school students.

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Something small but something wonderful to hear: At championship, a girl on 2200 drops her bag of hand-out buttons and they scatter across the floor in the middle of one of the exits from the stadium, which as you all probably know, are never uncrowded. Everyone stops to help her pick them back up.

At Wisconsin, the majority of our team hadn't arrived with our back bumper so that we could pass inspection Friday morning and were stuck in the terrible traffic. The inspectors came over and gave us the materials and worked alongside those of us who were there to make a new, legal bumper. It was only because of them that we passed inspection before our first match.

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FTA Paul George on Newton for allowing me to be on the elim. field with my team because they don't remember to drink water or listen to other people [volunteers, FTA] when Swoopes [our robot] is in their presence.

So many acts of kindness, hugs and general niceness was witnessed at Championships!!

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I do wish we had figured out what happened to you guys. I was CSAing (orange hat guy) for Rob and Jerry (The Archimedes FTAs), and they did an amazing job making my job easy doing things like you said, such as running up right after the match to try and find the problem, and then having me follow teams back. I remember one instance where Jerry actually came back to the pit too in order to make sure a team would be able to connect their next match, he did the same thing at CTR. I think he's the only FTA I've seen do that.

- Oliver

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Team 27 RUSH -- The interest so many student members showed in my team and the smiles with which they listened were truly inspiring. It was even more inspiring to listen to them explain many of their innovative outreach endeavors and bear our hundreds of detailed questions about each. They also encouraged teams in the most inventive way I have yet seen...they gave out their own "Spirit Award" to a team in Curie that (although their robot did not perform well) understood what FIRST is really about -- STEM, learning, attitudes, and values.

A mentor from team 836 Robobees -- This patient individual responded immediately to our call for help about intermittent BaneBot motor response, and remained in good humor when the motors showed no signs of failure once he showed up. He later returned to help us with camera issues and was a huge part of why we got that camera working.

Lastly, the longsuffering inspection crew of Curie -- Three of the inspectors stayed with us in our pit for hours as we fixed previously overlooked bumper infringements and wiring errors and re-mounted components after having completely leveled our robot for modification Wednesday night. They not only waited for us, but actually aided us in fixing each problem...thanks to their help, we were able to pass inspection (we were the last Curie team to do so) at 12:45pm, exactly 15 minutes before our (and the division's) first match at 1:00pm.

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For us one of the most unselfish and gracious acts was Team Mean Machine (2471) coming to our pit to warn us to watch out for the ultra hard balls that were being placed onto the Newton field - then letting us try to adjust our shooter using their sample ball - even though their alliance faced us in the first elimination round. Very classy guys!

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Take a look at this post:

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...8&postcount=60

Lucien from Team 118 went out of his way to move as many people to safety during the tornado. I thank him for having the courage, forethought to put an evacuation plan in place.

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Reminds me of an incident involving Paul Copioli in 2007 during the Galileo eliminations.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=57073

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During the season this year, we focused so much on our robot that we forgot to make bumpers (or bumper mounts, for that matter)! :ahh:

Luckily for us, when we got to the Silicon Valley Regional, a girl from 3256 happily came over and helped us put them together, and helped us find a way to mount them to our frame.

3256 is always a great team to be with, and deserve WAY more credit than they receive (they also build a good robot, too. ;))

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This is back the day after Kickoff. In the L.A. area, two kitbot build days are scheduled, and this was the first one. One of the rookie teams (3934, to be exact) showed up without a kitbot, but with tools and manpower. It turned out that they'd built theirs the day before, and had come to help out. They got to work making electronics mounting boards, going on runs to the hardware store (having proper hardware makes mounting stuff so much easier for some reason) and generally helping get the kitbots up and running.

By the end of the day, every rookie that showed up had a drivable robot. (Save for one that couldn't stay the whole time.) It would have taken quite a bit longer than it did if 3934 hadn't showed up ready to help. That's a rookie team that gets it.

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One of our students dropped an envelope with over $100.00 in it when paying for something in a concession line. He did not notice it missing until sometime later. He ended up going to the Lost and Found and someone had turned it. Not too many places you can go and have someone turn in that kind of cash to Lost and Found.

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Thanks go out to:

Control System Advisors! We interacted with about 6 of them, plus FTAs, over the course of the event-- all of them very invested in helping us fix our controls problems and excited to develop and share their knowledge.

The Spare Parts volunteers for allowing us to play out the classic Ship of Theseus puzzle-- after replacing almost every controls component one by one, were we still working with the same robot? They were very gracious and accomodating, even when they had to gently remind us to return everything we borrowed.

Eric VanWyk for coming to our pit to investigate a PDB issue, but staying to share a number of details about the development, features, and failure modes of the board.

Our pit neighbors 3530 and 4372, both Canadian, and both excellent examples of gracious professionalism.

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i don't know what team it was but i was cutting a peice of Aluminum at championships and was on the corner of the table and was having some trouble holding it so a member from another team came and let me use a cutting bench wich was very helpful.

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I am happy that many of you have stated the inspection staff was very helpful. That is what we attempt to achieve. I can only hope everyone had the same experience. I am thankful everyday that I had so many helpful people get us through the inspection of the 402 robots in just over nine hours. Only one team did not make their first match and that was strictly the team's decision to not finish inspection in time. All fields had almost 50% of their divisions re-inspected by the time alliance selections had been completed. Thank you to the teams that helped us by coming in early for re-inspection.

I've got 2 from this season that immediately come to mind.

Story 1: So we were very fortunate this season to be invited by 195 and 228 to practice on their full sized field with our practice robot. Our Drive Team was down there practicing, however the DT was pushing the robot to its limit, and we were not getting quite the performance we had hoped for.

One of those nights, Dave and the crew over on 228 made a couple suggestions and slight modifications that could really help improve our performance. He helped us out making them, and we instantly saw much better performance out of our robot. If it wasn't for 228's help, I am certain our achievement of Regional Finalist would not have been possible, and we're very grateful to them.

Story 2: Both for the 2011 and 2012 season, my team (1071) has been helping and assisting 3461 with different things, mainly helping them with programming, although we also had them use our build space on certain days and did some practicing with them. To us this was no big deal, as we've done it in the past, and we love working with these guys.

Well it's Thursday morning of CTR. I'm helping get things set up in the pits an stands, running around crazy like always. Billy from 3461 comes up to me and he says he wants me and my Captain to stop by their pit sometime that morning, and that they have something to show us. We head over and there in their pit is this beautiful custom made trophy thanking us for helping them out. It was a truly touching and gracious move by 3461. Even though we made it to Finalist that weekend, to me that is my favorite and most important trophy our team has ever received.

Here's a picture of the trophy:
Attachment 12712

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Valuable information shared by those at NEMO group meeting and parent meeting.

I enjoyed meeting and listening to the stories that so many young people had about their FIRST season. In particular, I enjoyed a young man from a Delphi sponsored FRC team describe to me in detail an iPad app that he developed for scouting. Very slick and a humble, pleasant young inventor.

An FTC team from Iowa spent about 20 minutes describing for me their robot and the objective of their game. Passionate and so willing to share their experience.

The kindness and gracious professionalism displayed by so, so many people. Their willingness to help and share made me so proud of this generation of students and their mentors.

The commitment to "give back" that was the theme of many speeches and demonstrated by teams over and over again.

Mark Leon's blue haired passion for math. His willingness to interact with and inspire students is wonderful. Mark, "2102 We love you!"

Thank you to Dean Kamen, Woodie Flowers, and the many, many folks that make FIRST one of the best things in STEM education.

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My son was a finalist for the Dean's List. Our team was not able to attend the World Championship. We had helped team 4206, the Nolan Vikes, this year and I was pleased to see that they showed up for the Dean's List Ceremony. My son was selected as one of the 10 new members of the Dean's List. Team 4206 cheered very loudly for him. The Members of 4206 that were not on the drive team stuck around and waited through all the photo ops and talking to VIPs to personnally congragulate my son. This was a very special thing to my son and I. Team 4206 deffinately knows what it means to be part of the FIRST Family. Team 704 looks forward to playing with them again next year.

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Team 4206 is awesome. Very friendly, and anxious to learn group of kids.

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The teams at championship never cease to amaze me. A few shout outs to some special teams that deserve recognition:

The HOT Team: I went by their pit soon after I arrived on Wednesday and they immediately greeted me. Later on, when they had more time, they were very eager to explain aspects of their robot. Their machine this year was amazing, and HOT always wows me with their clever, out of the box designing. From the side hanging gas spring hanger in 2010 to this harvester, HOT designs have taken on a distinct image and are very effective. Stay HOT, my friends

Rush: After 971 had trouble for the end of qualifications-we were dead in the last 2.5 matches-they picked us from the 8th spot when we doubted that we were going to be playing in the afternoon. We were glad we had the opportunity to play with you guys in elims and in that first match. If only out robot problems had gone differently, that first match would have been more exciting.

The Cheesy Poofs: The Poofs have helped us multiple times over the past few years, and their support has been instrumental to our rise as a team. Championship 2012 was no different. The 254 student programmer was helping us in our pit when we found we had been picked by Rush, scheduled to play the Poofs in the quarterfinals. The gracious professionalism exhibited by 254 leaves no doubt as to why they are in the Hall of Fame.

Simbotics: The team that I probably look up to the most in FRC. When I came by, the students were all knowledgeable about the robot, and eager to share despite being busy. You guys definitely deserved the CCA, it was a long time coming. Coming by your pit helped me and I'm sure several others realize why 1114 is so good. Every year, I pay special attention to the machine the St. Catherine's team has produced. 1114 is the definition of inspiring, and their team model is one that I admire immensely.

Killer Bees: The enthusiasm on your team was amazing. I was very impressed with how your team clustered around the pit excitedly as if it were a "hive". 33 was very eager to share their design with me and I have to say I got some ideas for coming years. 33 was one of the pits that I specifically brought a new member to go see. Much the same as 1114, you not only have great robots, but also great people.

D'Penguineers: I saw the offensive onslaught 1717 brought on at CVR, and it was definitely more exciting in person. Then, being able to talk to you at CVR and Champs was an inspiring and enlightening experience. Your robot this year was so well built and well driven. Thank you for being so open and informative about your design.

High Rollers: Team 987 was right next to us in the Curie Division pits and I finally met you guys and saw your team in action. Your Einstein appearance was very well deserved. 987 is a class act, and our team was honored to work next to 987. We can only hope to play with you in some event in the future.

Thanks to all of those who took an interest in our robot and stopped by our pit. Even though most of the time our crew was emotionally down with the frequency of robot failures, the folks coming around and asking questions were a bright spot in our day. We feel that we built a solid robot this year, and it was awesome to share it with so many great young minds.

There were many other amazing and inspiring teams and individuals at St. Louis who deserve a mention. These are the ones that come to mind right now that I had a personal interaction with. If I remember more, I can give more shout outs. These teams I definitely caught being good.

Thanks to the folks who made champs such a memorable experience.

-Kevin

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2056, OP Robotics:
Wow did I spend a lot of time in your pit. I questioned you about almost every aspect of your robot, and still am left in awe about it. Your drive team, in their down time, was crazy helpful and explained every little detail and fired off answers almost as fast as your robot shot this year. When I first learned of your robot was in 2010 when you had that nifty hanging mechanism. Then this year I had the chance to interact with your team. Especially in answering "How would you do better if you could do it all over." You gave it serious thought and answered it whole heartedly. Your team, and students, are inspiring.

(If you've been following my posts, yeah, you could say I'm a little in love with 2056. Lookin' for a tshirt to trade by mail, or even a button by mail if you happen to have some lying around.)

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I wish I could remember their team number or where exactly their pit was so I could find the pit number BUT on Saturday while everyone was packing up their crates I put out a call through pit admin that I was in need of a cart. (My team was not competing but we had loaned 5 batteries to MisCar and we did not want to hand carry them back to the hotel. We learned our lesson getting them over there) We thought no one was going to loan us one due to everyone packing up but out of no where when my other mentor went back to the hotel to get us a way to carry them, a single team member showed up and had me follow him back to his pit so we could borrow a cart. It was so nice that a team took the time out of packing up their pit to allow a non-competing team the use of their cart. A big thanks goes out to this team!

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That's just how we roll at "The Mean Machine". Last year we were beaten by our own mini-bot in a Qual. round in Seattle.

It was great having your wonderful team just down the row from us.

Yeah!!! PNW is the bestest! Well... we're working on it. :-)

Bud Hayes Mentor 2471 The Mean Machine

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I know this could be controversial, but I actually thought all the paper airplanes were an awesome sight. Everyone was bored out of their minds waiting for Einstein, and seeing them I think brightened everyone's days. I especially loved the few times when one would make it really far, and the whole stadium would erupt.

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Paul Johnson from 1429 helped our team immensely not once but twice. Before our 1st competition we needed to find an extra solenoid valve for our pneumatics setup. Not only did he invite me over to his shop to see if I could find what I needed, he practically forced me to take 3 of them instead of the one we needed so we could have spares. Than at Lone Star we were looking for a certain cylinder and there was no way we could overnight it and get it before Saturday. He went back to Kaos's shop, found what we needed and got it to us Friday morning before the pits opened.

Thanks again Paul,
Allen

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On Einstein we broke our bridge manipulator. Shaun from 25, along with the mentors from 16 and 180 tried to use their timeout for us, as we could not get it fixed in the short period of time we had. I know they wanted everyone at 100% for the finals. Not sure if I got a chance to say it in person, but congrats on your championship!

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We'll leave the controversial aspects to the other threads and not worry about it here... this one is for celebration.

A flaming chicken would love a paper airplane. It stands to reason.

Jane

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~Josue Flores from the mexican team 4262 came to the practice field looking for me. He explained to me that all the Mexican teams were getting together to cheer for one another during their matches and he wanted our match schedule to cheer for us too. He said that our team had made them feel welcomed at the Seattle Regional and that they wanted to do the same thing for us in St. Louis. I explained to him that we were on a different divicion, but i guess it didn't matter. A couple of times when i was on the field, i looked up to find my team and 4262 was there as well cheering for us along with other team members from different mexican teams <3 it was amazing!

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Mrs.Frick and Mr.West, who left Championships to pick up medicine for two of our team members caught an awful chest cold.

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I just remembered one that involves one of my fellow mentors on 418, Danny Diaz.

Because I was volunteering in several programs and I wasn't always sure where to report to, I got a little flustered early on in the competitions. Danny came up behind me on his way to the FLL field and gave me a great big, "Hello, Jane!". He quickly noticed that I was flustered, bordering on frustrated, and he helped me get back on track, helping me understand a part of the FLL aspect that I was supposed to be doing.

This is a small thing but the area that we covered physically, made it a big thing. FLL was spread over a significant amount of the venue and time was a'wasting, and I was nowhere where I needed to be.

Danny and I have been mentoring together over a span of 10 years or so and we've learned to work together as a great team, supporting each other and the contributions that each of us makes to the teams that we work with. We've had to work on building this relationship and the results are moments like I experienced on the Championship level: respect, understanding, support, and help. It was a great little moment in the STL experience. Thank you, Danny!

Jane

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Wildstang made a concerted effort to apologize to every MOE member they could find for an unfortunate remark made by one of their parents in the stands (which most of MOE did not hear anyway).

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Team Driven did not make it to championships this year, unfortunately. However, five Team Driven members still attended the competition including myself. We probably spent a good half hour looking for seats at Einstein. Team 537 Cougar Robotics yelled accross aisles to us. They had gone out of their way to make room for all five of us and it was quite enjoyable being able to expierience finals with them. So thanks to team 537! :)

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Team 254 - For reminding everyone that you can be highly competitive on the field, while still having fun. Many of you have seen their hysterical hybrid antics already, but there was more good stuff from the Poofs. On Friday, I was minding my own business outside of the 1114 pit, when five Poof students approached me. They immediately started snapping their fingers and singing "Call Me Maybe". I didn't even know what to do, I was too stunned to laugh. (They continued singing for at least two minutes.) On top of all this, they had their priceless safety posters featuring one of their mentors. Another example of why Team 254 is one of the most legit teams in FIRST. (Not to mention their dominant robot that was derided as being "underwhelming" by many folks this year...)

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Small derailing, but where on earth did they get all those costumes??

Re: Did You Catch 'Em Being Good?!
 

I happened to be by the 1114 pit at the time - that was hilarious. Nice job, 254, for making people smile. :)

Re: Did You Catch 'Em Being Good?!
 

Airport, orchestra, Oz, Coruscant, Paramount Studios

Re: Did You Catch 'Em Being Good?!
 

You mean those all weren't actual team members?

Re: Did You Catch 'Em Being Good?!
 

A couple days before champs, Chris Hibner posted in the T-shirt Trade thread that he was looking to offload a bunch of his shirts. I'd been dying to grab a 51 shirt since 2010, so I offered a trade. Imagine my surprise when he replied to say that he didn't want anything in return and that I could just have it!

I couldn't find him on Thursday at Champs, but I made sure to visit 51's pit before Opening Ceremonies on Friday. Luckily, Chris was there. Not only did I get the shirt, but apparently he had been wandering the pits all Thursday looking for me!

Chris, and Ken Patton, I really wish I wasn't so pressed for time Friday morning and could have stuck around and chatted for a bit. Thank you for your well wishes. You guys are a class act and 51 is the real deal.

Re: Did You Catch 'Em Being Good?!
 

So many of the teams at St. Louis were very gracious and kind, but there were a few that stood out to me.

Star Trec: our scouters started to get tired and quite a few of their team members volunteered to scout. They were extremely enthusiastic about scouting and there was one team member who probably would've scouted all day if we let him. Even though they were a rookie team, these guys were as gracious and understanding as vets.

COSMOS: they did not compete at St. Louis, but five of their team members joined our team to go. They were very enthusiastic and helped our team with scouting and cheered during our matches. They volunteered for just about any task that came up, even though they were supposed to go explore and have fun!

Team RUSH: I was really trying to get a RUSH shirt this year. I never did get a shirt, but many of the team members went out of their way to try to find me a shirt and one member said he would try to help me get one next year. Their team members are very spirited and were gracious even when they lost. They are also fantastic dancers.

I would also like to thank the numerous people who held open doors and made room in the elevator. It was a very stressful event for many teams and it was nice seeing people being gracious and smiling when there was so much chaos.