My team did! LOL
Great Regional today. My team members are very very young (mostly 9th/10th graders) and jumped in head first. Mr. Murphy was our best friend. Our robot just wasn't competitive even though we could shoot, pick up and make points in auto. Oh well, I'm an MCSE and a teacher so a couple of mechanical engineer mentors and a place to do metal work instead of using "angle iron and marine grade plywood" will help us tons next year. I don't have the mechanical engineering expertise to help my students very much. I can manage the project, the money/logistics, check and recommend changes to Labview and translate wiring to my team. When it comes to simple construction, I'm just a woodworker. My main goals next year are: get some real power tools other than a drill press and 1940s vintage bandsaw and LEARN ME SOME SOLIDWORKS so I can teach it to my team. Enough of the "Mark 2 Eyeball" construction process.
We came in 43rd today. Someone has to. We got smoked but did manage to help win in two games. (2-8-0) I'm not proud of the record but proud of what my students learned in the past three days. They learned to suck it up, troubleshoot and fix grievous errors and repair major damage after getting whacked at full speed in multple matches (very hard game on robots this year and ours was 89 lbs too).
Our philosophy in 3355 is to mentor, coach and facilitate. We work together on a solution and multiple options to work the problem. We (the mentors/coach) then step back and let the students crunch the problems. I saw a lot of this philosophy in action as we were next to 359, across the pits from 231, and down the pit row from 704. This is what consistent winning teams look like. I'm thinking I'm on the right road philosophically. I can manage the broken egos and hearts but $@#$@#$@#$@#......how do I engineer 261 points like we saw 148 and company put on the board today. I'd love to spend a week during the offseason with a successful team just to be a "fly on the wall" to get an up close and personal view of what is making these teams (and others) SO successful. If I can see it, I can then teach it to my team. Any thoughts on this?
Bottom line from a bottom feeder team....great experience....sucked to get smoked so badly...but my wife said it best...."20 OTHER teams didn't make the elimination
rounds either so close your piehole and quit whining. Just teach better and learn more. It will come through next season!!!" As usual...she was right!
Had a blast folks and YES...the Dallas Regional had some of the best teams I've seen in four years of managing FRC Team 3355-Summit Prep HS. Great day! Congrats to the winners....and remember....we'll be back....fear the PURPLE VIPER!
Steve Miller
Coach-Team 3355
Summit Prep HS