Back in 2006, our team's rookie year, I remember walking onto our construction compound on the Sunday before ship, happy that our robot was working and in need of few touch-ups. When I got there, I was informed by the members who were already there that our robot had been weighed for the first time.
"You're joking right?
40 pounds?"
After pulling the battery off the bot we still had another 30 pounds to shave. Two days before ship, this is what our robot looked like:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/23078
Two days, thousands of holes, and a few removed components later, we had this:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/23240
I sure thought that shaving 20% of our robot's weight in 48 hours was impossible, but our team came together calmly and strongly, and we got it done. Though we had to sacrifice some components (namely, 4wd became 2wd), we still had a solid robot which did the job we designed it to do.
You cannot believe how shocked we all were when we ended up *WINNING* the 2006 UC David Regional competition. After some experience in Arizona with
exploding rollers and bent frame members, we managed to pull together and succeed in our second event. Not only that, but we were the 3rd picking alliance! And it was through our team unity (and a VERY lengthy scouting meeting) that we selected two machines which perfectly complemented our robot. To this day, that will always be my favorite FIRST experience. Simply put, the adversity that we had to overcome throughout the season paid off more than I could have ever imagined. Just remember that even the impossible is simply another challenge waiting to be overcome!