Quote:
Originally Posted by Colin P
As far as the numbers, 47+65=51. I have no idea what the reasoning is behind it, but it was a good call to get a new number and image when so drastically changing the composition of the team. The students from the other team would have felt alienated if it'd stayed as 47 or 65.
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I believe FIRST's reasoning was that they wanted to indicate that the team was not a rookie, so they chose a nearby, unassigned number from the
1998 sequence (alphabetically by sponsor, as of 1998; these numbers are used today, although the assignment algorithm for new teams has changed repeatedly). 51 was probably originally intended a team that never ended up competing—hence the number was not reserved for any particular organization.