What are your victories?

[s1900ahon]

Victories? When I see things like this.

[YAK'ker]

Originally Posted by Squillo

Oh, that's why I said "went" - they are all college grads now! One with the first PhD in our family ( ), in meteorology; one with an archaeology degree, doing digs; and one with a degree in PR or communications or something like that (looking for work...). (Proud auntie here...) Last name is "Hannah" - their dad, my bro, has gained some fleeting fame recently for a discovery in the area of fisheries biology (reducing bicatch in the shrimping industry), maybe you've heard of him, but probably not, I think it's a pretty narrow field. Anyway, we're a whole family of geeks.

Your bro Bob works with my hubby (a marine biologist) at Oregon Dept of Fish & Wildlife! Small world...yes, and Linda, his wife, showed me how to groom our poodle. Our daughter was in 4-H with your niece, too. Yes, unfortunately, they all graduated before Toledo HS got their VEX robotics program....they would've loved it!

[Squillo]

Originally Posted by YAK'ker

Your bro Bob works with my hubby (a marine biologist) at Oregon Dept of Fish & Wildlife! Small world...yes, and Linda, his wife, showed me how to groom our poodle. Our daughter was in 4-H with your niece, too. Yes, unfortunately, they all graduated before Toledo HS got their VEX robotics program....they would've loved it!

OMG, that is hilarious!! Small world indeed.

[GeeTwo]

I thought I had posted on this previously, but can't find it.

Wow, where to start?

Our team had a competition goal of "making the playoffs" for the first time in our four year history. We did that, and were selected (as #42 seed) by the #2 and #10 seeds (binary 10, 1010, and 101010), into the alliance that took the regional! And we did it not on cheesecake, but our day #1 decision to mine the landfill and be able to work the step. (As far as I can tell, we coined the term "mine" the landfill.)

Most importantly, we inspired about 50 students towards STEM careers, and made another 50 at least consider it seriously through our t-shirt launcher. Most of the 50 on the team would have probably "coasted" through high school, whether with an A or a D or an F average -- yes, several would have flunked out if we hadn't been there for incentive. This team's members included students saved from a 0.0 average (now a 3.8 average), a few potheads made into leaders, an apparently hopeless introvert who can flirt completely in character as our mascot, and a bunch of self-identified "gorillas" and "meat heads" who have stepped onto the road to become craftsmen. We have graduates heading to both MIT and LA Tech (Woodie Flower's haunts) among other top schools.

My youngest son and daughter will graduate in two years, but after hearing the stories at that first post-victory meeting, I just can't imagine giving up FRC mentoring as long as I can get to build sessions.

[Citrus Dad]

Helping the rookie team we started, 5458 Digital Minds, in neighboring Woodland to travel to Champs. There has been historic rivalry between Davis and Woodland but we worked together (including our appearance before their school board) to fund the trip in just 2 weeks. We had selected them to be on our alliance in Sacramento, but they qualified on their own through the Rookie All Star Award. Their efforts in their rookie year put our first 5 years to shame.

And we qualified another rookie team 5529 Visalia Vanquishers, and a second year team 5027 Event Horizon for Champs on our alliances at CVR and SVR. Both are in Newton with us.

[RoboAlum]

So Im on a young team and it being our third year we really saw this program grow i came in the teams second year from FRC 71so going from that team to my team now FRC 4841was a culture shock. They werent a bad team they were Rookie Inspiration and had a solid robot for a rookie team but they were really close minded. We took the summer and really laid out the team and I taught them what I learned like with build crew, robot strategy, and getting the team out to the community. We started small haha actually at the ground level bumpers to be exact I showed them an outside the box way think that year we had the fastest bumpers they were red and blue stitched together to allow them to change on the fly. Then we wanted a practice robot which is huge for teams also costly but they did it. We wanted to really market ourselves in our community of Tucson proud to say these kids have close ties with the mayor now he comes around alot now they also now use the local news as a media correspondent as a third year team. Its amazing to watch these kids grow. Biggest accomplishment so far has been this season they unveiled a community outreach trailer, they placed top 20 at AZ West, they played after lunch on Saturday for the first time ever, and they were honored with the Engineering Inspiration award and are going to the World Championships. I couldn't put it into words how proud I am of this young team and the high hopes I have for them.

[hionwind]

I loved reading every part of this thread. It is so inspirational. As the lead mentor of a team that has had a fair amount of success in the past few years, I can still remember very clearly being in the position of never having made it out of the quarter finals at regionals and never having won any kind of award.

What I love about FIRST is that any team can set goals and when you achieve those goals you are victorious. This year, there is one moment that stands out in this regard and brought me to tears. It was at the Central Valley Regional and involved Team 5529. a rookie team from Visalia, CA. The team was getting really frustrated with their robot's performance and, at one point, one of the students said to me, "we're just never going to be as good as those other teams - our robot just isn't good enough!". We worked with the team to improve their elevator and then spent a ton of time on the practice field to get their driver and operator more experience. We set a goal of scoring a stack of three yellow totes onto one yellow tote on the step. I emphasized that this was a goal they could achieve and would be worth far more points than any amount of grey totes that they could place on the scoring platform in one match. During one of their qualification matches the drive team spent virtually the whole match carefully stacking up the three yellow totes and then during the closing seconds of the match managed to complete the coop-stack. The crowd went crazy and I'm even tearing up as I write this.

The team accomplished this feat again in a later qualification match. They then went on to win the Rookie Inspiration Award and a trip to St. Louis, surely another great victory for the team.

After this success, I saw a completely different attitude among the students on the team because they had accomplished an important goal that they had set. I am so looking forward to playing with 5529 again as they are joining us in the Newton division.

So for every team out there, however successful or unsuccessful you have been so far in competition, set reasonable goals and try to accomplish those goals. When you accomplish your goals, you are victorious.

[KitsuneKeira]

So this year has been an amazing year for 4653.

We're a 3 year team, and for our rookie season, we did decent for a rookie team. We won Rookie Inspiration and Rookie All-Star, and we were pretty happy with that.

However, for our 2nd year, things didn't go too well. We had poor organization and, unfortunately, a relatively inefficient robot design. We only got picked for one elimination alliance out of our 3 event, which was eliminated at the Quarterfinals, and we didn't make it to the District Championship. It was my first year on the team, and such losses made me disappointing, and not really hopeful for future success.

However, 2015 would change that.
This year, we had a much better, more stable robot design, and with that, we were looking hopeful to our first competition, Mt. Olive.

At this District Event, we had trouble, and didn't get picked for an elimination alliance, ending up in the bottom 50% of teams in terms of QA.

At our second event, Bridgewater-Raritan, things were looking the same. While we finished 17th in terms of QA, we didn't look like we would be picked. That is until we were. By the 1st place alliance. Working with 1676 and 1403, some of the strongest teams at the event, we won the event. It was an amazing time for us; our first blue banner in the teams' history! As a driver myself, I was incredibly happy, as our team and drive team were able to show enough capabilities and skill to be reliable, to which we were picked. We were the supportive robot, obtaining and delivering RC's only, but it was what we were needed for, and what we did well. That victory also qualified us for the Mid-Atlantic Regional Championship.

At MAR Champs, we were very excited to compete, but not the most expectant to do too well. We thought our B-R performance was decent, but up against the top teams from MAR? Certainly we didn't expect much.

We would end up 20th in QA, and again we were shocked with a pick, this time the second place alliance of 1640 and 303 picking us for our ability to deliver RC's, and our canburgular. With them, we were the finalists at the MAR Championship.

After the awards ceremony, we would be stunned again. We qualified for the FIRST Championship! Our team's first trip to St. Louis!

This year has been amazing for our team, and for me personally. To see all our hard work pay off, and to be the driver for a team that I've come to enjoy. I see all my team-mates as great friends, and all the other teams I've worked with have been amazing, showing such kindness and enthusiasm as our team has.

Thanks to 1676, 1403, 303, and 1640: We had so much fun working with you.
See you all at St. Louis, we'll be cheering for you!