Re: Worst Moments in Team History
 

Well, I guess this moment was more funny then bad, but it will be remembered in infamy. In...rack n roll, during the one fall, one of our members went up to another member, and asked her, if she was a boy or a girl.

The member who asked, was already...not the most liked kid, and so there was a little...scuffle. :D

Re: Worst Moments in Team History
 

This should be more of a learning experience than a bad thing... its disappointment as others have said but being the # of your alliance doesnt much matter.. you will come to learn that as you get more involved in FIRST.


as far as the worse thing for me... missing kickoff 2 years back.... never gonna miss kickoff again lol.

Re: Worst Moments in Team History
 

Our shooter cylinder almost hit Wayne Penn in the head. If it had, he for sure would have been knocked out and it might have cracked his skull.

Another kid on our team was lit on fire once because of his deodorant.

Re: Worst Moments in Team History
 

Wow, you get TEN days before ship to learn that? Usually we're on the Sunday before ship just learning... sigh.

Funny, but looking back, there were no worst times. Plenty of "oh Shoot" moments as things went very badly, but then the heartwarming response of "OK, let's fix that".

And, thank God, no injuries, accidents or worse.

So, I guess I agree with rocketperson44.

Don

Re: Worst Moments in Team History
 

Our worst moments come at the end of each season when we look back and think about the students we didn't reach, the missed opportunities for inspiration, those that couldn't or wouldn't be on the team, and the potential unrealized.

And then we use each of these to set our goals for next year.

-dave

p.s. oh yeah, and then there was the one year that we were out-ranked in the qualification matches by a team that hadn't even shown up at the competition. That was pretty bad. :(

Re: Worst Moments in Team History
 

Possible worst moment? I'm not sure;

In rack and roll, we were a back up in atlanta. We tried to get up on a ramp, but I think our driver tried to straif it instead of just going up normally.
We fell and snapped our arm completely. Fortunatly one of the welders was able to fix it.

Re: Worst Moments in Team History
 

This has been an interesting thread. I'm glad Dave posted because he pretty much nailed what all the teams go through, I think.

I've thought about posting but 1 thing has stopped me:
Resilience. Every time I've thought of something that happened - then I've thought, oh yeah but the team did this or did this. Teams can be so resilient. You can have a pretty tough time on the competition field or find out you are 20 pounds overweight the week of ship - and the team overcomes the challenge or the disappointment, working together.

Working together, now that can be a challenge but - there's no time like the present to start work on improvements and building the team.

I also thought about teams who have lost members and how hard that must be to work through. Each time I read a thread in ChiefDelphi about a student or a mentor who has died, it greatly saddens me. I think about their families and I think of how the team will be impacted. When I think about that, the resilience factor becomes even more special.

There can be dark days on a team and the hope is that those days are numbered, leaving the brighter days open to infinite possibilities and discovery.

Re: Worst Moments in Team History
 

The worst things for us that happened this year as a rookie team is when 2 of members HAD to get out of the team because their band director wouldnt allow them to be in both robotics and band (They were both section leaders in the band). That left our rookie team with VERY few members but we pulled it off...barely

Re: Worst Moments in Team History
 

Last year, we had 3/4 of the team leave by ship date (we had 4 people left). It is a great opportunity for younger members to fulfill roles they would not otherwise get a chance until they were older. If you stick with your team, in good times or bad, you will only come out stronger because of it.

-Vivek

Re: Worst Moments in Team History
 

I was going to say when we didn't win a single match at West Michigan and we were out ranked by the robot that couldn't move a few years back, but looking back we still had fun and learned from the experience.

This year when we lost the mother of one of our students who was also the wife of our PR mentor to cancer was by far the worst moment in our teams history. But looking back on that, experiencing Dan's strength and trust in God through that awful time was a great lesson for us all.

Re: Worst Moments in Team History
 

I personally would have to say when I missed going to Atlanta Freshman year, when we won Silicon Valley with 254 and 581. We haven't qualified in two years and this is probably one of the big regrets in my life. I don't think I can speak for the team itself, other than when we didn't exist.

Re: Worst Moments in Team History
 

I think ours would have to be '06. Failed shooter with 4-5 days left and decided to use a cable winch system to open the dumper we put in it's place (broke after practice in philly and we ditched it).... then in ATL we were ranked 86th on newton... out of 86 teams...

Re: Worst Moments in Team History
 

Our worst moment came well before I was on the team, when a single student, wanting to begin a team in our town, was told by the Board of Ed that we could not.

However, that changed, and we've been a team for 6 years, and have kept great ties with a nearby team that we were originally part of.

Re: Worst Moments in Team History
 

I don't know about worst moment - everything has been an opportunity to grow, and thus valuable - but the toughest to swallow was the match on Saturday in Atlanta in 2006 when our radio cable fell out. In the same match, one of our partners tipped. Needless to say, we watched helplessly as we lost horribly. To make matters worse, that match dropped us from 4th to 18th. Our next one, also a loss, took us to 26th. We weren't picked for the finals.

It was a hard moment to live though, yes, but we all learned so much from it that I can hardly call it our worst moment. It made all of us stronger individually, and taught us important lessons that make us more competitive today. That match is the reason we have a checklist to ensure the robot's readiness and functionality before and after each match.

Re: Worst Moments in Team History
 

If you have only been on the team one year, use it as a learning experience. Not to sound patronizing or anything, but try to assess what the team and alliance did wrong or could have improved in terms of strategy. I can't say what to improve on the robot b/c to me it seemed great.

Really hope to see you guys next season as an alliance partner instead of against you.