Your Best FIRST Experience

[Lisa Perez]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

I'm glad a best thread got sarted but I think we should restrict it to anything except awards because that might be most team's best experience.

Yeah. Good idea.

My best experience: The team unity that we had that year . And the way we were able to overcome differences this year.

[AsimC]

My best FIRST experience has to be this year, my senior year on the team. I was chosen as team leader and my job was to make sure the team succeeded in their goals. One specific experience that i thought was great was when our team mentored a rookie team and I was there to guide them. Its an awesome feeling seeing people look up to you. Also, as team leader, i was in charge of the chairmans award, our first year applying for it, as well as the Woodie Flowers award, which me and 3 other ppl wrote together. Then at regionals, it all came together. First, on friday, the rookie team we mentored won the Rookie Inspiration Award, followed by our mentor for which we wrote the essay, won the Woodie Flowers Award. The next day, our robot placed third overall, and then the rookie team we mentored won the Rookie All-Star award AND the Rookie Highest Seed award, in total, they won ALL 3 rookie awards. And lastly as the competition ended, we won the Chairmans award. Those three days were absolutely unbelievable.

[Koko Ed]

My favorite moment was the second day at the 2003 Buckeye regional when all of the Rochester teams started screaming out their Rochester New York chant.
That was fun.

[Sean Schuff]

Great thread! I'm sure everyone has many great experiences to contribute.

My best FIRST experience happens once a year at the same time. During our team's end of the year banquet students present letters to the mentors on the team. Each student writes letters to those mentors who have impacted them the most throughout the last several years. Every year I go home with the letters they've written to me and I can't help but get a little misty when I read them. To read about the impact I have had on these students and the fact that it is from them personally makes these letters the highlight of my season every season.

Thanks to all the students from team 93 who have written such moving letters. YOU are why I do this FIRST thing year after year!

Sean
AKA Schuff-man

[spears312]

For me its a bit of a hard pick for my best FIRST experience (and Ive only been at it for a year ), but its either going out and watching the robot being built and helping out where I could, or its was the first practice game of the FL regionals (in which my team was in). I was just amazed at how much excitment there was and how cool it was to watch all the robots and see how they all played the game.
But thats just so far, I think there are plenty of more great first experiences to come.

[Joshua May]

Mine would have to be last year, during our first match as we were allied with 696 at SoCal. We tipped both of the opposing robots, and got the best score of the day and held first place for some two hours. Just the adrenaline rush when we tipped those robots was awesome enough to make it my best experience.

[sanddrag]

Originally Posted by HHSJosh

Mine would have to be last year, during our first match as we were allied with 696 at SoCal. We tipped both of the opposing robots, and got the best score of the day and held first place for some two hours. Just the adrenaline rush when we tipped those robots was awesome enough to make it my best experience.

Hey, that's totally awesome. I remember that match. We had done some serious flipping in Phoenix but it was cool when we took both 'em down in our first match. Thanks for being allies. It really was a great feeling when each of us held first place for a while. Other team's were just swarming our pits weren't they.

[Joshua May]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

Hey, that's totally awesome. I remember that match. We had done some serious flipping in Phoenix but it was cool when we took both 'em down in our first match. Thanks for being allies. It really was a great feeling when each of us held first place for a while. Other team's were just swarming our pits weren't they.

Yeah, that was great. Were you in the drive crew or did you watch from the stands? I was the Human Player then.

[Billfred]

Personally, my favorite one was during Palmetto. It was our seventh match, and we were paired with (looks) 271 against 168 and 1319 (at the time, the #1 seed. They also won top rookie seed). This match went down right after we took off our arm, which wasn't doing us much good. I don't know how the guys did it, but they pulled off an 80-30 upset. (It also gave birth to the catch-phrase "Team 1293: Armless, not harmless!") The buzz lasted exactly ten matches, until we were defeated again by 393 and 780. (That match, we were paired with the RoboCards, who became the top seed. Funny how that happens, huh?)

[#1Transgirl1140]

It's hard to narrow it down to one best experiance. This was my first year in robotics, my teams second year.The whole season was awsome. My first regional, Detriot, was crazy. We drove to Wayne State everyday from our school wich was about an hour away. I didn't do much at that regional because I was just trying to adjust to the FIRST compition atmosphere. Grand Rapids was a different story. Our transmissions broke down so many times, the people in the machine shop knew who i was. In case you didn't know, we have a plantary gear system transmission, it has two moters a bosch and cim, the cim is our main and when the bosch is kicked in, we're fast Anyway, this past year has been a great experiance

[KathieK]

My best FIRST experience? There are a lot... Watching the webcast of our team winning the Championships at Epcot in 2002 (and wishing I was there!)... riding a Segway for the first time at Bash at the Beach in 2003... hearing our essay "All I Ever Needed to Know I Learned in FIRST" being read aloud by the emcee at the Mid-Atlantic Regional in 2004... receiving a really nice thank-you card from the Chairman's Award committee that I mentored at the UTC New England Regional in 2004... and recently, starting FIRST NEMO so that mentors like myself can share ideas with each other... but the absolute BEST FIRST experience I get comes every year when I see the impact of the FIRST program on our students. That's priceless!

[Will Hanashiro]

its so hard to pick one experiance which i would call the best. the whole FIRST experiance has been great. ceremonies in orlando, with that wonderful corus singing all the national anthems... before releasing the doves; running thorugh epcot trying to make it back in time for our next match; walking out on mandy moore to go to the party; getting cramps in my leg from the ramps in houston; winning regionals... getting awards; moon bounces at regional parties; hypnotists; ypsilanti, grand rapids, pittsburgh, orlando, houston, atlanta;

all of these memories, along with the time spent building the robot itself, all come together to create an experiances that only FIRST can provide.

[MrToast]

Any time the robot broke and I got to fix it was the best FIRST experience. It's really awe inspiring how some guys you've known for about 10 minutes that come from halfway across the country will bend over backwards to help you get your robot fixed. Absolutely incredible!

For example, during the semifinals of BattleCry 5, the clutch on one of our drill motors broke and we would've been out of commission if 1027 hadn't graciously donated us a new drill motor. Talk about GP! We had about 20 minutes to our next match, and we were able to get the old drill out, take it apart, install the new clutch, and get it back together in time for the next match! Many hands make light work and close quarters in a robot. But all that aside, I love plunging my hands into the innards of a robot in order to improve it and make a truly competitive machine. It gives me a feeling of power knowing that the fate of the matches rests in the repairs my hands make.

Dude, I love FIRST.

MrToast

[Almaster]

I experience one of my best FIRST Experiences at the SO CAL regional this past weekend. Due to a lot of different things team 22 was in a big whole on Thursday and Friday!!! everything that could go wrong went wrong at the regional. we basically had to do our robot from scratch! well anyways, every time we needed something within 30 seconds we would have at least 10 teams at our pit ready to help or offer what they had!! then finally when we got on the field on Saturday we got a standing ovation, i felt the love and gracious Professionalism from every team there!!

all i could say is THANK YOU TO ALL THOSE THAT HELPED!!!!

SPECIAL THANKS TO TEAM 599 and 330 who Showed us why they are both soo superior in FIRST!!!!

-team 22

[bbguy5]

Probably becoming friends with Baxter bomb squad and road tripping it from chicago to mountain home for spring break in 2001. Or at the GLR making a half court shot in 2001, or being on stage at florida in front of all those people. FIRST was definitley the best time I ever had in HS.