[ThePaulitician]

For the past two years, my team had some rough times. We lost our main mentor and faculty adviser along with some big sponsorships all in one summer. Since, we have been recovering. This year was my third year but I never took such an active role. I was in a frustrated position for the past two years as a rookie and 1-year veteran; I was stuck in spirit and scouting at competitions whereas I wanted to be working on the robot or just helping in some way with our pits and build crew. This year, my sports experience showed how good of a human player I was, loading totes so fast and throwing litter like Tom Brady. At the heart of it all, I really stepped up my game. I think previously in my first two years, I sort of was not so much there for my team. I went to all our meetings in and out of build season but I never understood the amount of work my main mentors and lead teammates put in. Thus, I put in as much effort and realized how fun it was. Apart from learning to just get involved, I realized that our team should have spent so much more time planning on strategy and tether design and other ways to exploit the game methods. In the past, we have been worrying so much about getting parts on time when in fact we want our design to do best. Thank you to 1114 (Simbotics), 2826 (Wave Robotics), and 148 (RoboWranglers) for being inspirations to me!!!