Re: Your Best FIRST Experience
 

My best expierence was in my first year in 2003, when our team along with 269 and 45 won the Midwest regional. Just the shock of having it be my first year and all really was a big moment for me.

Re: Your Best FIRST Experience
 

Well, last year.. our rookie year, it was the Tetra Stacking game. We used an pneumatic to power our arm. We were with an allaince.. and started playing... not that long into the game, all of the bots... were either tipped or shut off, or malfunctioning... We happen to be the only bot left. The problem was... we forgot to shut our release valve at the beginning of the game. So our arm was not working. So we could really do anything... so all we did was just spun in circles. We went around about 10 times before the end of the game. The arm was flyin up and everything. Good times.... we ended up loosing by like 1 point... 12 to 11 or somethin like that.

(this was at st. louis regional)

Re: Your Best FIRST Experience
 

So far, out of my two years of being on my team, my best FIRST experience had to be driving in the finals with 968 and team 4 and winning the SoCal Regional yesterday. It was our team's first regional win and we had a lot of fun and are very proud of Dori The Punisher.

Re: Your Best FIRST Experience
 

4th year and you guys have a regional win.

11th year and we've got nothin'...

Well pre-2002 we must have won something, but I have no idea.

Nice job ;D

Re: Your Best FIRST Experience
 

I could never pick one moment, but I think I can pick one from every year so far...on second thought, lets make that two from every year.

2002: I wasn't officially on the team but I went to all the competitions. (1) Seeing the team take 3rd seed at both Buckeye and GTR. (2) Going to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and seeing all the teams together there and talking to different teams about their robots.

2003: Still not officially on the team. (1) Watching the robot get up the ramp on only one drive and lifting its wing to let our partners on the ramp. (2) Seeing the dual wing design finally lifting to allow our partner on the ramp on Friday at UTC. I am positive that is the loudest I have ever heard anyone scream or cheer for any one of our robots our robot.

2004: First official year on the team. (1) Winning the SBPLI Regional with 1114 and watching Karthik take off his shirt and wave it around his head.[yes, I do have video] (2) Walking into the Georgia Dome/meeting Andy Baker, Raul, and Paul Copioli and walking down "murderers" row with John.

2005: Operator. (1) Looking at Ader and seeing her start to tear up as they announced that we had won Motorola Quality at FLR (2) Meeting Ken Patton at FLR, and then spending the entire Saturday of GTR talking to he and John.

2006: Operator. (1) Having the entire team pile on top of Ader, Chris and I after winning FLR. (2) no idea?

Re: Your Best FIRST Experience
 

I would have to say my best experience was being #1 seed and winning the Boston Regional. We also won the GM Industrial Design award, our first award since winning the National Motorola Quality Award in 2002. It was just amazing.

Re: Your Best FIRST Experience
 

I think my best experience this year would have to be playing with our alliance at the Davis-Sacramento regional. We got the exact two teams on our alliance that we wanted (852 and 1662!), and we were so relieved when 1662 went unpicked until it was our turn again. Playing with you guys was probably the coolest thing that I had witnessed all season.

On a sadder note, one of my worst experiences was when autonomous was set off during the setting up of the robots in one of the final rounds. While the robots were being set up and turned on (and with people still on the feild), the trumpet sounded and several robots ran off into their autonomous modes. I was at our drivers station which happened to be the nearest to the other alliances favored low goal, and I turned around just in time to see 955's robot come charging straight at us and bounce off of the lexan at full speed! Luckily no one was hurt, but we were still a little shaken up. (And our control board was knocked off of the shelf due to the impact, and being made of plexiglass it cracked in several places)

Re: Your Best FIRST Experience
 

My best experience, is something I will never forget in my life, and I'll consider it the best 5 minutes of my life.

It was at Atlanta in 2004, Saturday afternoon. We already won the Curie Divsion (as rookies) and just finished packing our pit and crates up. I was put in charge of one of the Divsion Champ trophies (to make sure it got back to the school safely). With the gold medal around my neck, and the huge trophy in my hand, I started walking to the door. As soon as I left our pit area, they started BLASTING "We are the Champions" in the pits. It was so loud it gave my chills. I just slowly walked around the pits until the song ended, with tears in my eyes.

Every time I hear that song, it reminds me of that moment in my life .. something I will never .. ever .. forget. When I got back up to the top (Everyone in Atlanta 04 remembers the 4 stories of escalators to go up before making it to the ground level of the GWCC) my team was waiting for me and looked at me strange and asked me what was wrong .. I couldn't say anything and we just walked off to the hotel. Thanks again 1038 and 175 for that awesome weekend. I really can't think of a better way to end my Senior year, our rookie year as a FRC team, or a better way to spend a weekend. That event (walking thru the pits at the end) is probally why I'm still involved with our FRC team; it was just so incredible, that I now want to do whatever it takes for someone else on our team to have that feeling.

*proud mentor of FRC #1388*

Re: Your Best FIRST Experience
 

Not to mention that one person on the field was almost run down by a run-away bot. I'm just glad that everyone was alright in the end.

Anyway, I do have to say that this regional brought yells, laughter, and tears to nearly everyone in our section of the stands. I couldn't have been any happier sitting with the team while supporting our alliance. Our elimination matches are something that I will probably never forget.

I would also like to give a heartfelt congrats to all of the teams there, esspecially the Chairman's Award winner Team 245 and Team 753 for their Engineering Inspiration Award and their spectacular defensive showing. I hope that all of the teams there had as great of a time as we did.

Re: Your Best FIRST Experience
 

I think the best single experience Ive had being a mentor was 2002, with the Xcats at WDW (the last year at Epcot). We had Sunday to ourselves at WDW, and I spent the evening with Jeff Debes and a couple students wandering around the parks.

That night we sat at a table by the pool and the two of us decided to start a new team - all by ourselves. We had no idea how we would make it all come together, we simply decided that Rochester needed another team.

With the help of 4 or 5 other people we came within one teacher of starting a team the next season at the School of The Arts. Xerox even agreed to fully sponsor the team. But since we could not get a teacher onboard that team never materialized. Xerox went on to sponsor new teams at Webster HS, and Jeff Debes was key in establishing team 1450 at Ben Franklin HS (also sponsored by Xerox).

I went on to mentor team 578 and was not involved with team 1450. Looking back, the thing that made that experience so extraordinary is it started with just two people, with an idea and the gumption to say "we can do this!"

Re: Your Best FIRST Experience
 

My best FIRST experience came out of tragedy one year ago. As some of you may remember, on April 8th my kids and I were in a terrible car accident and had multiple injuries, with our daughter (age 11) almost not surviving. While our daughter was still in the hospital, and I was not able to walk due to my injuries, my 8 year old son and I woke up one month after the wreck to find that the house was on fire! To say that we were having a bad month was putting it lightly.

A group of FIRSTers made a bad situation one of the best FIRST experiences both Scott (234) and I have ever had. I would like to say that the people of FIRST made a huge impact on me and my family. As my kids and I were still recovering (and at the hospital) leaving our house fire mess for my husband, Scott, to deal with, here came a huge group of Indiana FIRST people to help him out! I don't even know who all was there that day, as it was a blurr and I couldn't be there, but you know who you are and we appreciate you so much. And Marci Cochran of team 447...I love you! Thank you for being such a great friend! :)

Elise...it was wonderful to finally meet you! You have NO IDEA how much we appreciated what you did for our family last year, along with so many from the FIRST family from not only the US, but from around the world. As we approach our one year date for both our car accident and house fire, it all sinks in more and more what you all did for us. Words cannot thank everyone enough for all that you did for us. THANK YOU, FIRST MEMBERS!

Re: Your Best FIRST Experience
 

I'd have to say, my first regional ever (J&J, College Ave. Gym). I was in 3rd grade, and didn't completely understand the concept of FIRST, but by the end of Saturday, I had yelled so much from being into the game, I lost my voice. That's when FIRST REALLY hooked me.
But as a follow up to that, 2004 was just a great year all around. We preformed well at the Jersey Regional and at Annapolis, and we had a great time in Atlanta. It just ran smoothly, and that always makes for a great year :)
And I certainly can't complain about this year, 303 really came together, and that puts a positive light on how next year should run. Lots to look forward to!

Re: Your Best FIRST Experience
 

I think my best FIRST experience was at 2004 Midwest. My brother was a newbie on 234 and I thought FIRST was just a waste of time; those guys spent their Friday nights and Saturdays working on this robot! When I went to the competition and saw all of those teams and teenagers so excited about engineering, math, and science, I thought FIRST was the coolest thing in the world. I am now a freshman on 234 and I love it.

Re: Your Best FIRST Experience
 

My best FIRST experience was this years (2006) build season, because I was the president, project manager, designer, and machinist. I basically got to do it all this year, learning how to manage people, learning how to design an entire part of the robot almost completely on my own (not entirely, I had group members, but he was a rookie, so I ended up making a lot of decisions and designs on my own when I wasn't teaching him. Our engineers were there for 45 min each day, and mine mainly acted as a consultant). I also got to actually machine parts that I designed and them see them work :D . Basically, FIRST is the best thing that happened to me in all of high school, it made me want to take on all of the challenges that I did this year. It did not hurt that this year we were finalists in the Boston regional (thanks team 40 and 69)! This was an amazing year!

Re: Your Best FIRST Experience
 

My best FIRST experience was probably winning the Buckeye in 2003. We were a rookie that year and were not really expecting much but maybe more than we should have. I was the driver so i am telling it from my perspective on the field. After practice day we were all pumped because we had had quite a good day, first mistake. On friday we started our matches and by the end of the day we were ranked 52nd out of 60 or so teams. We went to the social and got some advice from a rather Ko-razy X-cats mentor :D . But that was only to me and Alex Cormier. So we went back to the hotel rather dejected. Some of the kids on our team got all the kids together in one room and reminded us that we could still be picked and that we needed to put all our energy into saturday and hope that we got picked. So the next day we got of the bus in front of the Clevelend State Convocation Center with a bang. We cheered the whole way into the stands, we were pumped up and ready to battle. We played great matches in the morning and by the time it was ready to pick we were ranked 11th! Two teams got pulled into the top 8 and we were the next team up but we didnt get in. So we had to wait and when the 4th seed of 541 and 27 came up to make their second pick they spoke those words: ELEVEN TWENTY-SIX!! we went CRAZY. we couldnt believe it! We roared into the finals and after winning the first match in the finals with 541 and 27 we were inserted in with 541. In auto mode we both went over the ramp at the same time and met (I believe at least) B.O.B. with thier large yellow bot with the suction cups and huge arms at the top. Unluckly for 85 they toppled over and i knew at that instant that we had just won a regional on our first try!! At the end of the match i went crazy, i ran over to the sideline where our team was cheering and hugged everyone i could. I was so excited i knoced over some of the railing! It was probably the greatest moment of my life. Thats my BEST FIRST story although the entire 2004 year was a good story but not the best.