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I know what game it was. It had one of the most famous FRC robots of all time, but I don't see that robot on the field. As an extra hint for anybody else... There was no autonomous that year, or for any year before it.

And no, I wasn't there. I went for Coopertition FIRST (2000), as a too-young-to-join mentor's kid.

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Would that make it 2001 and the robot being Team 71?

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Sticking with Wayne's challenge to "guess" and resisting the temptation to start looking things up, I'll go with 1999. Second year for fixed team numbers, and the first year that team numbers exceeded 200. Note the 226 placard in the foreground.

No I was not at Epcot that year -- I was there in '96 and '97.

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2002 Zone Zeal. I was not there, my team was.

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Forgive me. Most definitely 2002. I was there with 968.

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My team was there are rookie year.

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Robot, yes. Year, nope: Eric got it right first, followed by Travis.

330 was there, but I was not. (I joined the team the following year.)

With my added hint: You may notice that I specifically did not reference any lack of autonomous after the 2002 game--the automode started in 2003. ;)

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I thought auto started in 03 but want sure of their flop was auto or not. Ah well, should have known.

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Yes. That was actually my fourth time at the Championships.

(You can tell it's 2002 by the yellow balls on the field, and because the the large tower in the background has an "Epcot" sign, instead of the numerals "2000".)

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I spy with my eye Mandy Moore hiding behind the back of the stage.

And FIRST-branded Shasta water bottles.

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It was 2002. You can tell by the yellow soccer balls lining the edge of the field. If you look really close you can probably see me pulling my hair out as we try to repair our shredded gear box between the matches :)

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I was there! I don't see that robot either, which means I don't see me - I was wherever it was, either driving it or fixing it :D Oh how I miss the Disney days..

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I was there and my team (93) was on the Einstein field when it was a normal division! Trivia question: Which division did they add after Einstein stopped being one of the four divisions?

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I believe it was Archimedes.

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Archimedes was definitely around in 02. It was Galileo.

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I was a freshman in high school on 234 sitting even further back in the stands from where this picture was taken. I remember how hot it was and not being able to see much of what was happening on the field. Though some say they want to go back to Disney, I think we've come a long way.

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Yeah...the combination of watching the elims on Einstein and then sitting through the closing ceremonies in the sun was absolutely brutal. It must have been close to 100* and 90% humidity in 2002.

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I can confirm this with photographic evidence:


(yes I was there... my senior year on team 38)

I remember there being a Newton, and a Watt. I don't recall Curie or Galileo, but my memory is getting fuzzy with old age.

And a few more images-

The pit tent:


Slightly closer (but lower resolution) view of Einstein:

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My first year in FIRST.
My least favorite game and it was hot and all I wanted to do was find shade.

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I didnt get to go that year, but our Team 359 did.
Castle and Cooke/Dole Plantation stepped in to help us raise the funds to attend after hearing how we couldnt go to CMP the year before after winning in both 2001/2002 in SJ again. **thanks Poofs**

This was the start of our relationship with our main sponsor.............all because they read in the paper that we couldnt go due to a lack of funds.

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It was definitely

Newton
Curie
Archimedes
Einstein

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I slightly remember this! I remember the spectral of the fireworks they did after closing ceremonies and the GIANT confetti cannons! I also remember having sunburn so bad I couldn't walk for a week. Pretty crazy to see how everything has evolved over the last 12 years.

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One of my favorite memories of Epcot was seeing the shuttle launch during opening ceremonies (IIRC, might have been in 2001 as well). Just stopping everything to watch the shuttle rise up in the air was a truly incredible and memorable experience to me and made the magic of Epcot real.

I will agree with Ryan though that the seating was really far back if you were up in the bleachers.

Be happy your first year wasn't 2001 like mine...........(terrible game IMHO).

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There I am in the back row waving.
But there was this annoying team with big smiley face signs wrecking my view. :) :) :) :) :)

The humidity in the pits was a killer. The sun felt good for about 5 minutes.

Mandy walked out and screeched "Hiiii Guyyyysss!!!)

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I saw a documentary about the game. Yes. I am very very glad to miss that game.

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I still have a FIRST branded SHASTA water bottle!

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My high school team's (311, now defunct) semi-finalist finish on Einstein, who beat the team I was mentoring as a freshman in college (190) in the semi-finals. What a year...

Also, the last year for studded tires/filecards/"traction devices".

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That FIRST logo made up of truss pieces is pretty epic. I wonder if that's hanging around FIRST HQ somewhere.

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Nice picture, Last year of Disney Championships.
This was my first Champs with 624.

Its neat to see how team shirts haven't changed that much, its been about 10 years, and 217's shirts look the same

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Might have been 2000 then... before divisions. I remember Watt from somewhere, by my old age causes me to blur some of the Disney years together.

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2002...I was 6 and didn't know what FIRST was. :-/

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Divisions didn't start until 2001. In 2000 you had about 200 robots all in one big division. It was a scouting and alliance selection nightmare.

I think Watt was a division name for FLL or FTC/FVC.

I was sure Einstein, Newton, and Curie were the divisions. I could have sworn my old match videos I had from 2001/2002 were "Galileo-XXX.mov" but I looked last night and the were indeed "Arch-XXX.mov".

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'99 was the first year for pink but 2002 was the first year for a blue banner - archimedes division winner!

i remember having to move around from division to division. no saving seats cause you were always changing until the finals! pink used to sit at the top of the bleachers when we were outside so we could set up "pop up" tents over the seats.

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I was there! It was my senior year on team 87.

I think this was also a year they handed glow in the dark grey t-shirt to everyone in attendance? It was either 2001 or 2002? I think it was a 10 year anniversary t-shirt. Anyone still have one of those?

Nate

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My favorite memory of Disney were these Led thing-a-majigs you spun like a party favor that you could painstakingly set up words that would appear when you spun them clockwise. I had programmed several words but my favorite was "Applause"
While waiting in line for Imagination, I would spin it and everyone would applaud. I would stop and they would stop. It was a great feeling of POWER :D

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The 10th anniversary shirts with the glow in the dark FIRST logo were given out in 2001. I didn't realize they glowed in the dark until I rode the Tower of Terror wearing mine. I still have it, but it doesn't glow anymore.

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I was thinking the same thing.

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Ah, the good old days where your match schedule didn't just tell you your color, but which field you were on.

I know at least one of the Disney years had the top 5 robots get pits at the top of the stands - probably '96? Of course, that was back in double elimination time, so I don't know how'd they choose a top 5. It's amazing what time does to memories. Must have been 99 then when the first alliances were formed.

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I've got two in my refrigerator. :)

They passed those things out early because it was so dang hot in the stands during Einstein/closing ceremonies.

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I would estimate that the majority of them were used for water fights in the stands

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I am probably the only person that guessed based on nothing to do with FIRST. The wand structure around Spaceship Earth existed from 2000 to 2007. After 2000, the numbers "2000" were replaced by the word "Epcot" in mid-2001. Therefore, the only year CMP could be in Disney with that wand is 2002.

I'm weird.

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Just remembered something that I miss which ended in 2002... The police lights and the matching covers that identified which alliance a robot was on! Not saying that we should go back to this, but it was something very memorable for me. Probably the only thing cool about 2001 was having 4 different colors of covers. Do you remember the four colors?!?!

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Oh I remember the colors.

Let's go yellow and green alliance next year, just for kicks.

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I do. I also remember quite a few shattered covers from the lights in 2003--you know, the ones that screwed onto the base instead of being velcroed to the frame. I seem to recall that 236 broke quite a few going under the 14" bar in Galileo. 330 didn't break any that way, something about not going under the bar much in the first place and when they did, the light would retract into the robot and pop right back up.