[FRC4ME]

My memorable moments:

-Winning Delphi Driving Tomorrow's Technology at DC. We knew we had a unique component (the "moveable feast", which shifted the 40 lb electronics board left and right to during turns for easier turning and dynamic traction redistribution) that had a chance of winning, so we very excitedly explained our design to the judges. They actually spoke to our head mentor and said they were impressed with how clearly we were able to describe the design to them. During awards on Friday, when the announcer had said enough for us to identify ourselves (after a very anxious build-up) as the winners, one of our mentors actually squealed (yes, squealed) so loudly, the MC momentarily stopped talking. Then, everyone in the stands turned and stared at us as the MC said, "hold on!". It was really embarrassing yet totally awesome at the same time.

-Going out on the field as a coach at Atlanta. My team ensures every member gets to go out on the field at least once during their years on the team. Since this is my senior year I got to be a coach. Walking out onto the Dome floor was really a breathtaking experience. The match was even better. The other two coaches on our alliance were running back and forth across the player station, coordinating our strategy. Kudos to them, and I apologize for my relative inexperience! We didn't win the match, but it was still an amazing experience.

-Watching our traction control system work as intended during our last qualifying match at Atlanta. I didn't think our open-loop traction control that we had used at regionals was good enough, so I proposed a new system consisting of two new encoders, four new PID loops, and 300 lines of new code, all to be written, wired, and tested at Atlanta. Our programming mentor didn't think we could possibly get such a system working in that amount of time, so he let me attempt the project on my own as pretty much a learning exercise. Fortunately, our mechanical mentor was more optimistic and agreed to build and mount the necessary follower wheels.

At Atlanta, I spent every spare minute debugging the new code and tuning the PID loops (very difficult considering how the practice fields were being run). Then, on Saturday, with just one match remaining and no time for a test on the practice field, everything was finally wired, coded, and ready to go. It was very difficult for me to convince our programming mentor to let me try to system on the field - I had to put in an override switch to go back to the old system and make the drivers swear to push it the moment they noticed something wrong - but he eventually agreed. The system worked flawlessly, we won the match, and the drivers came back talking about the much-improved driveability of the robot. That gave me a really good feeling of personal accomplishment. Although it was too late to really make a difference - we weren't picked for the elims and we probably would have won our last match anyway - watching the "impossible" system work on the field was a memorable experience.

-Watching the waves go through the Mezzanine level during Einstein. That was one of the funnest things I've ever seen. When the slow-mo wave came through, we thought it was great, but watching the super-fast wave response made me laugh out loud. We have one mentor who is very laid-back and difficult to get excited (i.e. he rolls his eyes at the Spirit Award), but when that fast wave rolled its way across the level, he was laughing and cheering louder than all of us. That made my day. Then, they started landing paper airplanes on the field...it was great.

-Winning Delphi Driving Tomorrow's Technology at Atlanta. Even after winning at DC, I couldn't let myself be optimistic enough to believe we actually had a chance at this. I mean, these are 360+ teams including all regional winners; surely one of them had a design more innovative than ours! This time, the announcer said a key word that made it immediately obvious that we had won. I looked at our head mentor - both our mouths hanging open - and said, "we won?!" I didn't see us on the screen or hear the rest of the speech, I was in such disbelief. Remember that excited mentor I told you about at the beginning of this post? Thankfully, when the announcer gave us our "clue", we had three team members restraining her, one with his hand over her mouth, smiling all the way, until it was time to cheer. I think those sitting around us still noticed, however. I can't think of a better way to end what has been a wonderful competition season.