Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

Hi All,

I've been thinking about some favorite memories of mine from the season and I thought I'd ask all of you to share one (or more) of yours.

One of my favorite memories this year was listening to a group of our student leaders brainstorm out loud, thinking about how they wanted to share information about our team organization and development with others. Usually during these discussions, homemade cookies were to be had. My favorite was made from a strawberry cake mix, whipping cream, and powdered sugar. I always enjoy brainstorming sessions and then watching as ideas take shape as we work through our season. It's very cool.

Please share one (or more) of yours.

Jane

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

OK, Jane, here goes:

This season I've been mentoring a rookie team, 3620 The Average Joes. They had a really good year in many ways, but did not go to St. Louis. When I returned, they wanted to hear my impressions of the Championship. These were some of the highlights I told them about:

• Karthik's workshop on Team Strategy. 3620 will be studying that presentation, and several others provided on the 1114 website, as they prepare for 2012.
• The New Cool. Several 3620 members are reading Neil Bascomb's book now. They were impressed to hear that I got to meet both the author and the principal character of that book, Amir Abo-Shaeer. Many here on CD know that I am passionate about inspecting robots -- 1717 was the first team to present their robot for inspection at Curie on Wednesday evening, and the first inspection that I completed.
• My Robot Inspector hat, autographed by Dean Kamen, Woodie Flowers, and Andy Baker.
• Watching 233 attempt, and nearly complete, a three tube autonomous during one of their Friday afternoon qualifying matches on Newton. I was queueing, right behind their alliance station. Very cool to watch.
• Seeing the new cRIO and several other interesting demos by NI. Stuff that teams can use, and that we can use in my real job.
• Seeing some very cool AndyMark products. Andy, we still need to talk about that demonstration bot ...
• 2081's minibot competition at their Curie pit, and the impressively low times put up by several teams. Thanks you, 2081 for making this fun, and congratulations to 1986 for their low time -- 0.900 sec. Well earned can of SPAM, and a very nice award plaque.
• Morgan Freeman, on Archimedes. Talk about your star-power!
• Bill Miller up on the FRC Live! stage, telling us what's coming and doing his best to answer questions.
• FRC fields in the pits. These reminded me of Michigan Districts -- but we have more seating and fewer teams. I think FIRST can, and will, improve the pit field experience for FRC participants and viewers next year, but the basic idea is great.
• and, The Black Eyed Peas. Entertainment stars celebrating FIRST. Loudly. How cool is that?

---------

And one more: seeing 931's minibot featured prominently during the video overture to the Friday night awards ceremony & BEP concert.
:D

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

I remember something that happened at lunchtime on Saturday at the Championship. It's not exactly my favorite memory, but it's certainly among the most...memorable.

Alliance selections had just finished and the team wasn't picked for the elimination rounds. The teachers arranged for pizza and we got everyone together in a sunny corner of an upstairs hallway for lunch. As we waited for the last few people to arrive, I overheard one student telling another something like "I know we didn't do very well, but it's still a lot of fun." A few minutes later, another student said basically the same thing to me and pointed out how happy (almost) everyone looked. Even with the robot's disappointing performance during the competition, the students were smiling and enjoying the time together.

Then a mentor got up to give a semi-motivational talk about "pushing on" and "getting through this" after not winning. When he was done, many of the students stood up and spoke about how much they were getting from the experience of being a team: working together, learning new skills, growing to be confident, things like that. The contrast between the mentor's focus and the students' actual attitude was remarkable, and I for one agreed fully with the students.

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

1675 won their first RCA at Midwest this year.

My first year in FIRST, I was drafted to help write the CA essay and give the presentation. At the time I hated it. I wanted to go do more programming. Over the season I grew to understand why it was important. At the end of the season some of my complaining earned me the line "Not Chairmans! Please!!" on the certificate of memorable statements given to me at the end of year banquet.

Over the next few years I helped edit essays and critique presentations, knowing with the team each year we might be drawing closer.

When we finally got called this year, I almost cried before we even got down to the judges. I stopped right before reaching the first judge. Being in the middle of the group, one of the judges handed me the second trophy. I proceeded to bawl (even while doing some laughing) for the next 20 minutes. I don't think the kids are ever going to let me go for that. :o

My RCA medal is now hanging on the tack holding up the aforementioned certificate.

The neckband of the medal covers up "Not Chairmans! Please!!" ;)

It is my favorite moment being in FIRST so far.

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

Team 177's founding mentor Alan (Mo) Mothersele finally winning a WFFA after 17 years of running the team.

One of our seniors winning the WPI Design and Innovation Scholarship.

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

I had PLENTY of memories from this season that when I look back on it, were some of the best. Well, here it goes:

- Making our Chairman's video (aka: Our music video)
-Attempting to fall a sleep under a work table (I thought no one was using it) being called over to work on something and almost giving the mentor working at the table a heart attack.
- Breaking 3 things in one day on the lathe and giving up for everyone's safety that day
- My team's family tree
- Hanging out with all my friends and seeing some friends whom I lost contact with
- The hours I spent talking with mentors about the ultimate alliance for different regionals
-Going to Philly regional and surprising my mentor (who was a judge) by dancing on the field
- Finding 2 of my cousins on here and meeting them in St Louis
- Running into Dean Kamen at Starbucks on Sunday in St Louis
- I think at this point, I'll just list everything that happened in STL
- And Finally, when I came up with my plan to start a FIRST team (aka Team PANDAmic) in 5-6 years (depends on my employment, college etc.)


I know I missed a lot of things but this is what sticks out when I think of LogoMotion :)

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

This is my last year in FIRST as a student after 6 years in the program and it has been possibly the best.

I joined my team in its second year and, looking back, I am so proud at what my small team has accomplished with the help of our wonderful mentors, parents, and sponsors.

My list for 2011:

- Seeing the sophomores on the team take on roles like writing notebooks and award submissions. They seem to get it!

- Speaking with so many engineers, scientists, business people, etc. about FIRST and learning more about what inspired them.

- Having fun with #435 the Robodogs and #449 the Blair Robotics Project at the NC Regional.

- Meeting Woodie Flowers and talking to him for a bit. It really helped me choose my college and I now have my shoe signed!

- Mentoring rookie FRC teams. It was awesome to see how helping others positively impacted the attitude on my team. Mentoring brought us closer together.

- Winning Chairman's. I never thought that my 4 year old, 15 member team would stand a chance. :eek: Being able to compete with other teams at that level was an honor.

- Waiting for Chairman's and hearing Thunder Down Under's presentation group sing "Waltzing Matilda". ;)

- Speaking with members of #842 and #341 about their path to CCA. Thank you guys for sharing!

- FLL kids. They are awesome. Touring the FLL pits with Gary the Platypus was the highlight of my Friday.

- Being able to hang out with my team. I've known some of them since FLL (in the case of my sister 16 years) and it is truly fun to experience the year with them. I'll miss my team so much.

So many more...

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

* I made some of my first parts during this season, and used the lathe and mill for the first time.
* The first time 2-tube auto ran, it was bag day, and in the basement on the practice field. It worked so nicely (until we changed the wheels at Troy).
* Winning Kettering, the first event 33 had won since 2005. It was nice to finally win, instead of being finalist again and again.
* Winning MSC with 67 and 70 (More Hot Bees), possibly the best alliance I have ever been on during official events. 33+67=100% awesome?
* the "3" game with 2337 and 503 (among others)
* Scouting meeting before the concert. Lots of team numbers shouted out, lots of scouting sheets passed around, and lots of teams sorted into piles and then sorted again.
* Watching the robot drive dead straight the first time I ran the drive-straight code on the competition robot. It was soooo nice to see things translate from the practice to comp bots so easily.

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

Wait? 33 didnt win an event since 2005? :ahh:
You're joking right??

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

Probably 201's win at the Traverse City competition. We were close to two wins last year, but ended up as a finalists.

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

the first time the robot hung a tube. we had massive problems and still pulled it off.

the first time we hung a logo.

the first time we attempted the top peg. ( theoretically known to be possible. but a stretch for our 0 driver practice robot.)

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

This years Kettering and MSC wins are our first since 2005. We have been finalists in many events since then (including 3 of our 4 official events in 2010), but no winners.

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

Winning the Peachtree Regional. Going from a rough-by-our-standards build season, getting used to coaching again after a season off, and all the problems we had in qualification rounds (to say nothing of my last seven seasons) to the last pick of the draft and a nearly-flawless run in eliminations to bring home a banner and punch our ticket to St. Louis was unforgettable.

There have been a lot of great moments this year, but it's hard to top something like that when you've been working towards it for so long.

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

This was my third year as a FIRST student (I started as a freshman during Lunacy) and I've spearheaded the Chairman's Award project for team 1891 all three years. 2009 was a disaster, as we had no idea what we were doing, but last year we were so close at the Utah regional. We literally had a perfect score from the judges, with no negative feedback, but just weren't perfect enough I guess. We redoubled our efforts, and this year was our year. We had a few more disasters (boring things like the entire video file deleting itself 4 days before the regional) but managed to pull it together. When I heard the MC say "Team 1891" as the RCA winners, I honestly couldn't believe it. Before I could put together a coherent thought my teammates had grabbed me and thrown me to the front of the line to go collect the award. To finally be recognized for all the work our team has done over the last few years and then have my own teammates choose me to be the one to receive the award was an amazing experience.

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

The "3" game is so insanely awesome :D

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

And for me, it has to be our very FIRST chairmans presentation at the Nile's district. We had a "searching through the jungle" presentation where we are T.V. guides on the FIRST discovery network. I start off by crawling in and shushing the judges and then I jump up in the air and yell "CRICKEY!".

The very first time, the judges assistant looked at me and said-

"You can go in now"
"Oh, I know"
*lays flat on my stomach*

The look on her face was priceless!

At the state championship, the judges stopped the time because they thought I tripped and fell!

i'll never forget :)

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

Team at midwest walks into our pit:
"Do you guys have a wiring diagram?"

Sophomore student, his first year working on electrical, but he is the man now: "I am a human wiring diagram, how can i help you?"

This team^ had no electrical faults throughout the regional.

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

A treasure chest of memories this year.

Attending the 9th year of the Chesapeake Regional and helping as inspection manager. The lead inspector, the robot inspectors and the teams made this just plain fun and something I have never "officially" done before.

Having a secret sponsor step in to tell me they would pay for my airfare to the Championship when they heard I wasn't planning to go. Having the Baltimore Area Alliance teams pay for my hotel. Because of this I saw dozens and dozens of people I care about.

Helping to facilitate the 7th annual NEMO meeting at the Championship. 7 years! Where did the time go?

Working on the shout-out video at the Championship and being given the freedom to do this the way I envisioned it. The videographer was so easy to work with. I had a blast. So thanks to all those panicked team members who agreed to be filmed before I told them they needed to mention all their mentors. Yes, all of them. :)

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

The "aw heck yea!" moment when the robot first drove

Long hours CNCing

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

The best part of the pre-season was discovering our team number was 3456 :)

Moving from an experienced team (1569) onto a rookie team offered some really neat experiences. As a captain, I was really able to lead the new members and I felt that I really helped show them the true meanings of FIRST robotics, it was a really neat experience.

Winning Rookie All-Star was really awesome. I knew it qualified us for the championship, but I don't think anyone else on my team realized. So when the regional director told us we were going to St. Louis, it was awesome seeing the looks on everyone's faces and watching everyone jumping up and down, hugging everyone in sight, and being so excited for the amazing opportunity!

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

-Having people come to our pits and become more impressed by our wrench-on-a-carabiner rack than our robot. =D

-Going to states with my buddy and missing all of the elims because we were in the practice field with other robots. (I will always respect 503's drivers, their robot is really hard to drive)

-Playing a humongous game of ninja at the CMP afterparty.

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

- coaching a rookie Niles FRC team and hosting the first ever Niles District event and not going crazy.

- being at a business presentation with our marketing unit and having a CEO ask a team member to describe our team and having my student say " we are basically the "super club" of Niles high school because there is a position for everyone such as design, marketing, electrical, software, hardware, and web site building.". That was a magic moment for this rookie coach!

- watching the 18 students on the team "find their voice". FIRST really does change kids!

- winning the Rookie Inspiration Award at the Waterford district event.

- winning the Spirit award at our own Niles district event.

- watching the kids overcome discomforts as they worked with and got to know kids that were not the same race as they were.

- watching the students cook hot dogs in the rain (and enjoying it) at our end of competition season cook out.

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

One of my favorite memories of this season has to be our alliance's amazing bounce back from the DQ we had during the Galileo Finals.

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

This year was my second year in FRC and fourth year in FIRST total. By far, this was the best.

Offseason/Build Season:
-I had so much fun training 5 programming rookies about Java and electronics. We've had so many good times during these training sessions. I loved seeing a certain pair of freshmen grow from a set of immature kids to real leaders(Shouts out to Gabe and Brad!)
-The many hours we spent in the school's quad driving around in the cold was another good time during build. It was especially funny when one of my team's operators decided to talk to his girlfriend on the phone while I was driving.
-The day the electronics board(or at least it's cardboard predecessor) was mounted was a great day. James Bot drove for the first time!

San Diego regional:
-My first time getting the robot inspected. It was especially fun to point out all of the little things my wiring team did to comply with the rules. I apologize to the inspector if I came off as a little talkative about the little details :P
-The first FRC match I have operated in. A full logo up by us, we played with one of my favorite teams(294) and against another favorite(1717). Although I accidentally deployed early, it was a really fun match! Also, seeing our robot move and almost score was an awesome sight for our first match
-Eliminations:
-In the quarterfinals, we played against team 1538(a favorite of myself and our coach). That was a fun set of matches!
-In the semifinals, Seeing my driver juke defense while I brought the tube to scoring position was awesome!
-In the finals, we were clearly outgunned against teams 254 and 987. We played as hard as we possibly could, and that was apparently too hard for our arm, center wheel treads, and minibot! My favorite little bit was driving our roller claw back and fourth for about a foot near our tower.

Los Angeles Regional:
-Our team spent a day sightseeing on Wednesday. I enjoyed hanging out with my team mates.
-Thursday was a very stressful day for our pit crew. Repairing the arm system was the task at hand. We lost the chain somewhere between the San Diego sports arena and our shop! Thanks McMaster Carr for the speedy service! My arm positioning code did not work quite well with the new arm motors. For one: the pit crew neglected to tell me they did not check the polarity on the motors before wiring it up(Apparently, they assumed I would do it, so my fault, too). Also, they neglected to tell me the RS555s would be slower than the RS550s they replaced. The control over the arm was a bit wonky(the setpoint would change faster than the arm would move). This was fixed
-Practice matches were fun. These were the first matches with one of our new drive coaches, Brad(our driver from 06-09).
-While we did not fare as well as we wanted to during this competition, we lost to a set of great teams(330, 1717, 1515) in the semifinals

Utah Regional:
-It was a lot of fun on the practice field for a regional's worth of matches all day on Thursday.
-It was great to meet and help the teams in the pits
-It was awesome being pit neighbors with team 2122!
-Snow!
-It was awesome winning the regional with teams 2122 and 3239!

Championship Event:
-I had tons of fun working with our qualification alliance partners on strategy! My favorite matches were the ones with 2337, 48, and 469!
-going up against teams 254, 111, and 973 in the semifinals! You guys were tough opponents and deserved the win.
-It was also really cool to walk around to other pits and talk to such teams as 503, 359, 294, 1197, 2122, 3239, and 330.

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

Build Season:
-Being able to enumerate all the jags by myself, and then figuring out what my mentor was doing wrong.
-Learning how to debug jags
Dallas Regional:
-Me convincing our whole team to skip everywhere
-Our Coach challenged me:
Told me if I can pick up a flat tube, He'd buy me coffee. (guess what we did hang a flat tube)
-Having some of my mentors congratulating me; I was able to get the whole team to work together without the head mentor there. THIS NEVER HAPPENS
-Meeting Dean Kamen
-FINALLY HANGING A TUBE IN THE SEMIS! We had CAN issues, so we never got to hang with our robust claw/linear lift! What was ironic was that we hung the first two tubes of the practice rounds.
-Going out after the last day to get pizza.

And many many many more memories that I don't have the patience to talk about.

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

Ooh boy, my last year as a FIRST student. from now on I am a team 1089 alumnus, and hopefully a mentor for some team out there :)

jersey regional:
- i was really bummed about being sick the first two days of competition. even on saturday i was pretty under the weather, but there was no way i was going to miss the event.
- i was informed about 45 minutes before alliance selection that i would be going out on the field for 1089. i asked our mentors if they were sure they wanted me out there, what with me being not present the first two days, and they assured me they trusted me. that felt really good. i was able to take in a few matches on saturday morning to get a feel for some teams.
- i got down to the field, and watched as top 8 teams kept picking each other. i had prior knowledge that team 2180 was interested in picking us, unfortunately, we had decided that we wanted to try and build our own alliance. more pressure on me :P
- i declined 2180 and got booed for it....... it was at the same time, one of the proudest, and lowest moments of my time in FIRST. i mean i got booed! lol that only happens to bad guys. it was a low moment, cuz i guess i was a bad guy?
- anyway, i picked 1647 and 102, 2 amazing teams! im so glad i picked both of you, and i would do it again in a heartbeat. QF's ,were facing team 25. first match we get blown out of the building. but we strategize. and we come back. all the way to the finals! we got beaten out by a clearly superior alliance, but hey i got out on the field to pick my own team, and i got a medal. thats what i call a successful regional.

DC Regional
- i love travelling to robotics events. this was no different.
- again on saturday, i went out on the field to make an alliance for myself. picked two great robots, and went into elims.
- we beat the 2 seed! but then we lost to the same team we lost to in NJ (2016) hats off to 2016 they had one heckuva season.
- a lot of inside jokes and memories created on the trip.. i think ive gone on too long :P

lol so yeah, thats pretty much my memories of this year. i know its REALLY long, and if you read it all, i thank you and congratulate you. truth is, all the moments ive spent on team 1089 have been my favorite. all four years. cant wait to be back as an alumni and do it all over :D

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

This match http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_2sm5-wmAE where we break a belt on our arm after a collision with 33 and still manage to hang 4 tubes after

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

Although I have never been a part of the three game (I'm generally busy at events) I have heard stories that have made my sides hurt laughing.

One of my favorite that I've heard involved 2 of our students in a covert mission to get our threes back from 2337. They doned thunderchicken shirts (217 was sitting right next to 2337 in the stands) went and sat in the middle of the 217 kids for about 15 minutes. (to many weird glances by the 217 kids) Finally the cha cha slide started playing and while the 2337 kids were dancing our two coverts ran over and grabbed the threes much to the confusion of the 2337 students. (why the heck were thunderchickens stealing their threes?) They then ran away and pulled off their 217 shirts much to the suprise of the Enginerds. A successful operation.. Although I'm pretty sure the Enginerds got the threes back later via cleaver use of a mascot.

Anyways, that was my favorite story this year.

(p.s. to all three game contenders): I'm not quite sure who is winning, but we will be ready for you next year!

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

I have 3 distinct memories from this year that are all worth mentioning.

New Jersey Eliminations

These were the most fun I have ever had down on the field as a student. Playing with 1089 and 102 was surely a blast as we took down the power house alliance that included CT Regional Winner 1923, and Einstein Semi-Finalist 25. Even though we won by a different aspect of the game and not the main one (hanging tubes) it opened eyes and showed the importance of the Minibot. Even though we were only Finalists, I still love every minute being down there.

Philadelphia #1 Seed

I told Akash Rastogi that by the end of the day on Saturday of the Philly Regional that we would end up at #1 seed. Going into the last match, 341 deployed their Minibot too early and that gave us the advantage. I know that they deserved that spot and they should have had it but Philly has been unexpected over the past few years. Anyway, we had our last match up with us and 816 against the strong green machine, MOE 365. Before the match, we weren't connecting with the field and we had our classmate replaced. After that was done, my drive joysticks were switched and I was driving the different sides of the robot. Trying to drive like that made me frustrated and annoyed that we might lose the match. However, we ended up in first place with a win and it was the most excited I have ever been about the performance with the robot and the team.

After Philly Wrap Up

I stared at the Logomotion field with tears in my eyes after the awards concluded. Yeah I was upset about the eliminations and the red card but I was more upset about the team and how we did so great but it just wasn't enough to get us to STL. The pain I had from that was tremendous but it reminded me of how I will bring my FIRST experience my college and workplace. Also, I will try my best to mentor teams for as long as I am living because this program has given me the greatest experience of my life.

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

Two quick memories:

1) Watching our team pull together. While we are a second year team, almost all of our students (and mentors to be honest) are first year. I began to see glimpses of team unity at the Bayou Regional but it wasn't until the Championship that I watched everyone band together. Now I watch students walk through the halls together as Robotics members.

2) Being called coach for the first time by some of my team. My dad was a football player and when I told him that story he teared up a bit. Me? A Coach?

-D

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

Best Memory was winning a match against 1503 (qualification). We were paired with one rookie team and 1507. We all new that if we worked great then us and 1507 would be 2nd and 3rd seed. After the great match, and my heart pounding out of my chest, I new we did it. I dont remember the final score but i do remember being so happy i was jumping like crazy. (i'm the driver) We congradulated our alliance partners on the win and then next match we wanted to win to over take 1507's seed (2nd). Unfortunalty we didn't win it but oh well we finished in 3rd... the best we have ever done. We thought that 1507 was going to pick us for alliance selections, but they didn't :(
I believe that if they did then we could have beat 1114 and 1503's alliance in the finals.

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

I've got two memories that are gonna stick with me for a while this year I think.

One was at our Oklahoma Regional. We were in the semi-finals with our alliance partners 932 and 935. Our first semi-final match ended with us winning. Our second one, however, ended with both blue and red alliance receiving red cards for minibot tower interference. While the next match was going on, one of our partners from 932 went to challenge it. After the other semi-final match finished, the MC stepped into the middle of the field and called for quiet. The entire arena went dead silent. "It has come to our attention by one of the red alliance teams, that there may have been a bad call in that last match. So, after some discussion, the referee's have made their decision. The red card...on the red alliance...has been REVOKED!" After this, the entire arena went absolutely insane with cheering and screaming and applause. Our own teams were hugging and screaming as well. We won the regional after that.

The other was from Nationals. I was at our pit with a friend of mine talking to people and passing things out as they went past, when two kids from the chinese lego team came over. They both wanted a picture with the two of us, so we posed with each of them in turn. We then gave them our custom spinner necklace to remember us by, and they thanked us. A few minutes pass, and suddenly 4 people from the same team show up at our pit, and they all want a group picture with me. Several pictures are taken with all of us, and they then gave my friend and I one of their own cool give-a-ways. I have a newfound love for these people.

Also, meeting Dean Kamen. Great moment.

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

Thanks for the memories, Coach.

Jane

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

Watching the minibot successfully climb to the top for the first time. That more than anything, we had lots of problems with deployment since we didn't actually test the minibot with the deployment that was on the robot, so it felt good to see it finally work.

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

This entire season was a giant awesome memory for me. The 2010 season was really bad for our team. It started off with the lack of pre-season training. We started recruitment only two weeks or so before the season. We worked with an impractical schedule, had a pretty horrible administration, designed and built a swerve drive that was mostly made from KOP parts that was supposed to cross the bump (It even almost worked!) and then we got seeded 46th out of 52 teams, this was the first year we didn’t get into elims. It was a pretty traumatic season.

Our team is 95% student run. I and two other juniors (at the time, we’re currently decided that we wanted a better team for the future. With very little direct teacher help we rebuilt the team. We started with recruitment towards the end of the school year, we established a process that includes going through the freshman classes (We are only allowed to include sophomores-seniors in our team) and presenting the team to them. Then interviewing the student. We didn’t end the process there; we held summer workshops to train the new students in programming and building. This included us building a curriculum while being advised from our teachers and seniors we still did the majority of the work. Seeing these workshops come together is my first favorite memory of this season. We finally broke the cycle of the team only running during the season. It was one of my best weeks of the year.

Then came the off-season (We have only one off-season competition in Israel so we call it “the”), as I mentioned our 2010 robot was really horrible, so we decided we’re going to build a new robot to compete. We managed to get kids every day during summer vacation for three weeks to build a robot that’d compete in the off-season. It was one of the funner builds I’ve had. We even managed to produce new shirts just for the off-season (IMO the best team shirts to date). Although we ended up having a horrible performance all of our students enjoyed it a lot. So this was another fun memory for me, although it left a lot to be desired it still taught us a valuable lesson towards the 2011 season.

The other two things we did in the off-season were trying to find sponsors, which was the first time we did it in a serious manner, and having more workshops for preparing for the season. The first time we got a sponsor to say yes was amazing. This is the third favorite memory of the season.

This time we built a more realistic schedule and managed to stick to it up until the fourth week as a personal reminder for years to come I’d like to quote a friend of mine: “schedules always work, until they don’t”. But we did a great design process; I want to believe we’ve established a groundwork upon which future seasons will be built. The season was filled with awesome moments for me; I mostly acted as a mentor for the team. I think my entire hands-on work was one class in the code and tightening a screw or two. But we worked in organized manner and the robot coming together was a lot of fun. There are two experiences during the season which I thought the most amazing. First one was our annual all-nighter, it’s always a fun experience but this year it was really great for me to see how the kids who a couple of months ago didn’t even know each other worked together efficiently to make the robot work. It was at this point I knew we did a good job as an administration. The second one was presenting at our school’s open house. This was the first time we did it and our room was always packed. There were so many students there looking at the robots, it was great. I think it was our first great step towards changing the attitude of the school towards robotics. I’ll wait another year to judge this but I’ve a feeling we’ll have a flood of Freshman when next year’s recruitment comes around.

This next memory is personal and unrelated to the team, this year I refereed at four out of five FLL regionals in Israel. This was a really nice experience for me, I got to mingle with the FIRST Israel staff more than ever before, and they are really awesome people. I helped set up the fields and take them down. When the 5th tournament came the volunteer manager asked me “How are we going to have an event without you?”. That was one of my highest points of this season.
My last two favorite memories came during the competition. Our robot was full of problems, one thing broke after another. We came close to breaking point and giving up at a few times but we never gave up. For example after our arm broke twice during the competition, we decided to improve our mini-bot deployment to remain competitive. My first favorite memory was after we got knocked out of elimination our entire team still stood and cheered until the end of the competition. At first we just cheered for our team but then we also started cheering for other teams, including the alliance that beat us during the QF. Winning the Gracious Professionalism and website awards was the icing on the cake for the competition. The last favorite memory of the season was the attitude of the students after the competition, we had every possible problem but they still stayed with the urge to succeed and came out of it wanting to improve for next year. Overall it was a brilliant season for our team, in my opinion it was the best so far but I’m slightly biased…


Sorry for writing so much, it's just that I had a lot on my mind about this season.

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

at the Grand Vally, Michigan regional we was driving against team 27 (rush) about half way through the qualifiers. it was a pretty vicious match and when the dust settled we had accidently broken a Pot on 27's arm, rendering it usless. we had to get immedietly back in line for our next match (4 matches later). 27 was on our alliance, there arm wasn't fixed, and the other team on our alliance didn't show up. And if that wasn't enough, the other alliance was pretty good. 27 played defence and mini-bot and we put up tubes. we won 52 to 2. it was pretty awsome.

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

My fondest memory is realizing that two of the rookie teams that we had the privilege to work with won Rookie All Stars and that our old friend, team 1899 finally broke through and won both the RCA AND the Olympic Regional...what a great year for you guys!!!

It is great to see your friends and other teams succeed.

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

haha, I feel like 503 dropped the ball this year on the 3 game.. Def going to get some summer training on "3" stealing

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

I have to say the best memory was, at the same competition, being unable to acquire both of your Threes, and, instead, getting a Three and the Bee head. I like to think that we were unique in that particular accomplishment.

The Three game will continue, and the EngiNERDs will be prepared for next year!

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

As somebody else said...this whole season was one big good memory. We came into the season with several thousand dollars shortfall in funding and in November thought we couldn't even afford to register. The funding came together almost miraculously at the last minute.

Last year we had almost our entire team graduate [including our mechanical lead, team captain, lead driver and lead programmer] and, because of our small team and small school, thought we'd have a tough year. Recruitment was way up though, and I am so proud of how my team pulled together.

I wound up being lead programmer this year, because I was the only team member who had any experience at all with C++. [Helpful hint, learning how to write a Hello World program from 'C++ for Dummies' doesn't help that much with programming FRC robots!] Somehow I and our programming mentor pulled things together and got all the teleop code working really nicely. Every day I was just in awe whenever any tiny bit of the program actually worked ;)

I finished writing autonomous code on the last day before we had to bag our robot. Our mentor wasn't there and I was running around writing line-following code and screaming when it worked....then we had to bag it up. We did not have any time to debug autonomous mode until our regional. By the middle of the day Friday we got autonomous working and wound up with one of the more consistent auto modes at our event. Our programming mentor [herself a recent graduate of the team] and I were high-fiving each other every ten minutes that day.

Friday night's scouting session went on until 3 AM in the girls' room [somehow our lead scouts, team captain, and primary driver were all girls this year]. The scouting team did such an awesome job and really took it seriously. I was proud to sift through paperwork with them at all hours and states of caffeination ;)

We were second alliance pick in elims. I have been lead scout on our team since my very first year [I was your typical public relations kid...I didn't even touch the robot for a year or two]. I love scouting, and we've used the data to plan our upcoming matches, but we've never been able to use our information to pick alliance partners. This year I was down on the floor as team captain, got picked by the # 8 team, and immediately suggested our next pick for our third alliance partner. We wound up with a really strong alliance and I was SO excited to finally use our scouting data.

Our team was so small that almost all of us were on pit crew in the elimination rounds. I have never been on the playing floor at a regional before and I had the time of my life running batteries and such.

Winning in the quarter-finals against the top-ranked alliance was one of the high points of the event for us. I've seen 1983 dominating every year I can remember and I for one was scared about going up against them. Hats off to you guys, someday I want to coach a team that excels in as many areas as y'all do.
Our team was made up almost entirely of rookie students and our drive team had never driven in competition before. They totally rocked it and got hooked for next year.

And there were a couple of other teams who I came into contact with over the week:
[reposted from my blog, so possibly incoherent]

Team 1432: Most of you heard about them in the fall: their school evicted them and there was a national uproar and so on. They rallied and participated in the regional, overcoming a tough start. I was so excited to see them there [I remember being down front standing with a couple of their team members, and being so excited when their robot scored].

Team 753: they had a great showing at the Seattle regional, but were plagued with communication problems all day Thursday and Friday. I talked to their team captain on Saturday morning, who I've known all four years I've been in FIRST, and commiserated. They swapped their router for a new one, and did very well in their matches on Saturday. Cue enthused congratulations on my part :) Despite their poor performance on Thursday and Friday they were selected to play in the elimination rounds, which I was thrilled about.

Team 3472: a rookie team, the first Mexican team we've had at our regional. Their pit was right across from ours. They had a tough competition and didn't make it to the finals, but what enthusiasm! What excitement to be there! During the awards ceremony on Saturday they received the Rookie All-Star award. The crowd cheered louder and longer for that award than for any other, I think. We were nowhere near as happy as the team was though, hehehe.

Team 3712: another rookie team who had a tough event, I mentored them by email during build season and popped into their pit throughout the event to help them out and encourage them [and poke my officious nose in their wiring]. A great group of kids. They were so excited when they finally got their robot to drive :) Good times rendezvousing with their team in our hotel lobby. I adore swapping stories with other teams. Later their programmer sent me an email to say thanks and congrats, and said that they are excited and inspired for next year. That makes me so happy: another team has been started on the road to success in FIRST.

....somehow, enthusiasm and excitement seem to be cropping up a lot in discussion of FIRST...

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

Watching 702 getting back on the field and being awesome after their robot caught on fire.

Watching a rookie team (who's number escapes me at the moment, sorry guys) score for the first time, after our team helped them rebuild their robot so that it wasn't held together with duct tape.

Throwing a paper airplane from the nosebleed seats at the Black-eyed peas concert and watching it travel all the way to ground level.

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

This match was the most important one in our qualification schedule. We needed to beat you guys to keep 1507 away from the top seeds to win the tournament, considering 1114 had one loss already, we were concerned that 1507 would seed #1. I knew it was going to be tough, especially after hearing that 3138 wouldn't be able to score in the queing line, and our other partner wouldn't be able to either. I had butterflies going into this match, it could have won or lost us the entire tournament. It was a fun match to play, and you guys really outplayed us.

It's kind of nice to hear that teams feel accompolished this year when they beat us, especially after our performance last year...

-Nick

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

Watching my rookie teams reaction when we were named as the "rookie inspiration" award winners at the Waterford district event.

Being so excited to see our mini- bot launch and climb the pole during practice that I actually stepped onto the field while the practice match was still going.

Watching the young men and ladies on our team "find their voice" as the season progressed.

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

I started out robotics on my freshman year, breakaway. I ended out the year being the most dedicated underclassman on the team. That year we were seeded second to last, above two disqualified teams, this year we were seeded 15th and second back up team. The amount of effort we all put in, to improve my so much really felt good. One of my favorite memories of the DC regional was having to drive around trying to pass the cops block the center :P ( there was a marathon going on, all around the venue.) Also I remember after putting in a 12 hour day driving and in the pit, passing out at the ihop table. Looking forward to this year :D second year as build team leader, all they way to championship this year! 619!

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

Spending countless hours in a build room with my friends and mentors.

Having Dean Kamen sign our red bumper at St. Louis reigonal (We now display it as a trophy)

Winning St. Louis with 1985 and 3284. Totally awesome alliance. :cool:

Driving a few blocks downtown to go compete at the world festival everyday.

The BEP concert

Meeting people from all over the nation and the world. :D

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

watching my little sister drive our robot at championships.

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

Apparently I never posted in this thread when it was active, but now that it's been revived, I might as well share a few memories.

-Volunteering not only once, but twice. This was my first year volunteering, and I spent most of Waterford kicking myself inside for not starting sooner. It was so cool to be right up with the action and meet everyone that I did. Possibly the best memories from volunteering were the Galileo field reset hand signals, and finally putting faces to names and Twitter handles at Waterford. Also enjoyable was seeing everyone there wearing decorated tube skirts...I didn't think that would go over nearly as well as it did.

-Crying during competitions. A lot. There were a lot of things that my team did this season that I was incredibly proud of, like fixing a horribly broken drivetrain at WestMI, finally getting our minibot up at Livonia, and winning our 3rd spirit award in 2 years.

-Turning around at CMP to see Bill Miller standing on a Segway about 10 feet behind me. That's not something that I expected to happen.

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

Just a couple off the top of my head.

- Rebounding from 2010

- Returning to victory, first time in five years.

- Seeing 254 win the world championship, finally. Well deserved.

- Seeing myself and a lot of my friends on national prime time television

- Playing on Einstein, which has been my goal since I ever heard about FRC

- Meeting Morgan Freeman

-Nick

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

Paul Jacobs winning the FLR Woodie Flowers award this year meant more to me than winning FLR last year!

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

New things have happened since I posted, and since this thread is revived, why not.

-Getting the worst alliance possible at the IGVC demo (which does not have selections - it assigns alliances), and still making it to the finals (a whole lot of luck, and a very lucky field shutdown)

-Driving with Nick Finn at the MARC - We made it to the semis, and by the end we learned to suck less as drivers.
-Imagining what Culver would say when we totaled the top of his claw. Then watching Zondag grab a pair of pliers and make it work again, in under 5 minutes. Then watching it happen all over again in the next match.

-Getting a perfect score with 111 and 359 at IRI. An epic match. and the loosing alliance still scored 120.
-Making a pick list at the IRI. You have no idea how hard it is to make a list of 32 teams at the IRI. Many good teams did not get picked, because there were so many good teams.
-Winning IRI. I still don't know why 1114 didn't pick 2056 (or why either of the other teams above us didn't pick them)
-Playing with the Thunderchickens again.
-Watching Zondag (33), both Copioli's (217/148), Tyler (2056), Glenn (359), Dan (469), and Karthik (1114) talk strategy going into the finals.
-IRI road trip in the sprinter.

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

One of the later qualifing matches at MARC. It was 461, 3357, 67 up aginst 33, some other pretty good team, and I think 440. I was analyst during that match, and it was probably the highest energy match I've been in.

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

My favorite memories are the progression on our teams relationship, we went from being good friends, to inseparable friends, to being tighter than a family. I'm going to miss last years team (We only have 4 returning) but I'm excited to see how this year is going to be comparatively.

My second favorite memory is IRI, seeing all of the friends I had made through the year, and even making a few more new friends :D

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

Guys,
Thanks for bringing this thread back to life.

The fires in Texas have made it a little difficult to think of anything else. It's nice to see this thread's celebration of this past season resurface and bring me back to a happier reality.

Little things can mean a whole lot.

Thank you again - have a great 2011/2012 season!
Jane

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

It was my first year as a mentor. I would have to say the whole thing was very memorable :).

Re: Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season
 

Well, this memory started this school year, but it's technically within the 2011 season, since Cal Games is coming up.....sorta. Anywho, I got to go around to a few Middle Schools last school year and show off our robot to all the 8th graders, and this school year I was chosen to train them all! The best part was at the first meeting when I got up to speak, they all looked at me like I was some sort of robotics god! By the end of the meeting, they all took their phones out, and called their friends/family saying things like "Robotics is awesome! You should totally join!" and "But I don't want to leave, mom!". It just made my day to see all of the rookie team members so excited about FIRST and robotics from 1 meeting. :D