Best experiences in FIRST

[E Dawg]

Recently a thread popped up about people's worst experiences in FIRST. I found this kind of demoralizing as I read all the posts. So why not talk about some of the best times people have had in FIRST?

[Peter Matteson]

Being on Einstien when the confetti comes down.
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/35698
Twice for the win as the final pick in the division.
Once for the loss as the first overall pick in the division.

This is only topped by...

The several full ride scholarships won by our students , because frankly I'm more proud of those kids and what they've done than with any of our on field exploits.

For reference this happened right before the photo posted above which is why that was such an amazing experience.
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...5&postcount=41

[mechanical_robot]

Originally Posted by Peter Matteson

Being on Einstien when the confetti comes down.
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/35698
Twice for the win as the final pick in the division.
Once for the loss as the first overall pick in the division.

This is only topped by...

The several full ride scholarships won by our students , because frankly I'm more proud of those kids and what they've done than with any of our on field exploits.

For reference this happened right before the photo posted above which is why that was such an amazing experience.
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...5&postcount=41

Wait so students on your team got full rids because they got onto einstein?

[EricH]

Originally Posted by antimatter_john

Wait so students on your team got full rids because they got onto einstein?

No. Re-read the post: He's MORE proud of the students getting the full rides than he is of racking up 2 Championship wins and 1 Championship finalist (or any other on-field performance). The two are not related.


There are a number of full-ride scholarships offered to FIRST students, and even more scholarships that are for a given dollar amount. Apply to as many as you think you want to.


My best experience... Too many. I'll have to think about it. There are a few that jump to mind, but it'd take too long to list them. I'll probably be back some other time to fill in a couple.

[Peter Matteson]

Originally Posted by antimatter_john

Wait so students on your team got full rids because they got onto einstein?

No completely unrelated. They earned those on their own based on the scholarship requirements. However had they not been part of FIRST they would not have been eligible for the scholarships.

[HumblePie]

I'd have to say our first ever Regional win at Peachtree this year (Thanks 4026 & 4080) on the day of my son's 18th birthday. His fourth year in FRC, and serving as Team Drive Coach.

His comment "Best...Birthday...Ever".

[Invictus3593]

I think when the robot actually performs how it's supposed to and you get to see the results of your work on the field, it the most rewarding feeling in the world.

I want to go a little different route with mine.

My best experience is being involved with FIRST as a whole. Before my team's rookie season in 2007, I was shy, nervous in front of people - big crowds and small - and just had trouble overall speaking and communicating. In the teams first year, I helped with presentations to local engineering companies, even though I was deathly afraid of this, especially since I was in front of a lot of older professionals.

Long story short, I moved my way up to team captain in 2008 and 2009 for my junior and senior years, I was on the presentation team for Chairman's, and would regularly do any public presentations for the team. Being a part of FIRST allowed me to become extremely comfortable with any sort of public speaking. I regularly have to do presentations now that I'm in my final semester, and I don't have a problem being in front of 100 of my classmates or industry professionals.

FIRST is such a great organization, and that's why I've volunteered for 5 straight years now, and hope to do many more. I know what the kids learn from being on the team, and that makes me want to help out even more.

[delsaner]

I have many favorite experiences, each having their own reasoning (for lack of better term).

My best (inspirational) experience was watching Einstein field in 2008. Since it was my first championship I went to, it was very inspirational to see other beautifully designed robots compete against one another. Certainly something I will never forget; it inspired me to build a better robot for next year, despite having done my best share in the team as possible. Having been a freshman, I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but I was certainly excited for it.

My best (favorite) experience was being on the drive team in 2010. My team won our first competition that year when I was the human player. Next competition, I took on the role of drive coach. Being drive coach was a great experience in itself, but winning that competition as well was a great feeling. Come to championship, I took on the role as drive coach again, and competed in the eliminations of that year. Doing my best with some of my closest friends on the team, we did the best we could, won matches that I thought we were not going to win. Being knocked out during the finals against 1114, 469, and 2041, it was an absolute pleasure losing to that powerhouse alliance. It was also great getting hardware from championship that year. I still think about that weekend, and it helps remind me why I do what I do.

My best (feeling good about myself) experience was mentoring the team for a few weeks while I was home. We had a brand new CAD team that year, and having been the CAD person during my years on the team, I felt the need to teach the new-comers what they needed to know. Taught them the basics of modeling, went over more complicated applications, and set up tutorials for advanced portions of Inventor. The day before I had to go back to school, they all thanked me for helping them out. They stated that I taught them a lot and they were able to apply it to their work on the team. I left that day feeling good that I was able to give something back to the team that gave me so much.

[dricks]

Having a student you mentored announced as one of the 10 Dean's List winners, two years in a row.

[treffk]

Most memorable honestly has to be when I started volunteering with FLL. It was right before awards and the students who had been going all day were yelling "we love legos yes we do, we love legos, how bout you?" back and forth. That is until I wheeled the trophies and medals in, then they just cheered and went nuts.

This experience has always resonated with me as FLL Is 9-14. While these kids don't get as worn out as JrFLL it's still a long day for them waking up early to make the trip to competition and be there awake and excited all day. I honestly even rank this experience over the 1 time my team (well I guess now former team since I've moved) made it to Championships.

[Jay O'Donnell]

I'd have to say my favorite robotics experience thus far was Battlecry 2012. Battlecry has 16 alliances in eliminations instead of the standard eight, and we ended up being the 11th seed captain. We picked teams 175 and 716, and proceeded to upset the 6, 3, and 2 seeds on our trip to the finals, where we came up short against the powerhouse 1 seeded alliance (1519, 2168, 125).

[MechEng83]

I'm not sure if this qualifies as "best", but certainly most exciting.

Championship 2012, Curie Field, Quarterfinals.
Our first time ever playing in eliminations at the World Championship.
We lost our first match by 2 points. Our alliance regrouped and won the next 2 matches by 1 point each.

[Caleb Sykes]

Watching my autonomous code allow the robot to score in autonomous for the first time.

[c_hartman_00]

In 2013 we came into the Queen City Regional with a lot of changes to make after the first time building a practice bot for after bag day. Believed we had everything we needed to succeed, including our multi-disc autonomous. Then, everything went terribly wrong between the transition of our withheld shooter and floor pick-up from practice bot to competition bot. After cancelling the plans with no practice matches on Thursday and stripping down to be just a cycle bot, we headed to the hotel thinking we didn't have a good shot at winning.
Friday, we came in got on the practice field to make sure everything was working, and everything seemed to be fine. During the first match everything went horribly wrong when we lost communications after running into an opposing team going to start cycling. We figured it was just from the bump, but it turned out it was larger than that and we were dead our next two matches. After getting it fixed we were doing well, but not what we think we needed to be doing because our shooter wasn't as accurate as it needed to be. We played a few more matches, and then went to our hotel after trying to fix the accuracy problem. We realized that although we were ranked in the bottom half, we had an OPR in the top 5 so we might have a chance.
Saturday, we played our last few matches, and remained in the bottom of the rankings with a high OPR so we figured we might get picked by a team with good scouting. After going through the first 13 picks, it looked like our weekend was going to end, but then we were picked by our friends 379 (who had picked us in 2012) and 1985. We won every single game in eliminations with our only close match coming in game 1 of the finals. This was my team's first regional win in 13 years of existence, although we had been close MANY times, and it showed us that all it takes is being good at one thing, and a lot of luck. Although this weekend looked like it was going to be one of the worst in my FRC career, it ended as the best, and I will never forget it.