[Andy Baker]

Raul is long overdue for recognition. FIRST would not be the same without Raul, that is definite. Not only does he inspire Wildstang team members, but he challenges the rest of us to work hard in designing competitive robots.

I have so many great memories of Raul. We've had many late-night discussions where people would laugh at us because both of our voices were hoarse after long weekends at a FIRST competition.

I vividly remember the 2003 Championships when he stood on Wildstang's winged robot and lifted his arms in the air, finally grabbing the Championship that 111 worked so hard for all of these years.

On his UFH profile, he tells a bit of the story of the 1999 Nationals when he "pleaded" with me and the TechnoKats to pick them for an alliance. "Plead" was not quite the right word. Raul's negotiation tactics were quite straightforward. His "pleading" went something like this:

Raul: "Baker, hey, I need to talk to you. You guys are seeded 8th. Have you decided who to pick yet?"
Andy: "Well, we are just now going to meet and finalize our decision."
Raul: "Before you go, hear me out. You need to pick us."
Andy: "Ummm... ok... you guys are great, but I really don't know where things stand until I talk to our scouting team."
Raul: "Let me tell you why you need to pick us."
Andy: "OK... go ahead."
Raul: "If you don't pick us, we will beat you."
Andy: "Really? How so?"
Raul: "well... we would grab the pipe first, before you get to the puck... (yada, yada)"

<edit - we HAD a video of this conversation... I need to find it>

Raul goes on, in detail, with their strategy to beat us. In the end, he made much sense and we picked them when it came our time to pick.

To add to this story, we attended the 1999 Rumble at the Rock (the last one, sadly) and got picked by 126 for the finals. We had a pretty good alliance with our robot paired with a mobile Gael Force robot driven by Colleen Shaver. In the semi-finals, we were beat by the Wildstang-led alliance, just like the way Raul described they would. We saw it coming, knew their strategy, and they still beat us.

Way to go, Raul. Thanks for all that you do. Thanks for sticking with FIRST and inspiring countless students and engineers to work hard at making FIRST a great competition.

Andy B.