[Sperkowsky]

Although this is probably not what this thread is about I am going to talk about my own team.

Team 2869 began in 2009 under the name One Small Step. Our 2009 year was not terrible for a rookie placing towards the bottom and winning Rookie Inspiration out of 3 rookies that year. 2010 was not a good season in all reality but we seeded well and became the 7th alliance captain. But it was clear we were not too good scoring 1 and 2 in our 2 respective quarterfinal matches. 2011 was not good.. seeding 43/50. 2012 was actually a pretty good year for us where we captained the 5th alliance and were not completely blown out in our quarterfinal matches. All our robot could do was score in autonomous (Intake did not work) but it was a good year for us. However, everything went down from there.

In 2013 we built a net on wheels which seeded us 36/50.
In 2014 (my rookie year) we built this whole elaborate shooter that was too big and did not work. So we chopped it off on practice day. From there we had a barely driving robot with mecanum wheels. Although we seeded 43/66 I consider this rock bottom for our team. We then decided we were going to do an offseason competition for the first time. We tried to build just an intake and failed. We ended up with the same exact robot. I don't have a picture on my laptop but when I get home on Tuesday ill add one.

2015 was the first year I really put a lot of effort into robotics. We had a lot of internal issues fighting over designs and we ended up fighting to the finish to build a robot. The robot was built to spec by stop build day but did not function.. at all. The elevator system did not work at all and we actually only saw it lift for one match. Despite me trying the best as a driver I could ramming into bins to try to move them and actually scoring a few points from pushing totes we seeded last. Our team however, was looking better. We had a logo for the first time, and a website.

The 2015-2016 season is where we really switched into high gear. At the end of the 2015 school year I was elected Captain. What I saw was a team that was failing, the school saw that we spent 3 years without making elims and also saw that we never took home an award since our rookie year. It was clear we either got better or disbanded. Over that summer we got our first sponsors and perfected one of the vetoed designs from the 2015 season. Going in to the 2015/2016 school year we started off building a brand new 2015 robot. This robot was simple very simple but, it worked. For the first time since 2012 we had a working robot. That working robot took us to the finals at a local offseason. We came home with a trophy for the first time in 7 years of being a team. Going into the 2016 season we were in high gear. We finished the robot week 3 and spent 3 weeks making it better. As soon as we went to our week 0 in CT we were getting comments about how good our robot was performing and such. This was crazy for us as we were usually the laughing stock of an event and to hear comments like these from good New England teams was very inspiring. We did pretty well at our one and only regional seeding bad but getting chosen as a first pick to the 8th seeded alliance. It was the first time ever we were picked for an alliance. Due to our low seed I was surprised we were picked. When I made that comment to our alliance captain she laughed at that statement and commented that she was surprised we were not picked yet. We had a short run in the quarterfinals winning the first match and losing the next 2 by close margins. Because of a ref missing a crossing we were kicked out but we put up the 2nd highest score for the regional and overall it was a performance we were proud of. I also ended up taking home the deans list finalist award and our mentor took home the woodie flowers finalist award. That meant our first blue banner and first time getting official awards other then a rookie award. Our team is no longer the worst team at an event and is now a decently known middle of the road team.

Next year we hope to win our first regional and hopefully take home a chairmans award or ei award. Currently we are fixing our bottlenecks (CAD and electrical) and designing an offseason robot which will hopefully win our first event.

Overall this year was huge for our team and hopefully its only the start. We went from seeding last never moving to being a first pick at a regional, being finalists at an offseason, and winning 2 awards.

I will end this post saying although I was the captain of the team this year without an incredible team to lead we would have failed once again.