Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season

[JaneYoung]

Hi All,

I've been thinking about some favorite memories of mine from the season and I thought I'd ask all of you to share one (or more) of yours.

One of my favorite memories this year was listening to a group of our student leaders brainstorm out loud, thinking about how they wanted to share information about our team organization and development with others. Usually during these discussions, homemade cookies were to be had. My favorite was made from a strawberry cake mix, whipping cream, and powdered sugar. I always enjoy brainstorming sessions and then watching as ideas take shape as we work through our season. It's very cool.

Please share one (or more) of yours.

Jane

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by JaneYoung

Hi All,

I've been thinking about some favorite memories of mine from the season ...

Please share one (or more) of yours.

Jane

OK, Jane, here goes:

This season I've been mentoring a rookie team, 3620 The Average Joes. They had a really good year in many ways, but did not go to St. Louis. When I returned, they wanted to hear my impressions of the Championship. These were some of the highlights I told them about:

• Karthik's workshop on Team Strategy. 3620 will be studying that presentation, and several others provided on the 1114 website, as they prepare for 2012.
• The New Cool. Several 3620 members are reading Neil Bascomb's book now. They were impressed to hear that I got to meet both the author and the principal character of that book, Amir Abo-Shaeer. Many here on CD know that I am passionate about inspecting robots -- 1717 was the first team to present their robot for inspection at Curie on Wednesday evening, and the first inspection that I completed.
• My Robot Inspector hat, autographed by Dean Kamen, Woodie Flowers, and Andy Baker.
• Watching 233 attempt, and nearly complete, a three tube autonomous during one of their Friday afternoon qualifying matches on Newton. I was queueing, right behind their alliance station. Very cool to watch.
• Seeing the new cRIO and several other interesting demos by NI. Stuff that teams can use, and that we can use in my real job.
• Seeing some very cool AndyMark products. Andy, we still need to talk about that demonstration bot ...
• 2081's minibot competition at their Curie pit, and the impressively low times put up by several teams. Thanks you, 2081 for making this fun, and congratulations to 1986 for their low time -- 0.900 sec. Well earned can of SPAM, and a very nice award plaque.
• Morgan Freeman, on Archimedes. Talk about your star-power!
• Bill Miller up on the FRC Live! stage, telling us what's coming and doing his best to answer questions.
• FRC fields in the pits. These reminded me of Michigan Districts -- but we have more seating and fewer teams. I think FIRST can, and will, improve the pit field experience for FRC participants and viewers next year, but the basic idea is great.
• and, The Black Eyed Peas. Entertainment stars celebrating FIRST. Loudly. How cool is that?

---------

And one more: seeing 931's minibot featured prominently during the video overture to the Friday night awards ceremony & BEP concert.

[Alan Anderson]

I remember something that happened at lunchtime on Saturday at the Championship. It's not exactly my favorite memory, but it's certainly among the most...memorable.

Alliance selections had just finished and the team wasn't picked for the elimination rounds. The teachers arranged for pizza and we got everyone together in a sunny corner of an upstairs hallway for lunch. As we waited for the last few people to arrive, I overheard one student telling another something like "I know we didn't do very well, but it's still a lot of fun." A few minutes later, another student said basically the same thing to me and pointed out how happy (almost) everyone looked. Even with the robot's disappointing performance during the competition, the students were smiling and enjoying the time together.

Then a mentor got up to give a semi-motivational talk about "pushing on" and "getting through this" after not winning. When he was done, many of the students stood up and spoke about how much they were getting from the experience of being a team: working together, learning new skills, growing to be confident, things like that. The contrast between the mentor's focus and the students' actual attitude was remarkable, and I for one agreed fully with the students.

[BigJ]

1675 won their first RCA at Midwest this year.

My first year in FIRST, I was drafted to help write the CA essay and give the presentation. At the time I hated it. I wanted to go do more programming. Over the season I grew to understand why it was important. At the end of the season some of my complaining earned me the line "Not Chairmans! Please!!" on the certificate of memorable statements given to me at the end of year banquet.

Over the next few years I helped edit essays and critique presentations, knowing with the team each year we might be drawing closer.

When we finally got called this year, I almost cried before we even got down to the judges. I stopped right before reaching the first judge. Being in the middle of the group, one of the judges handed me the second trophy. I proceeded to bawl (even while doing some laughing) for the next 20 minutes. I don't think the kids are ever going to let me go for that.

My RCA medal is now hanging on the tack holding up the aforementioned certificate.

The neckband of the medal covers up "Not Chairmans! Please!!"

It is my favorite moment being in FIRST so far.

[Peter Matteson]

Team 177's founding mentor Alan (Mo) Mothersele finally winning a WFFA after 17 years of running the team.

One of our seniors winning the WPI Design and Innovation Scholarship.

[musicgurl1329]

I had PLENTY of memories from this season that when I look back on it, were some of the best. Well, here it goes:

- Making our Chairman's video (aka: Our music video)
-Attempting to fall a sleep under a work table (I thought no one was using it) being called over to work on something and almost giving the mentor working at the table a heart attack.
- Breaking 3 things in one day on the lathe and giving up for everyone's safety that day
- My team's family tree
- Hanging out with all my friends and seeing some friends whom I lost contact with
- The hours I spent talking with mentors about the ultimate alliance for different regionals
-Going to Philly regional and surprising my mentor (who was a judge) by dancing on the field
- Finding 2 of my cousins on here and meeting them in St Louis
- Running into Dean Kamen at Starbucks on Sunday in St Louis
- I think at this point, I'll just list everything that happened in STL
- And Finally, when I came up with my plan to start a FIRST team (aka Team PANDAmic) in 5-6 years (depends on my employment, college etc.)


I know I missed a lot of things but this is what sticks out when I think of LogoMotion

[rsisk]

• Meeting a lot of great people this year
• Working the Alamo Regional. Can't wait to be back
• Being a Robot Inspector for the first time (AZ, LA, CMP)
• Trading a huge bag full of buttons with Karibou
• Mentoring 5 rookie teams (1-RCA, 1-Judge Award)
• My daughter Danielle picked as Dean's List Finalist in LA
• Feeling like our team has turned a corner and is headed towards greatness
• Meeting a wonderful group of people known as Senior Mentors

[elemental]

This is my last year in FIRST as a student after 6 years in the program and it has been possibly the best.

I joined my team in its second year and, looking back, I am so proud at what my small team has accomplished with the help of our wonderful mentors, parents, and sponsors.

My list for 2011:

- Seeing the sophomores on the team take on roles like writing notebooks and award submissions. They seem to get it!

- Speaking with so many engineers, scientists, business people, etc. about FIRST and learning more about what inspired them.

- Having fun with #435 the Robodogs and #449 the Blair Robotics Project at the NC Regional.

- Meeting Woodie Flowers and talking to him for a bit. It really helped me choose my college and I now have my shoe signed!

- Mentoring rookie FRC teams. It was awesome to see how helping others positively impacted the attitude on my team. Mentoring brought us closer together.

- Winning Chairman's. I never thought that my 4 year old, 15 member team would stand a chance. Being able to compete with other teams at that level was an honor.

- Waiting for Chairman's and hearing Thunder Down Under's presentation group sing "Waltzing Matilda".

- Speaking with members of #842 and #341 about their path to CCA. Thank you guys for sharing!

- FLL kids. They are awesome. Touring the FLL pits with Gary the Platypus was the highlight of my Friday.

- Being able to hang out with my team. I've known some of them since FLL (in the case of my sister 16 years) and it is truly fun to experience the year with them. I'll miss my team so much.

So many more...

[apalrd]

* I made some of my first parts during this season, and used the lathe and mill for the first time.
* The first time 2-tube auto ran, it was bag day, and in the basement on the practice field. It worked so nicely (until we changed the wheels at Troy).
* Winning Kettering, the first event 33 had won since 2005. It was nice to finally win, instead of being finalist again and again.
* Winning MSC with 67 and 70 (More Hot Bees), possibly the best alliance I have ever been on during official events. 33+67=100% awesome?
* the "3" game with 2337 and 503 (among others)
* Scouting meeting before the concert. Lots of team numbers shouted out, lots of scouting sheets passed around, and lots of teams sorted into piles and then sorted again.
* Watching the robot drive dead straight the first time I ran the drive-straight code on the competition robot. It was soooo nice to see things translate from the practice to comp bots so easily.

[waialua359]

Wait? 33 didnt win an event since 2005?
You're joking right??

[ChristopherSD]

Probably 201's win at the Traverse City competition. We were close to two wins last year, but ended up as a finalists.

[Hawiian Cadder]

the first time the robot hung a tube. we had massive problems and still pulled it off.

the first time we hung a logo.

the first time we attempted the top peg. ( theoretically known to be possible. but a stretch for our 0 driver practice robot.)

[apalrd]

Originally Posted by waialua359

Wait? 33 didnt win an event since 2005?
You're joking right??

This years Kettering and MSC wins are our first since 2005. We have been finalists in many events since then (including 3 of our 4 official events in 2010), but no winners.

[Billfred]

Winning the Peachtree Regional. Going from a rough-by-our-standards build season, getting used to coaching again after a season off, and all the problems we had in qualification rounds (to say nothing of my last seven seasons) to the last pick of the draft and a nearly-flawless run in eliminations to bring home a banner and punch our ticket to St. Louis was unforgettable.

There have been a lot of great moments this year, but it's hard to top something like that when you've been working towards it for so long.

[JustinRueb1891]

This was my third year as a FIRST student (I started as a freshman during Lunacy) and I've spearheaded the Chairman's Award project for team 1891 all three years. 2009 was a disaster, as we had no idea what we were doing, but last year we were so close at the Utah regional. We literally had a perfect score from the judges, with no negative feedback, but just weren't perfect enough I guess. We redoubled our efforts, and this year was our year. We had a few more disasters (boring things like the entire video file deleting itself 4 days before the regional) but managed to pull it together. When I heard the MC say "Team 1891" as the RCA winners, I honestly couldn't believe it. Before I could put together a coherent thought my teammates had grabbed me and thrown me to the front of the line to go collect the award. To finally be recognized for all the work our team has done over the last few years and then have my own teammates choose me to be the one to receive the award was an amazing experience.