Re: Favorite FIRST Memories
 

Last year, I was the copilot, and it was the finals of the Lone Star regional. The red alliance had one match, the blue another. Ridley (one of our mentors) came running from the field, shouting that the field cleanup had found a #25 half-link. Earlier in the year I was made "chain queen", so I flipped the robot and checked the chain. It wasn't ours, but one chain had slipped a sprocket and wasn't tensioned. That repair allowed us to win the final match and go home the champs of Lone Star. I felt so friggin happy for that fix, I was even brave enough to hug the head coach (two years previous i learned that this is a bad idea without the influence of victory). It was the best moment of my robotics career.

Re: Favorite FIRST Memories
 

2007. Watching my son and team finally get a double hang during auto in the last match of the last off season competition. Tubes and a rack again this year. Hmmmm:)

Re: Favorite FIRST Memories
 

We were there -- I still remember that :)

Re: Favorite FIRST Memories
 

That is an insanely lucky and an insanely awesome story :D :D :D

Re: Favorite FIRST Memories
 

My first year in competitions, 2001, NJ regional, being partnered with 75 and 175, i dont remember the 4th team, and in Philly partnered with 103, 365 again dont remember the 4th team...

won both regionals and had an absolute blast at it, the reason they stand out is though not because of the win, but working with those teams mentioned above was an absolute blast, still 4 of my most respected teams around the FIRST field. I am always surprised by 175 the most because they are always one of the quietest teams but always do well with their robot and their team. But yea to have worked with all 4 of those teams in one year is an absolute blast....

Second best memory, last year NJ regional Finals match 2, seeing the entire arena go in a uproar after the score is announced, I do not think I have ever seen the crowd go so crazy ever at NJ in recent times. Was an absolute blast.

Theres soo many more, winning the first chairmans award, coaching my first match, reaching division finals in newton... the list is unending it seems. but those two definitely top the list.

Re: Favorite FIRST Memories
 

Three letters: IRI. The whole trip, from the day-long drive out, to the mentor meet & greet, to seeing the awesome robots and legendary people, to holyjeezijustcoachedatIRI, to holyjeezijustmetAndyBaker, to the endless amazing elimination rounds.

Hey, you. Yes, you, the person that hasn't been to IRI. Go. This year. Seriously.


I have powerful memories from behind the alliance station glass and working frantically in the pits, but my favorite memories always have to do with the people. Reading my co-driver without saying a word and scoring a last minute spoiler. Finishing each other's sentences and working seamlessly through early mornings and late nights. Hanging out after an unbelievably long competition Friday. ...Yeah, definitely the people that make the difference!

Re: Favorite FIRST Memories
 

Nothing beats IRI! Especially playing 5 semi-final matches (after winning the 4th quarterfinal match on a penalty)

Other good moments for me:
Winning Chairmans at Kettering (and States) my freshmen year. It was really special because we had never won a Chairmans award before, and were trying really hard to write an awesome essay and presentation. It was special the last year as well, but not as special as the first time.

Winning the MARC as an essentially rookie driver (with only a few hours of practice on 469's practice field).

Re: Favorite FIRST Memories
 

Oh man, I totally get the pilot/copilot interaction. When everything you say ends up in stereo, you know you've made an unbreakable bond.

Re: Favorite FIRST Memories
 

That's why I wanna always work with FLL, I love seeing the kids grasp a new concept or finally get their program to work. Also the reason why I'm torn in if I wanna volunteer for FRC or FLL at championships.

Re: Favorite FIRST Memories
 

My Name is Karl and I was a Robotics student in 2003 as a High School Sophomore and now I'm 23 years old and a mentor on Team 313 "The Bionic Union" and my favorite memory was the 2003 Championship Event in Houston,TX. I was the Pit Nazi as you would call it and I just loved running between the Astro Dome and the new Reliant Stadium helping the team fix the robot and making sure the tools were ready when they arrived back in the pits. That year we made the Newton Division playoffs as a 5th seed and our alliance partner and us were bounced in the first round in two games by the eventual division champions so at least we lost to the best in our division but the memory was just awesome with helping our alliance partner and my team fix the robots between matches and running to the pits for tools and wiring and all that good stuff. FIRST has given me more memories than any other group I have been apart of, the smiles you see on these kids faces when you win a match just makes you remember why you've put over 500 hours of your life into this one robot. Good Luck to all teams in the upcoming competition season I hope you all do your very best, I know I have high hopes for my teams design this year.

Re: Favorite FIRST Memories
 

I'm a little late to this thread. While I'm a hard core VEX robotics person, I have a lot of great FIRST memories around FRC.

They are best summed up by Siri:

While all the regionials have good memories, and I'm able to pull good things out of 4 build seasons, IRI is the biggest/best collection.

Robots with Cynette, Jane Young, JVN, Andy B, Karthik and the other 1200 people there. Exploding Bacon and Skyline Chili. Trip with 1640 (and Siri) on the way out and back (Dayton AFM). Jack taking the VEX challenge 8-0.

Seeing and talking to *those teams* that you see on CD and the regional winners list, touching and seeing the robots up close is priceless. Just GO.

But the overall best memory is seeing my son in the pits at Drexel, after a disaster match and being yelled at by the Head Mentor, diving back into the robot to make electrical repairs to get the robot ready for the next match. Focused, skills at the ready, making every moment count.

Re: Favorite FIRST Memories
 

In 2008, after being selected by 1st seed 1625 we won our 2 QF matches and our 1st SF match. But halfway through it we got SLAMMED by 1986 and just stopped. The drive team grabs her off the field and we take her to behind the big curtain and find that the radio plug-in on the IFI controller had completely sheared off. So there we are running around with our heads cutoff trying to find another IFI controller and 1625 comes over and asks us if we need help and by then we found another one but our match was loading on the field. Winnovation says :cool: Don't worry, we got this. We finish our fix halfway through the match and go to find Winnovation and 1296(other allaince partner) owning the other alliance, I think we ended up winning the match by like 30 points. Needless to say, they called their hit like The Babe called his.

Re: Favorite FIRST Memories
 

2010 was my senior year, and the first year our team won a regional tournament. We had played four finals matches, two of them ties, and were franticly scrambling for a fresh battery and a way to make that dang post hold on for just one more round when the results for the last match went up. Of course, most of the things I took away from FIRST have nothing to do with winning or losing, but that moment of victory is something I'll never forget.

I feel compelled to respond to dodar's post-- Team Titanium never has and never will engage in malicious gameplay. I don't remember the details of that match, but our 2008 bot was quite zippy and did occasionally collide with field elements and other robots. I sincerely apologise for any damage we may have caused. That said, on behalf of myself and my team, and with no disrespect to you and yours, I'm hurt by the implication of fowl play on our part. As you point out, 2008 wasn't our year, but we competed honorably and I'm proud of that season.

Re: Favorite FIRST Memories
 

After eight years, I've got a few.

Palmetto 2004 The first Palmetto Regional, the first event for 1293, the first time I'd seen a robot other than our window motor drive. By the end of Thursday, two Florida teams had more or less blown my mind: SPAM with their omnidirectional drive and stupid-fast hanger, and ComBBAT's catch-'em-as-they-come-down ball strategy. Neither brought home the gold (not that our 4-3-1 record was anything to phone home about either), but the sheer variety of the designs opened my mind up--and, with my mother's agreement (did I mention I was a high school senior at the time?), led to act two...

Championship 2004 With 1293 done for the season, Mom and I decided to sign up as volunteers for the Championship. I was assigned as a real-time scorekeeper on Archimedes Field, which had a lineup of world-class teams--Beatty, TechnoKats, Killer Bees, Huskie Brigade, Rhode Warriors, Martians...the list goes on. If the hooks got in at Palmetto, they were stuck in here. (More to it, it's where I really got hip to ChiefDelphi.)

Manchester Kickoff 2005 Thanks to the cheap airfares of Independence Air (remember them?), I made it to Manchester for the 2005 Kickoff. It was the first year of 3-on-3, and the field border itself was already unveiled. (During the telecast, each speaker unveiled some element of the field, not entirely unlike this year.) The net effect on the season was negligible, but knowing the change to 3v3 an hour or three before the rest of the world (and remember, there was no Twitter yet, I didn't even have my own cell phone, and Facebook was strictly for college students back then) was kinda awesome to me.

Mission Mayhem 2006 This event should have fallen apart in a spectacular failure when the field flooded the first day. The hard work of a lot of great Florida people took a boatload of challenges (the flooded field, one team dropping out overnight, throwing everybody out of the pits to set up the new re-engineered field and rewriting the manual to match) and had one hell of a good time.

Palmetto 2007 This was my first season working with a team other than 1293, the now-defunct Capital Robotics. Our arm never worked, except to sock me in the jaw (forever changing its name from the original "What Robot?" to Uppercut), but we had one thing going for us: the much-maligned match scheduling algorithm that saw us playing with the TechTigers for many of our matches. Enough matches, it turned out, to push us into the 11th seed--and thanks to some lucky picking, the eighth alliance captain position. The TechTigers, deservedly the #1 seed, mopped the floor with us in the first quarterfinal match 264-0. We turned around and ran the match with a better plan (or, some would say, our first attempt at a plan), but our tower came loose, pulling the main battery cable out of our terminal block. I didn't need to see the score to know we were ready to crate it up, but the first taste of eliminations was a great one.

Brunswick Eruption 2007 This trip had a number of firsts for me. My first parking ticket (which USC eventually rescinded), my first time working with a pre-rookie team...oh, and the first off-season I attended with a robot, the aforementioned Uppercut borrowed from the Capitals. It was about a 12-hour drive from Columbia to New Jersey, followed by meeting up with the members of 2458 for the first time. (Until then, it was strictly email.) We started with each of the kids giving the robot a spin on the carpet...until one of them hit the arm control a little too hard again, breaking our claw. Immediate reaction? "Ooookay, so...we're playing defense." And sure enough, it worked--a respectable 3-2-1 record and the award for highest-seeded prerookie--not just their award, but the first for any team I'd worked with. It was another long slog back to Columbia, but it was definitely worth it. 25 is on to something with this prerookie thing.

I know there have been many more since--getting silver at Palmetto, winning Rookie All-Star right after that, joining 1398 on the floor for their first regional win in 2010--but I think I've gone on long enough. :)

Re: Favorite FIRST Memories
 

Championship 2004 The "One Day Wonder"

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/18269

1396 arrived in Atlanta to find that the robot did not make it there. There were enough parts available in the pits to make them a competitive bot.