I suppose I'm lucky
 

Just trying to think of one is impossible. Being on stage against Beatty, as Bill has stated was unbelieveable. Then again, so was the Match at the Great Lakes Finals in which I witnessed the loudest simultaneous crowd gasp when we sucked balls out of our opponents scoring bin and swerved over to ours to deposit them just in time. That was against Pontiac Northern. Or the year that we won 3 regionals. Or the fantastic dance that we had with Motorola Wildstag the year of the puck. Or the year we went to New York and won the Spirit Award. Far too many close calls and outcomes determined by points, or seconds. Far too many good and bad memories to just pick one.

I have a couple of favorite moments:

1) Second match in the finals at the KSC Regional: the other alliance had just won the 1st match and at the beginning of the second one we DOMINATED and the announcer said, "Blue alliance dominating early!" One of our allies was SPAM (180) and they were pushing Heatwave (312) out of the scoring position and the announcer says, "SPAM! SPAM! SPAM!" Then, towards the end he said, "Metal in Motion clearly in control!!"

2) Thrid match in the finals at the KSC Regional: about 15-20 seconds into this match Heatwave (312) went dead! I think determination and the simple issue of Heatwave not changing the battery won us the regional!!!!

3) One of the matches at the St. Louis Regional: Metal in Motion (also beating Heatwave at this different regional :) ) dragged 2 goals, the Heatwave robot, and another robot at least halfway across the field. Both alliances were DQed for tearing the carpet *cough* it was 312 *cough*hehe, but it was definately the BEST play of all. :)

~Jessica~

AIM: jessvbmh
Yahoo: jessvbmh04

Well, there are A LOT of those "FIRST moments", for sure!
I remember awesome things I'll never forget, things that made me freeze and stare, things that made me scream in a crazy way and some emotions I couldn't explain.

Ok, you want me to tell THE BEST moment.

When we won the 2001 Nasa Langley Regional in VCU was the greatest moment for me (and maybe to some people in my team too). To be precise, the time when the final score appeared on the screen. I liked that year specially because I participated more on the robot design and was the human player. That was the first time we won a regional, and to do that we went through so many difficult situations, and we were representing ourselves, our team, our school, our state and our country.
Maybe after that some people lost that "underdog" idea about us. We were so excited. I lost my voice in few minutes, called home to tell my mother (there was a problem with the internet connection just before the finals) and after that so many good things happened.

I admit participating is MUCH more important that winning, but you asked for ONE moment only.

You are correct. It was 176 oh well atleast I was close lol.

Non competition moment
 

My favorite memory was the the 2001 Nationals, all of a sudden a huge rainstorm came out of nowhere. It rained so much that the floor of the pits (the grey plastic) actually was floating and you could feel it moving under you. The water then came up through the pit floors, i still remember having to scramble and move our stuff off the floor, while running to matches.

-Rc

in florida EVERY DAY it rains at like 2 pm... heh aye

By the way, Chief Delphi's dance partner was Wildstang. That year both robots had "crab" steering that allowed them to rotate the "puck" several times without stopping. That also was Team 217's rookie year. We were ranked 4th in that competition.

Quote from the "pet-HotBot" thread mentioned earlier, but it fits better in this thread.
If it's the same match I remember, it was my high school team Truck Town Terror (team 68) and Robbe Xtreme (team 56) against two opponents I no longer remember in an elimination round (quarter or semi) match.

The strategy was for us to control the puck and for Robbe to gather floppies. We grabbed one floppy, pushed the puck to one side of the playing field in our scoring zone, and held it in place. Robbe drove up onto the puck with a basket full of floppies and was raised it up to scoring position toward the middle of the match near the edge of the field. One opposing team tried (in vain) to push the puck into their scoring zone. The other team drove onto puck and raised their basket full of floppies under Robbe, picking up their entire lift system. The whole basket flipped over the side of the playing field and dangled there. T3 then attempted to climb onto the puck, pushing against the team with floppies up in the air. The fight was a stalemate until we starting lifting our basket, which in the struggle for the puck, was pushing against their lift system. This slowly pushed their entire robot over, lift crashing out of the playing field in the corner and narrowly missing a camera man. Our basket and lift slammed into the human player station as our robot tipped over as well, but stayed within the field and off the ground with no time left on the clock. Final score, 2-0 (1 floppy off the ground * 2 for the puck in our scoring zone) in favor of T3 and Robbe. Robbe gave our 'bot the nickname "Killdozer" after that match.

Probably my favorite match ever. I only wish I had video of it.

Another great match at the same regional (which won us play of the day) showed the pulling power of T3. The puck had been pushed so hard into the field barrier that one of the caster wheels hopped up and over the 2-by-4 edge of the playing field. The puck was being held in this position by both opposing robots as our alliance partner sat onto of the puck. We were able to pull the puck back into our scoring zone for the win, horribly mangling our hook in the process (good thing we had spares).

So many other good T3 memories...
Shearing a 5/8" tool steel shaft in 2000 after replacing the 'weak' pin with a steel bolt and joking that we'd shear the shaft before the fastener is another good one.

Adam

The greatest moments for me were:

1) 2000 New Jersey: Big Bad Chief Delphi got pushed to a corner by the Grass Hopper in the finals..... When i saw this I couldn't sleep for days

grass hopper: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/pics/bin/133mar001.jpg

Delphi:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/pics/bin/047mar002.jpg

great match
 

Last year in the semifinals on einstien 60 against beaty in the first match beatty pusshed the bionic bulldog we called thunder back into beatty's scoring zone, after the patch a baffled 60 examined our robot to figure out why for the first time ever thunder had been pushed it was obvious, an arm was broken and 60 lost the weight advantage. After swapping both arms on the robot on that Musty frying pan of a stage called einstein My co driver and I placed thuder back on the field for match number two. this match thuder would not be affected by the might of beatty awesome walker insted we held our own and with 30 seconds left our allience died mid field. when the buzzer sounded we examined the field and found the score to our liking, 31-30 or so we thought when the judges counted the score was beatty 32 kingman 31 heart break

I hear you Puma, I remember that moment like it was this morning :(

All in all though, being up there for the semi-finals was one amazing thrill ;)

Come on! No one remembers last year in Florida team 61 flipping another robot? That has to be someones fav memory! :p

Before

After

or this one?

lol that was kinda cool to see over the internet, it must have been great to see in person. well lets see what else we can dig up from memory lane!;) :D

glad u like it

Super Duo
 

My best memory of FIRST was our alliance with Chief Delfi and technoKats in 2000 for The Midwest Regional against Baxtor Bomb Squad. These teams performed the most fluid motions I had ever seen and the greatest syncronization I had ever seen. With delfi's crab and big huge dino head accumulator they seemed unstopable. That has always been my favorite robot of all time. Good Job Chief!!!!