[Lavapicker]

My team took a year off four years ago because of a lack of funds so I went over to the Honolulu regional from the Big Island and volunteered with my son who was majoring in computer engineering and had done all the electrical and driving for our team. We were both so busy, he more so because of his skills, that when I came across a team that needed major help I grabbed people from other teams to assist. My son spent almost his entire time rebuilding a bot that was not going to make the field but they got it going somehow. I will never forget Elliot (I hope I didn't forget his name) from GRT 192 who single handedly got four teams on the field. One team had nothing working and stood around their robot as if at a funeral. I brought Elliot over and when he looked at their code using windriver he asked if it would be ok to write it all over in Labview since he knew it better. The team said "sure, nothing works as is anyway." He typed away like a madman and when he was done some 5-10 minutes later he told them to fire it up and test the joysticks. You would have thought they'd won the world championship as they jumped and screamed when their joysticks finally worked. I watched this amazing young man never turn down my request for help as he went from team to team and worked his magic. I'm convinced four teams would not have made the field without his help. One team had already had several experienced mentors tell them several things to try but none worked. I tried to tell all the judges about this and was sorely disappointed that he didn't get a special award but I will never forget it. I felt so bad about taking him from his team so many times that I appologized to them to which they jokingly told me "no, please take him as much as you can!". I have always held 192 in very high regards since this and when I saw this thread felt it was the perfect place to re-live this experience. I hope and believe there are many incidences like this at every regional we don't hear of.