My thoughts of FIRST

[MechaJagEric]

This is our first year competing. I would have to say that this was one of the most enjoyable experiences of my teaching career. The students we had on our team loved the project. I never figured it would be so intense. We put about 3oo hours into our robot. I've never seen my students so involved with one project. Everything they talked about in class would involve some aspect of the robot. I plan to use the robot in my curriculum for next year. Does any other teacher on this board do this? If so, could you possibly email me to give an idea of what you do? jestoker723@yahoo.com

Once we got to our regional (Peachtree Regional) the meaning of gracious professionalism finally sunk in with my students. Everyone there were willing to help in any way they could. For example, we kept blowing the drill motors. We asked around for spare motors. The first team we asked graciously gave us one. Keep in mind we only asked one team. The next thing we knew, six different teams came over to our pits offering spare drill motors. I guess the word got around that we needed a motor. Also, we kept having problems with our robot not working. A FIRST volunteer that was working the playing field table came over and spent an hour with our team helping us fix the problem. We finally fixed the problem and our robot ran great. I never got the gentlemens name, but if read this thanks for helping team #1177 MECHA JAGS.

I have to say that there were some amazing robots at the Peachtree Regionals. I would like to give a special thank you to team 343. You helped more than you know. You were willing to help us with any problem we had. I couldn't believe the set-up you had. I've learned alot from this years competition and plan on competing again next year.

Oh Yeah, can you believe we made it into the quater finals. I was just hoping not to finish last. I believe we were were ranked in the top ten (42 teams total). Once again, thanks for everyones help and I hope to see you next year.