[Kevin Sevcik]

I remember my first FIRST competition. I'll date myself and geographically locate myself, since most posts here are about the east coast and midwest...

1998 Johnson Space Center Houston Regional. No, not Lone Star, the original Houston Regional that was only around for a year. The event was held at Space Center Houston.

Imagine if you will, a pit for 20+ teams contained in an area the size of a high school cafeteria. With barely existent aisleways. Needless to say, the pits were a mess. The field was in the center of a somewhat large cleared area SSH uses for displays and events of this type, but there wasn't much in the way of stands. There were nearby stairs that occasionally offered decents views, though. The original incarnation of our robot didn't fair very well at that event. We were trying to use a system of PVC rollers to squeeze balls into the center goal, but we used some plywood as the base, and it didn't stand up well to other robots.

Nationals that year was a bit better as we traded out the plywood for lexan and added a third roller to help pull balls through. With the added benefit of removing balls as well. There's nothing quite like the look on a team's face when you cut their score in half... We still had issues with the chain for the rollers coming loose, and it was hard to beat Baxter Bomb Squad loading the center goal with 3-4 balls at a time, though. So we did decently, but not incredibly well.

At any rate, the competitions were fun and all, but I think I enjoyed the build season a good bit more.