Re: Life of a FIRST Robotics Member
 

Really frustrating: telling your team not to participate in the prank played on Max and they all think it's hilarious. Especially frustrating since we'd won Gracious Professionalism at South Florida and they were actually working with the other team to play a really awful joke.

Also annoying: We're a fairly big team, so there is a significant number of people who don't work on the robot, but do practice field, strategy, Chairman's, etc. Then these people go to the competitions and make fun of the rookie robots. It's bad enough that they are saying this, but they hadn't even built a robot themselves.

Even more annoying: the same teams I had to defend coming up to us and telling us that Pratt & Whitney builds our robots for us. I wasn't aware that our student build team worked for P&W. I built part of the robot- I'm pretty sure I'd know if I worked for Pratt.

Awesome: Everything that happens after week three in build season. Somehow everything seems really exciting when you have no sleep.

Exciting: winning two regionals for the first time. Woohoo!

Very cool: Dean's List Finalist award on my birthday.

My favorite: This year we had a few teams, primarily 1523, visit to practice with us. This was the first time that we'd done this at least while I was a member, and I liked having different robots to play with.

Re: Life of a FIRST Robotics Member
 

Most exciting: I love competition and like to win but get more excited about the calls from a student when they make it into their college of choice or receive a google fellowship etc AND when former students return to mentor after graduating. I guess I'm getting older...

Most Frustrating: Modifying competition plans or robot design elements after coming up cash short AND not being able to "fix" the incredible issues some students face at home or school.

Re: Life of a FIRST Robotics Member
 

I could not agree more with you. When I started out on 1678 we always did okay, every year we made it to the eliminations. But every year we lost in the quarter finals and so without fail did this happen that we began calling it the Quarter Final Curse. Until 2011 when we won our first regional and we have been improving as a team ever since. This coming year is the first time in our team's history that we have an actual machine shop. This years Aerial Assist robot was 90% fabricated in a 20' shipping container with a small selection of bench-top and hand tools and one Bridgeport mill(this was our first year we had it too). The robot was assembled in our head mentors math class. We went head to head with 254 many times this season and on Einstein Field we gave them one of their few losses this season. Last year (Ultimate Ascent)was much the same story but with slightly fewer resources. We have long been a team who does everything to maximize what we have and how we use it.

Which brings me to my point.

Fancy machines, CAD software, bottomless accounts, none of those matter. What matters is your will power, your dedication, your hard work, and a team attitude that never lets you give up and stop working when you can settle for no less than making your robot run flawlessly. It's not the tools and resources that make the team, but simply planning to build a robot that can play hard ball on Einstein and then to make it happen with hard work and what you have.

Our Ultimate Ascent robot the E-lime-O-nator could hardly be recognized from our first regional and Champs. The only thing on that robot that was the same from our first event was our drive train. The shooter, completely replaced in favor of a superior design. The ground intake, completely replaced with a more efficient one. We never stopped trying to improve that robot and our performance reflected that.

Design a robot to win and figure out how to make it within your means.

Most frustrating: lack of team communication slowing build season to a crawl.

Re: Life of a FIRST Robotics Member
 

Most exciting: having an amazing senior year being ranked 1st for the first time in team history, being a picker at al three events including district championship, and being ranked 9th in NE.

ABSOLUTLY MOST EXCITING:BATTLECRY 15 AT WPI, AND OUR RUN TO THE SEMI-FINALS AFTER BEING THE 20TH RANKED ALLIANCE CAPTAIN. KNOCKING OFF THREE ALLIANCE HIGHER RANKED INCLUDING THE #2 RANKED BEFORING LOSEING IN THREE MATCHES TO THE TEAM THAT WENT ON TO WIN. (I believe we were the only team to bring them to three matches.)

Most frustrating: in four years of making absolutely amazing robots very capable of winning, not being able to finish with that first place. (2011 losing semi-finals by penalty) 2012-( going undefeated in qualifying and losing in quarter finals due to new balls being used causing our shooter to shoot to far.) 2013- broke a joystick in final match could not operate robot.)
2014- (bunch of minor mistakes costing us the win.)

But overall it was an amazing 4 years, especially the last year, and I couldn't be happier about our accomplishments.

Re: Life of a FIRST Robotics Member
 

Most Exciting:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...d.php?p=613604
(After reading back through that after so many years, man, I didn't realize just how good we had it back then :) )