So many FRC teams have inspired me that I will not try to list them all. But two are firmly stuck in my mind: 16 and 71.
I saw both for the first time in Orlando in 1996, my rookie year. (Teams did not have numbers then, and my Arch Rivals from St. Louis are long forgotten; however, 1996 was also the rookie season for both the Baxter Bomb Squad and the Beatty BEAST.)
The Bomb Squad has continued to inspire me in several ways: world class community outreach, growing FIRST in their state, founding a regional, traveling far from home to conduct seminars for developing teams, and a group of mentors and alumni that are sustaining pillars of FIRST. And, oh yeah, they play hard.
71 has inspired me with their work ethic and competitiveness, their RAS in 1996, their first RCA in 2006 (and those 4 world championships in between), and their resurgence in more recent seasons. I posted at the time about
watching them work in 2006, and that lesson inspired the way that I have tried to develop the Average Joes since moving to Michigan.
It was really cool seeing both of these teams at IRI this year.
__________________
Richard Wallace
Mentor since 2011 for FRC 3620 Average Joes (St. Joseph, Michigan)
Mentor 2002-10 for FRC 931 Perpetual Chaos (St. Louis, Missouri)
since 2003
I believe in intuition and inspiration. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. It is, strictly speaking, a real factor in scientific research.
(Cosmic Religion : With Other Opinions and Aphorisms (1931) by Albert Einstein, p. 97)