Here's to those who can't make it

[BlueOrion]

Personally, as well as from our entire team, 272 should be going to nat'ls. They truly deserve it, especially this year, having won Chairmans at Pittsburgh, #1 seed and Semi-Finalists at Philly, and Frank Larkin winning Woodie Flowers at Pittsburgh as well...if I could make it happen, they would definitely be going. I'm almost willing to give up my spot to let at least one person go for their team to try and win Nat'l Chairmans...I would do that if I felt I didn't deserve to go myself, but I've put so many hours in, I'm going. It's nat'ls!

[Meredith Rice]

Man, it is such a disappointment not going this year We finished off the year great at Palmetto, but that makes me want to go even more since we finally became competative not doing so well at our first regional in Philly. But alas, we did not get the win and therefore didnt qualify.

I am still trying to convince my dad to let me go down to Atlanta to volunteer but he believes it is a waste of time an money. Is anyone going down with out a team just to volunteer. It definately is not the same as competing, but just to be there would be awesome.

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by Fireboidsgrl

Man, it is such a disappointment not going this year We finished off the year great at Palmetto, but that makes me want to go even more since we finally became competative not doing so well at our first regional in Philly. But alas, we did not get the win and therefore didnt qualify.

I am still trying to convince my dad to let me go down to Atlanta to volunteer but he believes it is a waste of time an money. Is anyone going down with out a team just to volunteer. It definately is not the same as competing, but just to be there would be awesome.

I swear, I didn't tip the Firebirds off to my plan at Palmetto. Because that's exactly what I'm doing.

Team queuing on Thursday (the email said you had to be able to take control of a situation--got that), field reset on Friday, and Saturday I'm doing crowd control with NASA's replica Mars rover.

Originally Posted by me, in my email saying I'd help on Saturday (which I wasn't scheduled to do at first)

Sure. People say I'm a little spaced-out anyway.

(Note: If little green men start coming out of it, I will demonstrate the only time in the history of FIRST Frenzy: Raising the Bar that an object has hung from the bar in autonomous mode--me!)

They can't wait to meet me.

[IMDWalrus]

At the beginning of the year, we were told that we'd have to win at one of our two regionals (Detroit and Palmetto) to make it to Nationals.

We lost in the quarterfinals at both regionals.

I'm disappointed that we won't be going to Atlanta, but this year was actually a better experience for me than 2003 was. I learned quite a bit more this year - a direct result of being moved to the Programming team. I've made some great friends on the team, at least one of whom I can easily see remaining friends with for years to come. I've finally demonstrated that Gracious Professionalism is part of my life now - I spent most of Palmetto with 507, helping them to get their robot running and improving on it once it began working correctly.

We had our small victories - seeing our robot (finally!) hang in a match in Palmetto and picking our alliance for the first time in the team's history spring to mind. We've also got our one huge accomplishment - winning the Sportsmanship award at Palmetto.

The year was great, and going to Atlanta would have been a great way to cap it off. Still...I've got one year left with 818. I'm hoping for the best for next year.