What was your teams worst expierence during competition?

[philso]

2011, Logomotion

It was the first year of participating in FRC for my sons and myself. Previously, they had done very well, over several years, in the local FLL tournaments. The team we were invited to join had less than 12 students on the roster and was dominated by two students with very strong personalities and indulgent (team) parents. The build took place at one of their homes. The two dominant students pretty much pushed all the other students aside. They did things like taking apart a half-built minibot after the builder went home at the end of the evening because they "had a different idea" and needed the parts. After the end of the 6 week build period, my sons and I were asked to build another minibot since the original minibot builder gave up fighting them for parts. We did most of the work outside of the build site to avoid these problems. When we got to the Lone Star regional, we demonstrated that our minibot could do the climb in about 2.5 seconds (www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXv3O_5oH20). The original minibot took something like 5-8 seconds so we were asked to install ours on the robot. We then found that everything we were told about the space we had to install the minibot launching mechanism was completely wrong. We spent all of Thursday and most of Friday totally redesigning our launching mechanism to make it fit on the robot. The drivers were able to lauch it a few times in the practice area and everyone was happy (www.youtube.com/watch?v=10MxQCTuAQ0). On the field, the drivers did this www.youtube.com/watch?v=Piq4VSKoy54. TWICE! I am sure the drivers on the opposing alliance had a good laugh. My sons broke down and cried after they left the claw down the second time on Saturday morning. In the end, the team was unable to score any points with the minibot even though only 118 and a few other teams had a minibot that could go faster. At the end of the school year, the sponsoring teacher retired and the team collapsed.

In the spring, we were invited to join a different team. This team did not have a minibot so we installed it on their robot for the inaugural Texas Robot Roundup. There were a few misfires of the new launching mechanism. Finally, it was able to make it to the top first one time. My sons felt vindicated.