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What are your victories?
Hi everyone,
So far, after each season that we've participated in, I have tried to write something that I believe that I've learned over the past year. I hope that what I write will inspire someone. One of the questions that I have been pondering as of late is how often we as FIRST Robotics teams spend more time being defined by what we do rather than who we are. Our awards are geared to extrinsic ideals, our success measured by visible standards, and our determination fixed by ideals that are often formed by those who have gone before. Over the last year I have tried to change this concept in Panthrobotics. Instead of defining ourselves by what we are doing, I am trying to instill in my members that it is who we are becoming that should be the focus of our organization. This is a hard task to do. It is easy to want to look at other great teams, see what they have done, emulate those teams, and hopefully catch the spark that they have. I have often frustrated myself because I want my team to be the next 1114 or 256 or 2468 . . . the list goes on and on. The problem is that, by doing this, I lose sight of my own team. I'll be honest - it can be frustrating to be one of those teams at events that are forgotten. It is hard to be the team that is not mentioned in any of the posts or seen in any of the commentary. Our team is not alone in this. There are many that are the 'regulars' - out in the crowd looking for the autograph instead of autographing. There is part of me that wants to find the biggest spotlight and shine it directly at the spot in the stands where our team sits. So we start to think of awesome ways. . . to win. "We should make this app because it could help us win Chairman's Award." "We should start doing this outreach because it could give us Engineering Design Inspiration." "How can we do what this team is doing so we can get where they are?" I figure I'm not the only one that thinks this way. But in the end, being motivated by these things causes burnout and stress. It leads to hopelessness because as I strive to be some other team, that other team continues to run and get farther away than nearer. Their funding is greater, or their mentoring staff is bigger, and we cannot keep up. So another idea hit me. Google did not become Google because they ran after Yahoo. Facebook did not try to become the next MySpace and Amazon did not want to be the next Walmart. They all became great because they strived to become who they were instead of who someone else was. I cannot strive to push our team to become someone else. What makes the sauce that is Panthrobotics? What is the intricacies that form a team made up of the leftovers of what the Magnet programs left behind? While we work to define our Core Values, we are also working to define ourselves. Not that we stop striving for greatness, because that is part of us. But we have to strive for greatness on our own terms. We had our first Dean's List finalist this year. She asked me a question one night as I stressed on how to improve our robot prior to Bayou Regional. She asked me what I defined as victory. For me, victory has always been labeled by the win. She said something in reply along these words; "I believe that if we do all we can with what we have, then we are victorious." To you, all my CDers, perhaps this is my greatest wish. At the end of this season do not be disheartened. If you have done all that you can with all that you have then you have been victorious this season. So - some of our team's victories?
My list could go on forever. But whats amusing is that none of these things included awards. Most of what I am most proud of is seeing each of my members become who they were supposed to be. I saw my team start reaching a point where our identity began to assert itself. I hope your victories were as sweet. And for those of you who have not been called out among the rest and for those of you who at times feel forgotten remember that it is not so much what you are doing that is important. It is what you are becoming. Thank you. |
Re: What are your victories?
This is an A+ post. I cannot thank you enough and whole heartily agree.
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Re: What are your victories?
Great post! As a lead in, while it sounds like at times you may feel like your accomplishments are not noticed in the way that the formally recognized teams may be... from the first time I saw you post on CD I took an interest. I actually spent 5th-12th grade in Baton Rouge about 10 minutes from Woodlawn HS before returning to Texas in 2005. Unfortunately, FIRST was non-existent (AFAIK) in Baton Rouge when I was in high school, and I didn't really learn about it until just a couple years ago. Every time I see you post, I'm a little wistful that your program wasn't around then.
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Our existing team of 5 mentors moved programs due to lack of students at the after school club we were previously working with. Rather than continue trying to grow at a location that lacked students, we moved our mentor group to a struggling FIRST team (no funding, 1 mentor), and we transitioned the after school club to a smaller program (VEX IQ). FRC3005's goals for this year were (actually written in Sept 2013 (edit: Fixed typo of 2014): 1) Stabilize: With the renewed interest, and support of a new administration at the school... we were able to start thinking of Conrad HS as the new home for our program. We were given a medium sized 20'x30' classroom, and will be upgraded to a ~50'x35' classroom next year with an addon office and storage room. Our goal was to stabilize, and start generating some continuity by making the program a year-round effort with the same students, instead of the 8 week program in the Spring as it had previously been. 2) Grow our funding and mentor group: The school went from a budget of ~$6000/yr (registration + $1K)) to a projected budget of~$25K-$30K/yr due to additional grants we were able to apply for, volunteer matching where Texas Instruments matches our hours with ~$1K per mentor per year (up to 15 engineer mentors at the moment), and personal donations that TI matches dollar for dollar. 3) Recruit a younger student base and retain the top students: We started with ~24 students that dwindled to 17 fairly quickly in the fall. However, the 17 that remained were extremely committed, excelled beyond our wildest dreams, and are growing rapidly. Many went from unable to identify basic hand tools, to running mills, riveting, tapping holes, etc. The program only had juniors/seniors when we got there, but this year's driver and human player were freshman. We'll return 12 students for next year, and hopefully recruit another 10-15 good ones based on all the interest generated at the school through our outreach. 4) Make an impression at our single regional: I believe we fielded a capable robot this year. Last year's robot for these students was a climber bot that was unable to climb, or move. Our OPR was in the top 10, and several teams had us scouted there as well. Our design wasn't the most original, our robot had its share of flaws, but our students and mentors had the time of their lives competing... and it cemented in our minds that we can be successful. Sure, we didn't win a single award, and we didn't qualify for championships... but I could not have asked for a more successful season. We have a large number of our mentors that have shown a huge amount of technical prowess. Our students are getting to where they are helping select and choose off season projects THEY want to build. We're building a gantry mill and a "non-tank" practice drivetrain this offseason. PLTW is likely to provide us with a CNC mill and repair the schools 3D printer. We'll also be starting up a robotics program at the middle school that feeds our high school, using the high school students as "Jr. Mentors" as well as support 2-4 other Jr. High VEX IQ teams.. I can't wait to set our goals for 2014-2015! A few of our mentors will be at Champs to represent our parent company which sponsors FIRST. Feel free to shoot me a PM if you'd like to meet up and chat robots (I noticed from a prior post you said you'd be there for your Dean's list award winner). |
Re: What are your victories?
1. Build an elegant, effective robot.
2. Build an identical practice robot for the first time. 3. Have both running by Day 45 (even with painting/ anodizing the competition robot). 4. Win engineering awards at both of our regionals. In terms of the non-technical side of our program, we have worked hard and found success in forming partnerships with local businesses and organizations and participating in and running numerous public events (including currently a 6-week after-school program at a local high school). Even though we didn't qualify for Championships, I'd consider the 2014 season our best ever: we're figuring out how to build good robots and developing a strong team brand. I'm already looking forward to 2015. |
Re: What are your victories?
Great post! My coach would love how you define victory. Though we have had succesful seasons this and last year, for many years our team came home empty handed from competitions. And there are certainly many loses ahead of us. But, as our coach repeats to us before and after every competition, victory is indeed not about awards or winning matches.
The reason he views our Hub City performance this year as a victory is not because our medals at all, but because of how we helped one particular team. This team had two lead mentors who guided them through build season, and on the last week one had a heart attack and a week later the other passed from disease. They had nothing, but still came to competition. It brought my coach to tears seeing our team help them make a competition ready robot, and, as he said Friday night, if helping that team was all we did at competition, he would still view it as a victory. We help dozens of teams at each competition, but I have never seen my coach moved to tears like that. That would have to be our team victory for rhis year. Note that when you don't define victory as blue banners, it is still important to have some set goals. Our team's sort of goal at every competition is to learn something new. If we loose competition but every student learned something new, then we are still victorious. Learning from failure is a much bigger victory than learning nothing from success. Only one advances you further in life. That all being said, I'd like to say something about whst you said on looking to other teams: I think it is definitely okay to look at other teams as role models. Team 1114 has been a huge role model for us in the shop, on the field, and in the Chairman's presentation room. I am very suprised to hear our name next to thiers - they are a truly one-of-a-kind incredible force that continues to redifine what it means to be a part of FRC. Does that mean you should be frustrated when you don't perform like them? Of course not! Only one team is admitted into the Hall of Fame each year, and if you are dead set on that you have your work cut out for you. But it does mean that you should seek to emulate their success, because as Karthik likes to say, if you chase perfection you are sure to find excellence along the way. |
Re: What are your victories?
You guys were super loud in the stands! You cheered louder for our team than we did! We did well in the tournament but what I'm most proud of is how much our team helped out other teams, with pit inspection and everything. Y'all were awesome to sit next to in the stands, and we hope to see y'all next year!
2-4-6-8! Who do we appreciate? YOU GUYS! |
Re: What are your victories?
In the last 12 months:
1. building a practice robot for the 1st year ever 2. having both working robots 3 days before stop build. 3. make elims with a roookie leadership, and drive team at 2 regionals 4. be the highest seeded team from our state on our championship field 5. win panther prowl with a rookie drive team (thanks 180 and 1065) 6. demonstrate that a 5 student team can go to an event, make semis, and win awards without the rest of the team. 7. help rookies and experienced teams compete on the field to there fullest capability. 8. paint the competition robot in team colors. 9. have a successful autonomous early in our 1st regional 10. practice with 2 great FRC teams with our practice bot (179,180) |
Re: What are your victories?
In the last 12 months
We are pretty proud of what we done this year but the devastators arent done! :D good luck to all teams |
Re: What are your victories?
This a great thread to read. I started with team 3883 the Data Bits as a Junior. 3883 was the last team to register in the 2011 season. The team only had a 4 week build and 7ish students on the team, 3 of them not in ROTC. Our head mentor Jim was a wizard at anything mechanical and lead the team through the build teaching us all the tools in the shop better then the actual school teacher.
At our first ever regional we pitted next to team 93. Lets just say our two tool boxes was nothing compared to their pit. The Data Bits team had made a solid robot that I was now the driver of. At the end of the competition the team was seeded 12 and pulled into the 7th seed captains. With it being our first event our student we sent up to pick teams had no info at all. It was still a great time in the elims. The next year was my senior year and the team grew in to the high teens. Though it was a lot of seniors (all but 3). Again the team build a solid robot that I balanced on many of bridges. This got us drafted into the elims in both regionals we competed in and qualified us for the first ever MN State Tournament. It was at State that the team seeded first! Going all the way and taking the win. No better way to end my senior year. With all but 3 graduating for the next year the team was made up of 20 new freshmen. I came back to help mentor the team along with some of the other previous seniors. Again the team went on to build a solid robot that competed in the elims in both regionals we attended. We now come to this season. Many returning students and a number of new ones as well. Into the high 20s of students on the team. The first regional our shooter was just not what it needed to be, but defense was why we were chosen to be on the 1st seed alliance, and qualifying for state. At the second fouls turned many matches we would have won, but the robot was making itself look really good. Fixed the shooter problem and became one of the top shooting robots. Again making it into the elims. Now since the start 3883 the Data Bits have made it into every elim and won state, but has yet to see the world champs. Sure it would be great to go but thats just the way things have gone. The team has still reached many goals and continues to make its name known. Even with out going to the world champs this team has inspired many of its students. Victory From a first year student Erica "I was gonna make this long post about how much you all mean to me and how proud I am of each and every one of you, but you all probably know that. Robotics is the most hectic, most exciting, most tense and rewarding thing I've done ever, and I'm glad to call you all my team, AND my FIRST family." Ill take that quote over world champs this year. |
Re: What are your victories?
I cannot tell you how much I enjoy reading this thread. It brings such a huge smile to my face! Every team should remember that no matter how they did on the technical side of things every season, there is ALWAYS something to be very, very proud of.
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Re: What are your victories?
1.) Travel out of state!
2.) Win a Dean's List Award! :D 3.) Had our first wiring that didn't look like spaghetti, even with an all rookie electronics team! 4.) Fully functional practice bot 5.) Everything anodized or powder coated (powder coat done ourselves!) 6.) New machine shop sponsor! (Shout out to M&L Precision!) 6.) Had fun at both regionals! Nothing beats team bonding and robots :p |
Re: What are your victories?
This year was a huge year for our team. After being a honestly terrible team for the past few years we decided something needed to change.
(I'm disregarding achievements pre-2007 as the leadership and team is entirely different) This year for the first time ever we: -Spent our whole off season training -Made a sponsorship package -Had team hoodies printed -Created a team website -Acted as a team -Conquered our team's politics -Got sponsors -Got mentors -Setup our own room in the school -Designed the robot entirely in CAD -Built a practice robot -Every member knew the rules (seriously, even our drive team didn't know the rules in the past) -Strategically designed our robot -Built a functioning robot -Spent our march break practicing our driving in a church basment -Competitive in competition -Scouted -Scored points -Got to work with 254 & 2056 (Holy cow, they are just as amazing off the field as they are on the field) -Went from last place in 2013 to first place at the Waterloo regional -Set the current high score (350 no fouls) -"Best defense in aerial assist"-Karthik -Built a sustainable foundation for future success We still have a long way to go but I'm very very proud of our team's accomplishments this year and I hope our team is on the path to continuous improvement. We can't wait to compete in St.Louis. |
Re: What are your victories?
I love this thread... Thank you very much for posting this.
Some of our team's victories: 1. Submitted our first Chairman's Award in 10 years and presented twice 2. Submitted our first Entrepreneurship Award in our history, along with putting a business plan in writing for the first time 3. Raised enough funds to make it to two events AND the district championship 4. Grew our team by about 150% (from 9 to 14 students) 5. Became the #1 alliance captain for the first time and won our first award at an event in six years 6. Members of our team actually danced at events! (as well as creating a team cheer) 7. Created our first team website (716robotics.com) 8. Turned in Dean's List submissions for the first time 10. Secured a workspace for next year that will have internet All in all, it makes me smile to think of what our team accomplished, regardless of any "kind" of achievement :) |
Re: What are your victories?
Reading all of these lists make me so proud to be called a FIRSTer. Thank you all.
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Re: What are your victories?
First of all may I say that you truly made a great post here. Reading what you team and other have accomplisched is a great insperation. Here is our list of that we have achieved this year:
- Won the Engeneering Insperation eventhough we are only a second year team. - Once again being able to travel to the north carolina regional and the world championships comming all the way from the netherlands. - Got great positive reactions from a lot of the teams that we spoke at the nc regional. - Finally got a good pack of sponsors behind us after a though year, since we are the first and only dutch team at this point and no one had heard of first before we existed. - spreading the teachings of first through countless technical converences and presentations including two award winning ted talks by our inspirering team captain. - Orginising and hosting europes biggest FTC regional, 48 teams with a total of 9 differend nationalities, eventhough we had never orginised an FTC regional before. - Helping in the orginisation of the german munich FTC regional. - Helping in the orginiation of a big belgium Fll regional. - Orginising and helping out at 2 major fll regional. - Starting a third Fll regional in our area, includig helping appox 40 Fll teams to get started. - Inplementing FIRST in the dutch school system. - Taking a dutch FTC team with us on our trips to nc and st louis to show them FRC. - Helping two new FRC team to spawn in europe. The second Dutch team, comming from the FTC team that we are taking with us on our trips, and the first ever italian FRC team. - Planning ahead for 2016 to have a super dutch FTC regional. Spoilers: planning on a 3 day event with 4 divisions and 96 teams! Planning ahead for 2018 to have the first ever european FRC regional. Creating an european championships that includes the whole line of FIRST with the size of worlds! And the list goes on but these are the things that im most proud of. The enthausiasm within the team is sky high and, like the judges said in our rapport for our Engineering Inspiration award: This team knows no boundries and they are passionalty painting a portet of inspiration, for an entire nation! We could not have done this without the help of countless amerikan teams with Team 122, the nasa knights as sister team to us, showing us the ways of FIRST. If you wanna know more about our plans for the European Championships or if you would love to have your team join this amazing event, then feel free to contact us, check out our website (www.teamrembrandts.com) or come and see us in st louis! Cant wait to see all the teams at worlds again. To all the teams compeading, good luck and have fun! And to all the other team, I hope to meet you some day! |
Re: What are your victories?
This thread is a wonderful example of what FIRST really is. You can win every district or regional like 33 or 2056, but you definitely can't always define that as victory.
For me personally, on my four years on 862, my victories were many. It started out small in 2010 and 2011. I wrote a whole section of camera code myself in 2010 (that didn't get used), and that was something victorious for me. I helped run our team's scouting that year as well. Though we only made it to elims once that season, it a victory nonetheless. The next biggest victory for me was in 2012. I programmed at least half of the robot and our rather odd autonomous. In that year, our robot's shooter was perpendicular to our drive train, which meant to score a basket, we needed to curve to the side of the fender in autonomous. My victory that year wasn't the double finalist appearance, or even the triple balance at MSC--it was getting that dumb thing to work ~70% of the time. It was seeing what I had worked on function as I intended, and that fueled my inspiration for my final year. Now 2013 was the biggest victory for my team, of course we made it Einstein and won a few districts, but there were many, many other things that I would deem more important. For starters that was the closest year our team had ever come to winning chairman's. At the West Michigan district, a judge came up to me and the other chairman's presenters and told us that choosing the chairman's winner was one of the hardest decisions she had to make. We ended up with not one Engineering Inspiration award that season not once, but twice. As a part of the chairman's team, that was one of my crowning achievements, along with seeing our good friends at 3641 win chairmans. We had given them some tips the year before, and we were glad to see it pay off for them. At West Michigan, we also helped 904 to get their first district win in their team's history. That was another personal victory for me, helping other teams succeed that in the past haven't done as well. There are many other things my team has done that I'm proud of, but those are the most direct with me. I don't want victory in matches to define victory for myself, and I'm sure most people from even the teams that consistently win can agree with me on that. |
Re: What are your victories?
Here are a few of ours:
And our biggest one this year:
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Re: What are your victories?
Our team has accomplished a lot this past year.
1) Raised $600+ for a local charity from donations at school, when our goal was $400 2) Started 1 FTC team in our middle school 3) Won our first judged award in team history (UL Safety Award) 4) Highest pick in team history (6th overall at MICEN) 5) First time as an alliance captain (6 seed at MIBED) 6) Qualified for MSC by robot merit for the first time 7) Being in the top 10 in OPR at our districts for the first time in team history (5th at MICEN, 8th at MIBED) 8) Apply for the Chairman's Award for the first time in team history 9) Compete in a week 0 event 10) Have a finished, working robot by lockup 11) Winning more elimination matches this season than ever in team history (7 this year to 6 in team history) 12) Pulling 3 upset rounds in the eliminations (2 at MICEN, 1 at MIBED) 13) Using pneumatics for the first time in team history 14) Coming within 3 victories at MSC from going to Champs 15) Building a versatile robot - we could shoot, play defense, truss. 16) Scoring in autonomous - we did this last year, but this year we still find that to be an accomplishment. 17) Build a working floor intake - we have never done this in team history. We exceeded our own expectations this year. We were expecting to be at the bottom of the alliance selections at our events, and we exceeded those expectations. |
Re: What are your victories?
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Re: What are your victories?
How far back can I go?
2011: - scoring in autonomous for the first time in memory - building a mecanum drive to redeem for 2010's bad one - becoming alliance captain for first time 2013: - qualifying for MSC for first time 2014: - building a robot that did almost everything (except goalie pole) and did it pretty well - first time feeling like a legitimate alliance captain (2011 didn't feel quite real) and #1 seed at that - qualifying (on merit, not waitlist) for CMP for first time - needing to use our crate for first time since 2009 - winning our first (and second) award for first time in 10 years - getting CheesyVision installed at CMP - finally having something a team requested over PA (at CMP, heatgun [beaten by someone else], white bumper paint to 3847 Spectrum) - seeing the awe of the faces of our team at CMP upon seeing the size of it - not getting ill at CMP (except for cough and runny nose after getting home) - starting work on a "book of knowledge" so that there is a permanent record of past successes and failures, and not just me telling the students about them - trying (though not succeeding) at a 2-ball auto - finally having an event three hours away. Victoriously close to home! And I'm not joking. somewhere in the past: - becoming less adversarial and more congenial with our sister team, 2586 CopperBots, up in Calumet |
Re: What are your victories?
Following this thread we see a lot of victories related to the robot. We at the Innovators feel our biggest victory is with our alumni.
After 4 years we have 17 alumni 16 are in college 15 are studying STEM fields Scholarships related to our club and FIRST = $149,000 All scholarships combined (club/ First +scholastic +sports) = $788,000 Currently the club/First scholarships exceed our club budget for the first 4 years. |
Re: What are your victories?
Our team reached most of the goals we set out this year and made tremendous improvements across the board. But to me our biggest victory was the most unexpected. We set out to work more cooperatively with other teams in all aspects, stepping it up each competition. In the end, we helped at least two rookie teams become highly competitive in their division, and we discovered how rewarding the effort was.
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Re: What are your victories?
The thing I'm most prowd of over the past few years are the friendships we have developed with some of our fellow Virginia teams. We have become very close with a couple, and I hope we developed more in the coming years.
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Re: What are your victories?
1676 has had alot of wonderful things happen this year
-We mentored 6 FLL teams -We kept a good relationship with a lot of our old friends and ended up making a bunch of new ones this year as well. -We won the chairmans award after not winning it since 2009 -We won our second consecutive Engineering inspiration award -We qualified for the world championship -We heavily improving our robot from our first district all the way up to championship making it alot better each time(week one was interesting for us to say the least). -And we survived aerial assault...oops my bad aerial assist ;) The list goes on and on but these are the ones that come to mind. |
Re: What are your victories?
Team 1991's accomplishments:
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Re: What are your victories?
The biggest victory this year was through all the adversity we faced, our kids never put their head down. They dug in and kept pushing.
A little story, the year was 2014, and there was snow everywhere... We lost 8 days during build season, while trying to catch up on a schedule where we were a few days behind pace to start. This led to our first district attendence with green code and green drivers. The shooter was not tuned in and autonomous untested. The friday of the the first district we spent mostly figuring out how to get mobility points in autonomous. I was so proud of our programming students and how they kept iterating and plugging away while the frustration built. By the last of the qualification matches saturday we had a working high ball autonomous with mobility options for distance! The whole team rallied together to get the robot working while in between matches. However, it was too little too late. We thought we demonstrated a good inbounding robot with defense, but it went under the radar and for the first time we were not selected for eliminations in a district. Over the weekend between the first two districts, our human player lost a close relative. The students rallied behind him to support him and his family. He was able to attend the last Saturday of our second district. Again the kids did not put their heads down but kept working. The second district event the auto was working and we never missed a shot, except for the two times attempting a two ball auto. Facing a tough schedule (played a district finalist twice, and another district winner twice) we went 6-6 and were selected by the third alliance captain! We made it to the finals but lost while dealing with alliance mechanical issues and some questionable technical fouls, oh and won an industrial design award! Too little too late again, not enough points were gained to reach MSC. Seeing that we had budgeted for MCS and Champs we were able to slide into one more district. This time the auto worked flawlessly going 12-12 during qualifications. We ended up 9-3 and the third alliance captain! Losing in the semifinals to a very well meshed alliance, but we walked away with the engineering design award! If you would add up the points for the last two districts we attended, we were a top 20 robot in FiM. I could not be prouder of the students of Team 85. They demonstrated the essence of hard work and perseverance paying off. We went from not being looked at, to a top 3 pick, to a top 4 robot. There was no blaming anyone but ourselves for the situation, and the students took ownership of that and kept pushing. That is the victory. |
Re: What are your victories?
It is great to see that there are so many teams that are proud of what they accomplished this season even if they didn't win any awards. I know that being a part of a team that didn't win any awards this season, we were still proud of everything that we had done. This season, there were a lot of things that happened for team 708, both good and bad. We didn't set any team goals this season that I remember but we definitely accomplished more than we thought was originally possible.
Some of our team victories that we accomplished this season include: -Getting our own classroom instead of working out of a closet on the third floor. -Hosting a very successful week 1 MAR District event -Hosting a successful Penn FLL Qualifying Event during week 2 of FRC build season -Hosting an FLL Summer Camp -Demoing our robot at the Pennsylvania State Capitol and being recognized by both the House and the Senate for what we do in spreading the word of FIRST. -Running 2 FTC teams -Mentoring 3 FLL teams -Attending outreach events to spread the word of FIRST and allowing community members to drive and operate our robots -Have semi-nice looking wiring compared to past robots. -Having a robot that could pick up off the ground quite easily, shoot, truss and play defense. -Offered build space to team 341 when the weather was bad and they weren't allowed in to their build space. -Had more team spirit than ever before and we actually cheered for our team when they were on the field. -One of our seniors along with the help of a few others worked their butts off to make a scrapbook for Chairman's to make sure that everything we do that doesn't have to do with the robot is noticed. This same person/group of people wrote the essay for Chairman's and also Woodie Flowers. Overall, we definitely had a lot of fun this season and even though all of our efforts were not noticed by the judges at any of the events we attended, we all know that we had a really great season. Our head mentor, Zygmont, even told us after we weren't picked to compete in eliminations at MAR Champs that he was really proud of everything that we did this season not only with the robot but with everything else that we did for others. Therefore, some of our biggest accomplishments had nothing to do with our robot but what we do as a team to spread the word of FIRST. I am really proud to be a part of team 708 and with it being my senior year, I am really glad that I got the opportunity to experience World Champs in St. Louis with my fellow seniors and volunteering to ensure that everyone that was competing had the time of their lives and supporting our fellow MAR teams. We had a great season and it is sad to see my time on the team come to an end but I will definitely be back to see what the following years have to bring the team. |
Re: What are your victories?
Personally, I am happy that my local network has expanded. Over the last few years, I have gotten to know more people in FIRST, and the last two years, the PNW in specific. Keeping in touch with those teams and their mentors/coaches is valuable. It's nice to hear what other teams are doing and hear other people's opinions on hot community topics.
I'm also really happy with our new show and where we've gone with it. It's been a lot of fun this season. I enjoy the fact that I get to hang with my friends and chat as usual, but that we have found a way to do so in a manner that gives back to the community. Most importantly, this year I grew a lot as a mentor. The end result of what we are trying to accomplish is often irrelevant. I felt like I did a better job of listening and asking questions. It is more rewarding to direct people to a solution, nudge them along the way or help them identify the tools they need to be successful. Due to that, I feel much closer to a handful of the students I worked with. I hope they feel the same way, because in the end this is what it's all about. If we don't have a meaningful impact on our community, team and students, if we fail to convey our passion and illicit inspiration then none of what we do has purpose. It is really difficult to inspire someone, I don't think there is any hard-defined process, but I hope that I can say I did. *Another 4 Banner season was a bonus, but not the highlight.* |
Re: What are your victories?
2011- I was barely involved with the team, but I had one part on our mini-bot that I came up with. Our mini-bot was top-notch at our first regional that year and a large part of the reason we ended up in the finals.
2012- At our first event, the team had a miserable showing as our shooter wasn't working and our bridge lowering mechanism wasn't functioning. I had designed the bridge lowing mechanism and I was distraught as to why it didn't work! I came to find out that the one I designed wasn't on the robot for some reason, and when it was attached at our second event, we ended up winning the event as a feeder bot- that required crossing the bridge every match :) 2013- We finally had a robot that worked by stop-build day! We finally got to partner with our friends at 2791 for eliminations! We seeded second and first at our two regionals and went undefeated at the second! We partnered with our friends on 195 for the second year in a row in eliminations. We ended up in eliminations at championships! We beat 987 is a close qualification match at championships! We posted the highest losing score in the world when we lost in quarterfinals at championships- a feat that would last for 10 minutes, until the alliance that beat us would lose to the eventual world finalists. The robot barely broke down at all throughout the season! We were invited to IRI! 2014- We had record numbers of freshmen join the team. Our student engagement was better than it ever has been, and anyone that showed up to the meetings felt like they had work to do, despite our large team size. At our first regional, we were able to partner with our friends from 229 for the first time, and bring them to championships! In finals of our first regional, one of our bearings in the drivetrain shattered, rending us with a 5-wheel drive for the final match. Despite this, with some quick work from our programmer, our two-ball auto worked perfectly AND we worked perfectly for teleop. As human player, my last second inbound won us one of our eliminations matches. At our second event, we were faced with a triple-header of qualification matches and qualification match replays Saturday morning. We survived those three matches, almost winning the third one, even though it was our toughest match of the day. The strategies we came up with at both our events worked beautifully. The passing method I came up with at our second event became a standard of passing in Archimedes (the "give and go"). We almost beat 2056 and 548 in the same qualification match- playing our strategy perfectly, despite the fact that their robots were better. That included a catch! A catch won us a qualification match at championships! We got to once again play with our friends on 195 in eliminations, this time at Championships. We once again made eliminations at championships, and lost a very close set of matches to the divisional finalists. I've had a crazy four years on The Rocketeers, earning more banners in my four year period on the team than my team has ever earned in any other four year period. We've been through ups and downs (lots of downs), and we've learned quite a lot. I'm extremely sad to go, but I hope the next generation of Rocketeers learns from our mistakes and our triumphs and improves even more for next year. I'll be seeing some of you out in Rochester next year! |
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I did more this season.
I'm not usually the one to take charge and go out and do stuff. I like to follow people in fun projects, but this year I don't know what happened. I actually took charge and did things on my own, sometimes. I had the chance to show the community what some students could do in period of two and half days if they were given some cameras, steadicams, mics, and a computer and I did. The work progressively got better and better as the weeks went on and I'm proud of the team that I put together to help me accomplish this and to all the great reception we have received. As Navid said: Quote:
This season has been awesome, but I have to say that I'm expecting next season to be even better. |
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wow - I really needed to read this tonight. I'm exhausted from our districts, and feeling very discouraged.
Being from a poor, small, rural high school that has little to no access to engineering professionals who are willing to help mentor our team is hard. We go to competition and marvel at the beautiful robots that were designed by professionals (some actually built by students.) We see chairman's award videos that were either professionally produced or produced with equipment that we could only dream of using. We try our best but always the brass ring is outside our reach, or so it seems. But the bigger successes are intrinsic to our team: STUDENTS design, build and program the robots with very little adult help STUDENTS write all the grants we need for our small ($10,000) team budget During most years, we have 10% of our student body on the team. We have had a 100% HS grad rate on our team since we started in 2007. We have had 100% of our team either go on to college or join the military since they graduated, some to MIT, CalPoly, Stanford, etc. We do things not because we think it would be good for the Chairman's Award, but because they fit our community needs and they are fun. We have recycled over 60 tons in the past 4 years, about 1/3 of it e-waste. We host a Nerdapalooza game night and help with a Sciencepalooza and have a blast, while helping make STEM more fun. There's lots more....but I guess I just needed to get some of that off my chest for now. Also feeling discouraged because our school admin is discontinuing our woodshop and drafting programs, which have provided a home for our team. We are trying to find options and just hoping to survive. It's hard to go to competitions and see so many teams that are so flush with money and mentors. Just have to keep seeing that the brass ring isn't as important as the successes that being on the team gives our students. |
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1. Held a summer robotics camp that served 60 students AND raised funds for our 2015 season.
2. Started 5 elementary robotics teams and 5 middle school robotics teams. Both age levels were highly competitive! 3. Doubled the size of our FRC team. 4. Designed and manufactured our own drive base for the first time in team history. 5. Completed a very professional looking sound robot two weeks prior to stop build day. 6. Created our first Business plan. We will use as a foundation for work to do in upcoming seasons. 7. Received the judges award at our first district contest because of the above items.....The student representatives knocked it out of the park when the judges visited! 8. Recovered from a dreadful first day in Kokomo (robot lost connections in three of our first four matches) to make it to the elimination rounds. 9. Increased team sponsorship including an anodizing sponsor. 10. Learned much and had GREAT FUN in the process! |
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Just a bit curious here....all the FLL teams we've helped with or others have started in our rural community have disbanded, after only a couple of years, because there's no mentor support.
It seems a bit of a waste of energy for us to try to set up workshops to attract kids to FLL, when we have no adults to lead them. We concentrate on building good relationships with our sponsors, doing lots of community service projects that are relative to STEM, and just hoping that we can get more parents hooked on participating. I'd like to see a thread on how we can get more industries to contribute mentor time....our local industries give us money, but they keep their engineers on a rotating swing schedule, which makes it hard to get them to volunteer, even when their kids are on our team. |
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We have been awarded the Gracious Professionalism award three times since 2008, due to helping teams in distress.
2008, Wisconsin Regional - This was my senior year and our robot, while not great, was solid. It never had any failures, so during our second competition of the year, our pit crew spent more time working with and helping other teams with their robots than our own. In the end, we had helped 7 teams get robots onto the field. 2010, BAE Systems Granite State Regional - I was not with the team at the time, but for the past few years, we had often packed our pit with everything imaginable for the strict purpose of loaning parts out to other teams. This has been our culture for the past couple of years. If any team needed anything we would be the first to provide it. 2015, NE Pioneer Valley District Event - We have a lot of history with one of FIRST's Hall of Fame teams - Team 151, the Tough Techs, from Nashua, NH. Back in 2001, 166 lost their sponsorship and approached 151's primary sponsor, BAE Systems, to ask for support. Not only did BAE provide sponsorship, they also invited us into their facilities to work. This meant that 151 would now be sharing their long-time work space with another team. Instead of being resentful of the situation, they welcomed 166 with open arms and helped breathe new life into 166. Neither team works out BAE Systems anymore, but it was an important step in reviving our team. We returned the favor this past year as, long story short, 151 completely lost access to their school's well-equipped machine shop and were now working out of a space that, to my understanding, was a teacher's office. Given our history with them, we invited them to our work space at Merrimack High School and offered to machine parts for them. We also worked with their administration to help them regain access to their machine shop. We didn't help 151 in hopes of winning a trophy. We helped them because they had done the same for us in the past and would absolutely do the same for us in the future. In fact, we gave one of our trophies to them because they earned it as much as we did. It was a trophy they had deserved and had missed since 2001. Our biggest victories though, come every night when an alumni mentor arrives to work with the team. A large number of our mentors at this point are Chop Shop alumni and that speaks volumes to what FIRST is about.3 One last thing: Despite all of the snow that this region experienced, we were able to get a fully-functional robot with a completely working autonomous mode before the end of build season. I don't think our team has ever had a working autonomous heading into our first week of competition. |
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Victories are keeping the FRC program running at BVT for 21 years. Making sure the administrators and school committees are happy with the program.
Running a FLL tournament since year 2000. Helping out the 13 towns middle schools that feed into our regional high school. (64 teams compete each year.) Seeing over 1500 students in those years become better thinkers and problem solvers. Lastly building all those robot in the 6 week time frame and live to tell about it. Thanks to being in a Vocational High school were all the work gets done during the day. |
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My personal objective is for my team to make a robot that is weird but extremely effective and has one feature that virtually no other robot has.
As a team we strive for sustainable improvement through the season and year-to-year, even if it's only a small improvement. It is sometimes tough to see the top-tier teams and their robots and how incredible they are only realize that your team may never get to that point no matter how hard you work. This is where developing satisfaction from within is key, not only in FIRST but also in real life. I really appreciate the sentiment of this thread as it is something I have also struggled with as a student and as a mentor. |
Re: What are your victories?
Well, I'm new, new to FRC, and new to mentoring a team. Surviving my first build season (yikes!) and first regional competition counts as a victory, I think!
What do I count as a victory this year? (At the risk of tooting my own horn) Helping a student understand what FIRST is really about. Teaching him that it's not about our robot performance or how big, little, or "shiny" each individual's contributions were to it, but that it's about teamwork, cooperation, and above all, learning. Learning about engineering, communication, working with different personalities. Learning and discovering your own skills and passions and aspirations. I treat it as an incredible privilege to be in a position to teach this stuff to students, and to learn so much in the process! "I'm not here to build a robot. I'm here to build students." |
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For the first time in the five years that this team has existed, we
1. bagged a functional robot! 2. were on the radar to be picked for a few alliances!!! (doesn't matter that we didn't get picked, we were all excited anyway) 3. were the ONLY team to have a mascot wave the flag before our matches! 4. were in the running for awards!!! (we didn't win any, but it was SO cool to know that we might have) 5. had an autonomous program! We may not have won any trophies or medals, but we are still victorious. |
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My victory? Working with my wife and brother (all of us mentors) to keep our team's one over-achieving but under-socialized student away from the drive team yesterday afternoon, so that they could calmly use the marvelous robot he designed to win a regional competition.
Sometimes, it's all about the people. |
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This year was amazing for our team
1. Build a working robot that focused on one element of the game and do it well 2. Finish build with one day to spare (Which we lost due to snow) 3. Finish in the top 25 at BOTH regionals we competed in 4. Be picked to a Playoff Alliance in both regionals (last time we made the playoffs was in 2012 and that was as the 24th pick) 5. Win an award at both regionals (Excellence in Engineering at Palmetto and Industrial Design at Virginia) This was a record breaking year for us and I hope my team does even better in years to come sadly it senior year so I hope to help them out in any way I can while in college |
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Working with some of these kids has definitely been one of my biggest victories too. |
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That's the kind of nerd I was. I was also a tall and uncoordinated teenager. People saw my height and assumed I would be good at basketball, but quickly learned otherwise. I was first pick... once. Back then, kids like me (into geekery, not varsity sports) were beaten up in the locker room. Today, it's "You like robots? You should totally join this FRC team!". I think that is a huge victory. |
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Our team went to the nyc regional last year with a blank drivetrain. We were next to the andymark team and makeshift robotics. two teams that had robots fit to be showpieces. Some could say it was embarresing but we focused on the good. We had a drive train that could focus on defence. I ended that regional with a drive (pun intended) to not fail again. That summer I built our teams website, designed a new banner, made a logo, and made a plan to make the 2015 year better. I came back to robotics on the first (also pun intended) day of school and realized this year would be different. Although we werent able to finsih everything we wanted to. We ended the season with a semi working robot, 5 new sponsors(we had no sponsors in the beginning of the year), and our first robot cart. Some teams would take that all for granted and say they are small things; some may even say they are bad things.
But..... I can confidently say those are our victories. Now lets see if we can get some awards this weekend :) |
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Congratulations and good luck! |
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I just bought a new banner for our team too. Everyone loved it. It's such a simple little thing but it lends so much... credibility! Buttons, too. Button trading is huge at regionals as I quickly discovered. |
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One year ago, we had just finished the roughest season of our team's existence, including rookie year. A power struggle with our head mentor led to him being removed from his position and he took our bank account and sponsors with him (all in all about 32,000 dollars). We had spent a season rebuilding, refinancing, and figuring ourselves out. Our robot was paid for in large part of the pockets of mentors and families. We had moved work spaces two weeks before build season started in an effort to get ourselves under the wing of the school. We were, in short, a mess. Hartford District 2014, we were finalists only by the strength of our alliance partners.
We just got back from Hartford 2015. We have a lot of our old sponsors back, and some new ones. The school district adores us. We put together a strong community outreach program and didn't have to focus so much on internal affairs as we did last year, because we are already much more stable. We have a rookie team of our very own, 5686, the Wirecats! Our new parent mentors are fantastic, dedicated people who want to see the students succeed. Most importantly, after a year of rebuilding, we have landed solidly back on our feet. This year's strong recruitment program has gained us nearly double the members we had last year, and all of these kids have worked incredibly hard to ensure that this year, we qualified for NE District Champs!!! As a team who, prior to last year, had not been picked for an alliance since 2011, I can say with a lot of happy tears that this victory means a lot! |
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Getting within 6 points of likely-taking Ventura to Worlds (with Fantastically GREAT alliance partners 696 and 1836...could not have asked for any better!) and going into this week "back to back" in SD with "new" capabilities along with old ones..Thanks MK, CB via GB!!!!
Hope to see you all in STL. We will do our best! "Now that we got kinks worked out" |
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On the topic of this thread: Given our team's history, any season that doesn't end with confetti on our robot can sometimes feel like a bit of a letdown. But I couldn't be prouder of the hard work our students put in this year, especially in the weeks between our two District events. At Pioneer Valley, we ranked 2nd to last and were not picked for the playoffs. At Hartford this weekend, we ranked 12th and led the #7 alliance to the semifinals, with an average just 7 points away from making it to the finals. Even though the end result wasn't enough to keep our season going, making such a dramatic improvement in just three weeks is a victory in my book. |
Re: What are your victories?
Your victories start with setting up a manufacturing system capable of creating a robot that will do something when you have no idea of what. It proceeds on when you help all the teams around you with anything they have a shortfall in. It is greatly enhanced when you manage to have a functioning robot bagged on time for competition. It again rises to a higher level when you manage to make it handle an entire regional based on the parts you have available. It concludes when you do whatever you can to further the goals of your team, at the same time you spend your time between matches assisting any competitors not having the lack of design flaws you did. It ends with everyone celebrating the unity and brother/sisterhood of thousands of kids having gathered for a common goal, to celebrate hard work and intelligence.
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Our victories this year - we were finally able to actually NOT try to "do it all" in favor of trying to do a FEW things well and consistently. As a result, our robot consistently did what we'd designed and built it to do, with only minor mishaps/breakdowns. That was so huge for us.
As a result, our drivers got to drive, and strategize, and reach for goals - instead of standing there frustrated while we had comm problems, electrical problems, mechanical problems... We were able to attend a second regional, on the mainland, for the first time. And, as a result of all of the above, we made it to semi-finals for the first time ever (a result of #1 and #2, definitely), in a regional that was 'stronger' (in terms of the overall ability of the teams and robots) than any we've attended before. Woot! |
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I wouldn't call it "MY Victory" but "FIRST's Victory".
As the FTAA at the Las Vegas Regional this past weekend, on Saturday after alliance selections we actually had the time to take a full lunch (first time I can think of as an FTAA for my 8th event now I think). As I was walking over to the Volunteer Room to sample the very good food they stuff into us each day, I was headed off by my step-mother, one of the extremely hard working team mothers/mentors for Team 60 (I am a remote mentor as well) among other things like FTC and multiple FLL teams. One of the Team 60 families had set up a BBQ layout out in the parking lot to feed the crew and it sounded awesome and I would be able to get some fresh air before the chaos of playoffs and field tear-down. While I was sitting on the grass hill under the trees enjoying the huge burger with all the trimmings and enjoying chatting with the team, something similar to a Frisbee (I think it was a lid to a Rubbermaid food storage container that flew very well) went screaming by us and a member from another team made a pretty spectacular catch in front of me. When I turned to see who threw it, I saw that it was someone on a different team from another state. After a few minutes of watching, it occurred to me that there weren't just 2 playing, but 4...the other 2 were students from 2 other teams, each from one of the 4 (?) teams from China that were at this Regional. As I sat there watching, the only thing I could think was, "If this isn't one of the bedrocks of FIRST, I don't know what is." Four kids that probably didn't know each other before Thursday just having fun together while waiting for the Playoffs to start. I leaned over and pointed it out to a few of the younger kids on the team and told them to remember what they are seeing...one of them was already writing it down in her notebook she uses for recording her experiences in preparation for submissions. If having no robot connection issues for the playoffs hadn't put a smile on my face, that right there did for the whole day. |
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Toledo has a VEX robotics team, but possibly his kids go to Newport HS (many do, we have an IB program there) - What are their names? I am a librarian at Newport HS so can find out where they are.
Next year, if we go 4-H (our robotics program at Newport High is being cut) then his kids can join us, no matter where they live in our big county!!! |
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Oh, that's why I said "went" - they are all college grads now! One with the first PhD in our family ( :D ), in meteorology; one with an archaeology degree, doing digs; and one with a degree in PR or communications or something like that (looking for work...). (Proud auntie here...) Last name is "Hannah" - their dad, my bro, has gained some fleeting fame recently for a discovery in the area of fisheries biology (reducing bicatch in the shrimping industry), maybe you've heard of him, but probably not, I think it's a pretty narrow field. Anyway, we're a whole family of geeks.
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Re: What are your victories?
What are our victories you ask? FRC Team 4063 started a trend during our rookie year of 2012, we were the only rookie team to win the coveted Gracious Professionalism award. This year we went to 3 regionals, won 2 GP Awards, 2 Creativity awards, made it to 1 quarterfinals and 2 semifinals. Although we did not make it to Champs, we were one replay away, we still hold our heads high. In 4 years, 9 total regionals, we have 6 Gracious Professionalism Awards, 2 Regional Semifinals, 2 Regional Quarterfinals, 2 Regional Finalists, 1 Regional Winner, 2 Creativity Awards, 1 Engineering Inspiration Award, 1 Imagery Award, 1 Dean’s List Finalist and qualified for the World Championships twice.
FIRST is much more than just building robots and I think our team is great example of this. As Albert Einstein once said “Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.” I believe FRC Team 4063, TRikzR4kiDz, is of great value and very successful. Mr. B. |
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My team is the Aztechs 157.Before this year, we were a mediocre team that did well, but never great.
This year, I really wanted to step us up a notch. I persuaded a mentor to join the team, and he helped us to our victories. We still haven't won any event, but we have done so much better in so many other things. This year was the first in 9 years that the Aztechs won more than 1 award in a season. We won the Judge's award, and the the Excellence in Engineering award. That is HUGE for us. We had amazing spirit, and a very simple robot. Another victory is that we designed a simple, yet robust robot that we never had to fix. Nothing broke, nothing had to change, we competed, and then went and helped other teams. The fact that our design was so versatile was amazing to me. This is the first year in a looooong time that the Aztechs have been Alliance Captain at both events we competed in. Yes they were 7th and 8th seed, but we were ranked that high because of our robot's capabilities, which I am very, very proud of. Lastly, I am excited for next year. This is the first year that the graduating seniors have been mentoring and teaching underclassmen how to do the job they will leave behind. I am a senior now, and I do not fear for next year, because I trust the students the team will have. This year has been huge for the Aztechs, and I hope that it only gets better from here. |
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Victories? When I see things like this.
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I thought I had posted on this previously, but can't find it.
Wow, where to start? Our team had a competition goal of "making the playoffs" for the first time in our four year history. We did that, and were selected (as #42 seed) by the #2 and #10 seeds (binary 10, 1010, and 101010), into the alliance that took the regional! And we did it not on cheesecake, but our day #1 decision to mine the landfill and be able to work the step. (As far as I can tell, we coined the term "mine" the landfill.) Most importantly, we inspired about 50 students towards STEM careers, and made another 50 at least consider it seriously through our t-shirt launcher. Most of the 50 on the team would have probably "coasted" through high school, whether with an A or a D or an F average -- yes, several would have flunked out if we hadn't been there for incentive. This team's members included students saved from a 0.0 average (now a 3.8 average), a few potheads made into leaders, an apparently hopeless introvert who can flirt completely in character as our mascot, and a bunch of self-identified "gorillas" and "meat heads" who have stepped onto the road to become craftsmen. We have graduates heading to both MIT and LA Tech (Woodie Flower's haunts) among other top schools. My youngest son and daughter will graduate in two years, but after hearing the stories at that first post-victory meeting, I just can't imagine giving up FRC mentoring as long as I can get to build sessions. |
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Helping the rookie team we started, 5458 Digital Minds, in neighboring Woodland to travel to Champs. There has been historic rivalry between Davis and Woodland but we worked together (including our appearance before their school board) to fund the trip in just 2 weeks. We had selected them to be on our alliance in Sacramento, but they qualified on their own through the Rookie All Star Award. Their efforts in their rookie year put our first 5 years to shame.
And we qualified another rookie team 5529 Visalia Vanquishers, and a second year team 5027 Event Horizon for Champs on our alliances at CVR and SVR. Both are in Newton with us. |
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So Im on a young team and it being our third year we really saw this program grow i came in the teams second year from FRC 71so going from that team to my team now FRC 4841was a culture shock. They werent a bad team they were Rookie Inspiration and had a solid robot for a rookie team but they were really close minded. We took the summer and really laid out the team and I taught them what I learned like with build crew, robot strategy, and getting the team out to the community. We started small haha actually at the ground level bumpers to be exact I showed them an outside the box way think that year we had the fastest bumpers they were red and blue stitched together to allow them to change on the fly. Then we wanted a practice robot which is huge for teams also costly but they did it. We wanted to really market ourselves in our community of Tucson proud to say these kids have close ties with the mayor now he comes around alot now they also now use the local news as a media correspondent as a third year team. Its amazing to watch these kids grow. Biggest accomplishment so far has been this season they unveiled a community outreach trailer, they placed top 20 at AZ West, they played after lunch on Saturday for the first time ever, and they were honored with the Engineering Inspiration award and are going to the World Championships. I couldn't put it into words how proud I am of this young team and the high hopes I have for them.
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I loved reading every part of this thread. It is so inspirational. As the lead mentor of a team that has had a fair amount of success in the past few years, I can still remember very clearly being in the position of never having made it out of the quarter finals at regionals and never having won any kind of award.
What I love about FIRST is that any team can set goals and when you achieve those goals you are victorious. This year, there is one moment that stands out in this regard and brought me to tears. It was at the Central Valley Regional and involved Team 5529. a rookie team from Visalia, CA. The team was getting really frustrated with their robot's performance and, at one point, one of the students said to me, "we're just never going to be as good as those other teams - our robot just isn't good enough!". We worked with the team to improve their elevator and then spent a ton of time on the practice field to get their driver and operator more experience. We set a goal of scoring a stack of three yellow totes onto one yellow tote on the step. I emphasized that this was a goal they could achieve and would be worth far more points than any amount of grey totes that they could place on the scoring platform in one match. During one of their qualification matches the drive team spent virtually the whole match carefully stacking up the three yellow totes and then during the closing seconds of the match managed to complete the coop-stack. The crowd went crazy and I'm even tearing up as I write this. The team accomplished this feat again in a later qualification match. They then went on to win the Rookie Inspiration Award and a trip to St. Louis, surely another great victory for the team. After this success, I saw a completely different attitude among the students on the team because they had accomplished an important goal that they had set. I am so looking forward to playing with 5529 again as they are joining us in the Newton division. So for every team out there, however successful or unsuccessful you have been so far in competition, set reasonable goals and try to accomplish those goals. When you accomplish your goals, you are victorious. |
Re: What are your victories?
So this year has been an amazing year for 4653.
We're a 3 year team, and for our rookie season, we did decent for a rookie team. We won Rookie Inspiration and Rookie All-Star, and we were pretty happy with that. However, for our 2nd year, things didn't go too well. We had poor organization and, unfortunately, a relatively inefficient robot design. We only got picked for one elimination alliance out of our 3 event, which was eliminated at the Quarterfinals, and we didn't make it to the District Championship. It was my first year on the team, and such losses made me disappointing, and not really hopeful for future success. However, 2015 would change that. This year, we had a much better, more stable robot design, and with that, we were looking hopeful to our first competition, Mt. Olive. At this District Event, we had trouble, and didn't get picked for an elimination alliance, ending up in the bottom 50% of teams in terms of QA. At our second event, Bridgewater-Raritan, things were looking the same. While we finished 17th in terms of QA, we didn't look like we would be picked. That is until we were. By the 1st place alliance. Working with 1676 and 1403, some of the strongest teams at the event, we won the event. It was an amazing time for us; our first blue banner in the teams' history! As a driver myself, I was incredibly happy, as our team and drive team were able to show enough capabilities and skill to be reliable, to which we were picked. We were the supportive robot, obtaining and delivering RC's only, but it was what we were needed for, and what we did well. That victory also qualified us for the Mid-Atlantic Regional Championship. At MAR Champs, we were very excited to compete, but not the most expectant to do too well. We thought our B-R performance was decent, but up against the top teams from MAR? Certainly we didn't expect much. We would end up 20th in QA, and again we were shocked with a pick, this time the second place alliance of 1640 and 303 picking us for our ability to deliver RC's, and our canburgular. With them, we were the finalists at the MAR Championship. After the awards ceremony, we would be stunned again. We qualified for the FIRST Championship! Our team's first trip to St. Louis! This year has been amazing for our team, and for me personally. To see all our hard work pay off, and to be the driver for a team that I've come to enjoy. I see all my team-mates as great friends, and all the other teams I've worked with have been amazing, showing such kindness and enthusiasm as our team has. Thanks to 1676, 1403, 303, and 1640: We had so much fun working with you. See you all at St. Louis, we'll be cheering for you! |
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