My first event was the 2000 Kettering Kickoff in Flint, MI. I'd just joined the FEDS about a week before the competition, and the team was looking for a new driver. So, they picked the new guy, me, to drive the robot. I had never even seen a FIRST match before, and there I was, driving the robot in competition. Needless to say, I didn't do very well. We lost all four of our matches, seeded 24th out of 24, but still managed to get picked by the #1 seed, Metal-In-Motion (343) and their partner, the Juggernauts (1), and took second place in the competition. It was confusing and frustrating, but driving that robot was more thrilling than anything else I'd ever done. I was hooked from the moment the clock hit 0:00 on my first match.
My first official FIRST event was the 2001 West Michigan Regional. We arrived in the midst of an early March blizzard, with a robot slightly more than half finished. After that, well, let's just say our robot was named "Tippy" for a reason...
