Re: Favorite FIRST Memories
 

I'm fairly sure he's not holding any grudge and has no reason too, 08 was a high paced game and if a port got sheared off of anything there was a design flaw. Plus wasn't your robot like 80lbs? (speedy little bugger)

One of my own entries to this thread is Thursday at Colorado in 08, after practice matches every team was oddly done with any modifications (weird i know). So it was a bunch of teams just hanging out, 1986 had balsa wood airplanes they were handing out (great fun in a giant arena), it was so laid back and everyone was awesome to talk to.

Re: Favorite FIRST Memories
 

3 big ones for me:

2002 Championship in Epcot- My first championship event, and the scale of it completely blew my mind. Watching Beatty march their way to victory is something that I feel very fortunate to have been there for.

2004 Palmetto Regional- My home team (team 11) first regional victory. It was a trying build season for our team, but we were extremely proud of our robot, and it performed fantastically in competition.

2007 Boston Regional- My current team (team 125) first regional victory (although we had won the Championship in 2001). An extremely hard fought regional for us, and we were lucky to be paired with our friends 126 and 69 to form the "NU-HYPER-FORCE". An extremely tough finals bout took place with our alliance having to take on the #1 and 2 seeds (121 and 1626, with their partner 1568). After splitting the first 2 matches, the 3rd match was extremely tight. Amazingly in the final 3 seconds our team was able to dart from midfield and literally coast up the ramps of team 69 to take the regional. Andy Grady's words still live in team 125 infamy: http://www.thebluealliance.net/tbatv/match/2007ma_f1m3


-Brando

Re: Favorite FIRST Memories
 

One of mine was in 2009 at Brunswick Eruption.

We redesigned most of the robot for the off-season, as practice for the new members, and also because our "shooter" bot wasn't very good.

We managed to work our way into the top 8, and were the 8th alliance. Our dumper mechanism broke, and there wasn't enough time for repairs. I quickly reprogrammed autonomous to try and stop the opposing robot across the field, while the other two teams would come in from both sides and both dump their Orbit Balls in. This strategy worked great, and we made it to the semifinals. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEQjWChZCn4

Then the belt used to pick up orbit balls overheated on 1807's bot, so they resorted to one dump and played some really good defense while we went to return Empty Cells for Super Cells. We scored 2 Super Cells in one match, and moved onto finals.

Finals were tough. Overdrive (2753) was one heck of a robot. We still went for Super Cells, while 1807 played defense and 56 continued to dump. We threw and missed a Super Cell, but 56 picked it up and dumped it at the last second. I remember crossing my fingers while the Super Cell slowly traveled through the maze of their conveyer belts up to their basket and finally dumped into 2753's goal.

No, we didn't win, but it was quite exciting to work together and strategize with our alliance partners to make it all the way to 3 final matches even with 2 semi-broken bots. I didn't expect us (the 8th alliance) to be able to make it all the way to finals.

Also, people such as Don Rotolo made some nice comments.

Re: Favorite FIRST Memories
 

My favorite memory was in the 2010 Boilermaker Regional. We were partnered with 234 and 2856 and we were in the semifinals. About halfway through the match a robot hit our alliances wall and our laptop slammed shut. Our robot lost communication and we frantically tried to get it rebooted. With about 15 seconds left we were down 2-1 and our robot finally got its communication back. Our driver moved out of the way of the defending robot, causing him to hit the tower and get a penalty, and go score a goal with one second left to make the score 2-1 in favor of us and put us in the finals.

It was an incredibly exciting match and made us change our controls to make sure they would not shut again.

Re: Favorite FIRST Memories
 

Being an FLL kid and walking into the dome the first time. I just remember the ceiling was HUGE. That was an amazing year since I was able to be on a team where everything came together in an amazing way. Just going to Championships was a great gift and then realizing that our team won something at that level was mind-blowing. I also remember how great the FLL volunteers were, they made the experience truly fun.

Also Peachtree 2009 I was a FRC rookie and my team, with the help of great alliance partners, won as an 8th seed. I remember being on the floor when we won surrounded by members of our alliance teams. Awesome energy.

Besides competitions, I love the look on kids faces when they see our robot move for the first time. :D

Re: Favorite FIRST Memories
 

Champs, 2010. First match of the finals, after reducing 469's loop to 2 balls, in the endgame, right after the worst words possible: 6...5.."And the hook falls shy!" ...3...2...1..*CLICK*..BZZZZZT. I will never look at gas springs the same way again. Nice job 67.

Re: Favorite FIRST Memories
 

I, too, feel as if I should respond to dodar's post, but I will address that later. I was the driver for 1986 in 2008, and that entire year was easily my favorite memory. I loved driving that year's robot. The thing was super quick and agile, and other teams and parents could never believe how I managed to squeeze through some gaps.

On to responding to dodar. I don't specifically remember that match or event, so I decided to check TBA for video. Come to find out, they didn't have the video from that tournament, but I did discover we didn't play 1592 until the finals. So I started looking through my robotics archives, and stumbled upon the videos from all of our matches during the Colorado tournament. I watched both final matches and during each, 1592 was fully operation through both.

I spoke to one of my co-mentors (as I have graduated and become a mentor myself) about the tournament, and he remembers 1592 being knocked out exactly when dodar spoke of, but being completely operation for our matches. Therefore, it must have been another team that damaged 1592's robot, as it was impossible for us.

The reason I responded wasn't to call out dodar. I did this because I don't want our team to be remember in a negative light. Like my past teammate said, Team Titanium never has and never will engage in malicious gameplay. I hope this provides some closer and there very best of luck to team 1592 as well as every other team this year.