[Jeff Pahl]

It made my entire season when, at dinner Thursday night of regionals after the team finished the robot at 7:55 PM, one of next year's team leaders stated "you were right, we needed to finish the robot 2 weeks before the ship date. Next year, we are going to stick to the schedule."

Now I just have to hope that they remember that until next year, and I truly hope that they carry that lesson with them into their engineering careers. If they do that, then all the blood, sweat, and tears of the entire season is worth it.

In the team's defense, we were only a second year team this year. Even worse, not only did all but two team members graduate last year, but we also lost the teacher at the school that was the team leader, so there were just 2 students and 2 engineers who had even ever seen a FIRST competition. We tried to encourage them to keep on the schedule, but we also considered it important to let them manage the project, make their own mistakes, and learn their own lessons. However, almost the entire team is back next year, so watch out!!

The other thing we learned is that your first match on Friday is a bad time to start learning how to drive the robot.