Re: Life of a FIRST Robotics Member
 

This sounds like a fun project! What are you going to do with all these awesome responses?

Re: Life of a FIRST Robotics Member
 

The most exciting part of FIRST for me is watching my team, and many other teams sustain throughout the years. Many teams have lost what they thought was everything (mentors, build sites, seniors), and they always seem to find a way through it.

Re: Life of a FIRST Robotics Member
 

The 24 hours between about 7PM on March 28 and 7PM on March 29, 2008.

Got engaged to my wife, won the Philadelphia Regional, won the Regional Chairman's Award.

Re: Life of a FIRST Robotics Member
 

The most exciting thing : being on a bad cycled-team with about 3 kids out of 20 who aren't rookies, on your rookie team, making it to rank 8, feeling proud as hell in the most awesome competition in the world. It's the knowing that you won't win the regional this time, but still making the best out of the best of times. :)

The most annoying thing: having your autonomous mode not working due to some unknown network problem, which could've been solved very easily... And figuring out the solution a week after that regional...

Re: Life of a FIRST Robotics Member
 

Don't lose hope! There's always a possibility waiting to happen. We aren't sponsored by GM or NASA or Chrysler and we made it to Einstein. Albeit it was a very shaky road there, we made it. But I can totally agree with you on the negativity thing being one of the most annoying aspects of a team.

After the third match in Einstein, while we were all crossing our fingers, there was this one kid down there who was just so defeated looking. The score was close, we knew it was close, but he had completely given up. We at least beat those "Chrysler" and "NASA" teams on our way to Einstein. That was one of the most satisfying competition seasons I've ever been apart of. And all this from a team that before this year, had never one even a district event.

Re: Life of a FIRST Robotics Member
 

Most exciting: Thinking about how much I learned since I joined my team and how much I learned just this year. Winning my first district/regional and placing 7th in MAR was pretty exciting also. This whole thing is exciting.

Most annoying: My time as a student is over:(

Re: Life of a FIRST Robotics Member
 

Well I don't want to spoil anything but this information shall be used to make something that I hope everyone can use and enjoy. :D

Re: Life of a FIRST Robotics Member
 

The most exciting....that's tough. There's quite a few but here:
Seeing our DriveTeam Coach (a student), also our Control Systems subteam captain, working to fix a team's robot when our team was up to play. The team he was helping was going to play against us that match.

The most annoying, not much annoys me as I see everything as a chance to learn and improve but:
Doing things to help us win an award rather than to just do them because they're the right thing to do. This mentality has rubbed off on our students, and we're trying to change it by saying "You'll win the award, then what, just stop doing things? Give me a better reason".

Re: Life of a FIRST Robotics Member
 

Most exciting thing:
Realizing that I started doing FRC as a seventh grader, and am getting two more years of student time than most people do.

Most annoying thing:
Not starting as a sixth grader.

Re: Life of a FIRST Robotics Member
 

Most exciting - We made it to Einstein this year for the first time ever! tres cool!

Most annoying - moving our operations frequently and at awkward times (we have no permanent home). Also expensive (we need to rent trucks).

Re: Life of a FIRST Robotics Member
 

Most exciting moment: When we won the Judge´s Award this year at Alamo, we thought we will win the Industrial Safety Award but when we heard our name and our description with the community outreach we went crazy!

Most annoying moment: There were two actually: When a slot of our cRio broke some hours before a scrimmange we organized. When our compressor started to fail at the competition.

Re: Life of a FIRST Robotics Member
 

Most exciting: Watching our first match on Einstein 2 weeks ago. I was absolutely sure going into that match that the other team would mop the floor with us, watching our alliance work like a machine (pun intended) and show everyone how it's done on Curie was incredible, I'm not gonna lie, I've never cheered so hard in my life.

Most annoying: Probably electrical failures keeping us from division finals last year and Einstein finals this year.

Re: Life of a FIRST Robotics Member
 

Most Exciting: Meeting all kinds of people and having similar interests as me and the excitement and energy of most people at competition.

Most Annoying: Having to leave my new friends and the negativity i see when some teams bash on others because that is just plain bullying and aren't we suppose to get along.

(Thought I might as well do my own with all the great replies). :D

Re: Life of a FIRST Robotics Member
 

Most exciting:
I've seriously spent 15 minutes sitting here staring at my screen trying to pinpoint the most exciting memory I've had with FIRST. It's hard, because everything has been exciting. One of my favorites is getting to travel as a volunteer. Going to IRI in 2009 I got to meet a ton of people that had previously only been usernames and pictures online. I went to St. Louis for the Championship in 2011 and met even more people. Plus, my CAD leader was pretty thrilled when I was able to bring him a new copy of Inventor from the CD webhug :)

Most annoying:
I'll second this
After my first year on the team, our founding teacher decided to retire. During my time as a student we had four teachers in four years (they left for different reasons - retirement, family, not enough time), and the teacher from my senior year has finally stuck around. We also gained and lost mentors every year such that only two of the mentors from my freshman year were still around by the time I graduated...our contact with GM and her husband. All very frustrating, but it seems like the team is thankfully stabilizing now.

And only getting to volunteer once a year. That's annoying too. I need more robots in my life!

Re: Life of a FIRST Robotics Member
 

Most Exciting - I've got 2.
1. Winning RCA in Hawaii. It was my first time as a Chairman's presenter, and it was an incredible feeling having all of my work for that season being recognised.
2. Watching our robot, which was at least twice the robot we had last year, lose our Semi-Final by 1 disc which was jammed in our robot. DUDE. WE MADE SEMIS!

Most Annoying - Not getting any feedback as to how we did at Championships for Chairman's. Don't get me wrong, I left that room totally satisfied with everything we'd done, it would have been nice to have received a feedback form or something from the judges.