I have another two "Spirit of FIRST stories."

During the Sacramento regional Team 100 (Woodside) just had an awful problem with their drive train - they could not get the robot moving correctly at all, and ended up dead last in the rankings. Their engineering team came out to Ames and the 254 team helped them work out a plan to repair their robot for the upcoming SVR. Well guess what - They ended up as finalists - only to lose of course to team 254. Just before the finals, I asked a 254 team member if he was sorry they had helped out a potential strong competitor - he answered "Of course not, we like those guys, they're all our friends, and it's not about winning, it's about raising the bar for everyone."

The Other team I mentored (1043) had an awful time at SVR - they finished dead last - every time they got close to hanging they'd either get flipped over or do it to themselves, so I expected them to feel pretty rotten.

Au contrair... They were delighted with their performance - They said - "The robot worked every match, our autonomous mode worked, we were able to include pneumatics on our robot and it is much more sophisticated then last year."