[Chris is me]

I've been inspired by basically every team I've ever talked to, so I'll have to keep this short and exclude a few hundred teams. But trust me, if I've talked to you then you've inspired me.

The first team I was ever inspired by was Syntax Error. They're an FTC team whose number I don't know, but they basically broke the game at the 2006-7 FVC Hangin-A-Round event I went to. They had this really cool metal hopper that would slide up along the side of a goal and get 20 balls in easily, and they used the wall so that the only way to play defense on them would be to catch them before they got to the wall. They even made a rack and pinion system out of tank tread since Vex's system didn't exist yet. I was pretty inspired, and basically figured out that the name of the game is to think of a design that breaks it.

The next FTC year I got inspired by a few more teams. When I was at the competition, I completely misjudged what the game was about (the autonomous I had planned had us removing the opponent's rings from the field so that they could not use them, when the rings were less important than goal control). I was seriously a minute from just quitting and cheering on my old team when the team from Wisconsin Lutheran High came over and talked to me. The previous year, I helped them build a square robot when their robot design completely failed, and I guess they thought it was their turn to help me. They convinced me to use my lunch break to strip off the manipulator and make a defensive robot, then got 5 of their main builders to help. 2 frantic hours later, the robot got on the field and won every match I had left just by pulling the goals around and playing defense.

We didn't have the serpentine at the event, so I was the third alliance partner of the first alliance. I ended up helping them win a little bit, so the whole alliance got to go on to Atlanta. I lobbied the judges to give Wisconsin Lutheran the Inspire award, as that's basically the definition of gracious professionalism and they literally inspired me to win, but to no avail. They won the next year though.

If it weren't for either of these teams I would not be in FRC today, and I wouldn't be strategist either. Basically these two teams directly (or indirectly) showed that strategy is key.

I'll post FRC teams later, when I don't have class in 30 seconds ^_^