pic: The Rock Paper Scissors Challenge

[J Flex 188]

Judging by everyone's reactions, it seems that this off-season event has had a bit of an unexpected twist. With some big names from the CD and FIRST community coming up to Canada to witness how we do things, I think we may have gone and stirred up the pot on our border relations, and made everyone much more aware of the friendliness and commonality our two countries share. Extending outwards from Robotics, the unique relationship that FIRST provides is probably exuded by the friendship that 1114 and 48 now enjoy, which would be an ideal political model for our two countries.

Team 48 always bring their 'A' game to the table, and we are always on the lookout on CD for those first few teaser pictures, and are blown away with what we see usually. Friendly members, a competitive but gracious atmosphere and a genuine tenacity for the game brings respect for 48 from everyone, including 188 =).

Humble thanks to everyone who came from everywhere to help volunteer at this event, honestly saying that 188 thoroughly enjoyed their time there and is looking forward to another great season, after a bit of a break from Karthik's singing =P.

Suffice it to say, we Canadians are a friendly lot, poking fun at each other whenever and wherever we find ourselves, in the US or Canada =D

and, i think all the 188 members would like to take up that invitation

[Karthik]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Lall

That being said, 1241 and 1114 murdered everyone at that competition. The two best Canadian teams have three years of existence between them. Think about that.

Well, yes and no. 1114 may only be in their second year, but when they added myself and Ian this year, they gained a combined 12 years of experience. That being said, it's exciting that there are so many young up and coming Canadian teams. The young crop of 1006, 1114, 1241 and 1305 along with veterans like 188 and 610 should help Canada move into these regional battles in years to come. (Lookout all you trash talking midwesterners and noreasters, we're coming to get ya)

Originally Posted by J Flex 188

Extending outwards from Robotics, the unique relationship that FIRST provides is probably exuded by the friendship that 1114 and 48 now enjoy, which would be an ideal political model for our two countries.

I'd like to elaborate on this. The relationship between 1114 and 48 is something that could probably only happen in FIRST. Here's the story. During the Pittsburgh regional, we went up aganst 48 in a hard fought match. 48's arm wasn't working, so they knew their best shot at victory was to keep us from capping or hanging. We realized this was their strategy, so we decided to go straight for the bar. Once autonomous mode ended, 48 came straight after us. Despite us strafing away from them once, 48 ended up catching us. In this process the accidently drove up on top of our control system, and bent our arm very badly.

At this point we thought our competition was over, especially since we left the second arm in St. Catharines. (We almost had it couriered to Pittsburgh, but then realized we wouldn't have the time to completely disassemble it, then rebuild it again) Normally after a match like this you would expect our team to be irate. But most members realized that 48 had employed a perfectly legitimate strategy, and any damage was unintentional. There was a large outcry from other teams at the event, who came to me saying "I can't believe what they did to you, are you going to complain?" One person even went to the refs and filed an official complaint about 48's rough play.

But here's the thing, when we got back to the pit, what were we greeted by? 8 members of team 48 who came over and offered to fix our arm. Despite the fact that their robot needed considerable work as well, they were willing to give up their time to help us. I was flabbergasted.

With 48's help we were able to get our arm back in working order. By Saturday we were in top form, and ended up as regional finalists. But the highlight of the weekend wasn't the trophy or the medals, rather it was the friendships created by the chaos in that match.

Where else can you find something like this. Normally an incident like this would cause bad blood and heated rivalries that would last for years. Not in FIRST, here it created a beautiful relationship.

This special relationship we made with team 48 was definitely the highlight of mine and my team's season. Just telling this story puts a huge grin on my face. This is why I love FIRST. I mean really, where else do you hear about stuff like this. Hollywood couldn't come up with a script this good.