Worst Moments in Team History
 

This is in response to a thread i saw about the best moments in team history. (If this thread exists in some other form let me know) Same idea except name the worst moments in your team history.

For me, getting eliminated by the 8th seeded alliance after doing well and being picked by the number one seed. (only been on the team one year)

Re: Worst Moments in Team History
 

There are far far worse things then just getting eliminated during a competition. And such things are usually best left amongst their respective teams. Airing dirty laundry can cause some serious hurt feelings amongst the ranks.

Re: Worst Moments in Team History
 

There is no worst moments in FIRST Team history, some moments are just well...better than others. And those moments that are less than spectacular, well we learn a lot from them, some of us just happen to learn more than others.

Re: Worst Moments in Team History
 

Koko Ed beat me to it.

I'm not sure many people will be willing to share their team's 'worst moment'. Sometimes, teams have their dark times. It happens. But airing dirty laundry is not the way to solve any of it.

Also, getting eliminated really isn't that bad- some teams would kill to just be in the eliminations. It's disappointing, that's true, but if that's your worst moment you and your team are pretty well off. :)

Re: Worst Moments in Team History
 

Our team's worst moment was the 13 years of FIRST's existence in which it did not exist.

We are all rather lucky to be with a team, no matter how well they are fairing.

Re: Worst Moments in Team History
 

I'll share one, 610's 2005 season... playing defense in a game where you can get a 30 point penalty for touching an opposing robot in a loading zone isn't a sound strategy. Didn't work out too well, we got noticed... but this time for the wrong reasons, placing 64th out of 66 in the regional we had won three years prior and received chairmans two years prior was a little embarrassing.

But on the plus side next year brought a new group of team leaders and a new vision for the team, and had what I would argue as our most successful season to date in '06.

Re: Worst Moments in Team History
 

The worst moment for me occurrs annually, usually with about ten days left in build (quite often around Valentine's day...) when we are:

a) overweight
b) broken down
c) burned out

And that's just the robot....

Then we get over it, and move on, then come back for more the next year.

Jason

Re: Worst Moments in Team History
 

Worst moment for our team, or at least the most "oh.. no" moment, was weighing the 2006 robot a day before ship and finding out it was something like 15 pounds over weight. Needless to say, we spent a significant amount of time drilling holes that night and then ext day. Our vice principal at the time even volunteered to drive the crate down to FedEx himself so we could stretch out our time on ship day. The robot apparently arrived at the FedEx loading dock two minutes before closing time.

Crazy couple of days.

Re: Worst Moments in Team History
 

2005.

We built the worst robot in FIRST history. To this day I have yet to see a worse robot.

How bad was it? Well it couldn't move... it had an arm... that managed to knock down the hanging tetras... sometimes :(

There were also team-work "issues" and "fights"...

Ironically, I think I learned more this year than any other year on the team. Failure inspired me to pursue success; to turn team 100 around; to prove that we weren't a bunch of jokers... At the time most people would have laughed at the idea of team 100 wining anything... Not anymore...

Sometimes our greatest failures lay the foundations for our greatest success.

Re: Worst Moments in Team History
 

The worst moment in Lightning Robotics team history would be 2003, the whole season. We had failures with both the team and the robot.

But out of the darkest times come the most valuable lessons, we learned a lot from that season, and we built on that focusing on building strong team instead of a strong robot. We grew as a team peaking in the 2006 season.
A sponsor change over for the 2007 season completely destabilized the team both mentors and students.

2008 was a rebuilding season, Sadly though there are now only 4 people left on our team that remember what that year was like, some of our newer mentors seem to be leading the team back down that path.

Re: Worst Moments in Team History
 

In the semifinals in the Washington championships, with two of our robots teamed up and poised to go on to the finals, a team member forgot to turn on the power switch. I'm pretty sure nothing is quite as depressing to a drive team as watching the #1 'bot in qualifying sit motionless during the last semi-final match with the power switch off. There were tears. There was depression. However... no one on the team ever ragged on the person who did this, the adults never mentioned it again, and the team was encouraged by winning the Innovate Award and a special award for Best Team Documentary Video. Even with their bitter disappointment, they still hung together as a team. It was the worst of times. It was the best of times.

Re: Worst Moments in Team History
 

That's a really nice way of putting it. Kudos.

Re: Worst Moments in Team History
 

My worst moments where from Rack N' Roll. It was about 3AM and T-Rx was still up building their robot and it was ship date. The robot went into the crate in chunks and was to be finished at FLR. During the FLR we got a rolling chassis going on the first day. That's basically all we got finished, but luckly that drive train was all about shoving and made us one of the best defensive robots. The last blow to me was when for the 2nd time in team history we didn't get picked for the elims. That robot went and was on the winning alliance at PARC just this past May, as a lapbot.

To end this on a positive note, the best moment of my FIRST career had to be this year's PARC, it was 222 and 145 against a full alliance of 3 in the Quarterfinals. After 4 matches we finally won, 2 V 3 =P. All thanks to good strategy and communication .

Re: Worst Moments in Team History
 

At least you have something built.:)

The worst moment in our team history was when the FedEx guy came at 11 am and we asked if we could be his last stop of the day instead of his first:ahh:

Re: Worst Moments in Team History
 

The winner for us: Losing the distribution block in QF1-2 at Palmetto in 2007. It was preventable, and we might just have forced a rubber match against the 1251/1626/1758 alliance if we'd caught it in time.

Still, the lesson we learned from that match proved beneficial when it came time to place the electrical panel for Speedy Debris this year. No electrical problems whatsoever once our teacher (who has an appreciable size advantage over the students who laid it out) cinched down the connections.

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.

Re: Worst Moments in Team History
 

every time a loose screw or loose electrical connection kills the robot and you loose a match as a result. Losing to a better team is no big deal compared to a preventable mistake taking you out of the match.

Re: Worst Moments in Team History
 

I've related this elsewhere, but it probably bears repeating. In 2007, we primarily focused on being a rampbot and GLR was our first regional. For various reasons we didn't get a lot of practice in on Thursday, but we were confident in our ramps, as they worked very well in a few tests at the shop. Sadly, we were using the infamous 1:125 Banebot trannies with FP motors. Predictably, we stripped out the carrier plates and were pretty much useless on Friday. We managed to get the things welded together that night and won all our Saturday morning matches thanks to some fairly impressive lifting. We all crossed our fingers during the draft, and ended up completely overlooked by all the teams thanks to poor Friday.... Except for 1114 and 67, who picked us for the #1 alliance. You're probably wondering where the bad part is, but rest assured, I'm almost there. Our alliance completely trounced #8 in the quarters. Then came the semis. Semi 1, our robot inexplicably twitched about ineffectually and we lost the match, barely. I'm uncertain of the reason to this day, but I suspect we were bit by a "charged" battery that failed to make good contact with the charged. We spent entirely too much time chasing it as a radio problem that we barely had time to swap in a fresh battery and get out for Semi 2. We ended up just strapping our battery in and running without a rear bumper. Unfortunately, our battery strap wasn't particularly up to spec and it was apparently our bumper that was holding our battery in all weekend. So when an opposing robot hit us with a decent block, our battery flew completely out the back of our robot, leaving us dead on the field. 1114 and 67 put up a good fight and we only lost the match by a tube, but it was obviously our shortcoming that lost us the regional.

I'll probably live it down someday in the future when I manage to stop posting about it annually, but I still swear I'll figure out some way to make it up to Karthik. Preferably not with a repeat performance on an opposing alliance, though.

And remember kids: Always strap your batteries!

Re: Worst Moments in Team History
 

A similar situation happened to our team, but regarding the Kettering Rookie Competition this year: we had district large ensemble contests on the Friday of a Friday/Saturday competition in another state, and our director wouldn't excuse us to go to that (yet other things, such as vacations, are ok... but here's not the place). That left about half our team to go, without a programmer, as I am in band. Everyone boarded the bus to leave and then Friday morning, when they're all in Michigan, a snow storm hits; contest was cancelled, and, unfortunately, none of us could get to the competition... To make matters worse, I forgot to load the correct code onto the laptop they were taking for editing, and I accidentally sent the wrong code to them... needless to say, our coach (also a programming teacher) did lots of editing to the code.

Re: Worst Moments in Team History
 

That is sooo funny and true.

Every year I say it is my last a few times during the season. My wife just doesn't believe me anymore.

Re: Worst Moments in Team History
 

I'm not quite so sure if our team has had any truly devastating moments in our team history. Sure, there have been low periods, but those are balanced out by the high periods.

I guess it all boils down to personal worst moments, which are actually pretty common. People get into fights, people think the refs were unfair, people create elaborate conspiracy theories, people are disappointed when they cant do something. The thing is though, these people usually don't let their negativity spread through the team, and instead still attempt to remain positive (except for a couple unnamed people).

So in general, even inner-team turmoil is not represented by the team as a whole.

Re: Worst Moments in Team History
 

From a robot perspective, the saddest thing to happen to us in team history was probably in Rack and Roll when one of our BaneBots gearboxes (loaded with two CIM's each) in a defensive robot were completely destroyed. The bad thing about this was that it happened at the second match of the Waterloo finals (the first of which we had won). The sad part was that our alliance partners had amazing robots and they wouldn't let us switch out...

The team however took away from this the lessons of prototyping and robust design; this year we designed a system where we could rip out an entire drive module and replace it in about 3 minutes.

Re: Worst Moments in Team History
 

Boy, if the worst thing that ever happens to you is your robot not working right, or missing the eliminations, or losing in a manner that's hard to swallow, you're doing pretty darn well.