UFH: Raul Olivera

[Josh Hambright]

Congrats Raul!
Yourself and Wildstang have been an inspiration to myself since my frist great lakes regional. You are an amazing asset to first and have shared countless amounts of wisdom with all of us on here.

This is very well deserved. once again, congrats!

[Rich Kressly]

One of the first things I learned in FIRST was the name Wildstang .
"I wonder what Wildstang will build this year."
"That's all well and good, but you'll never get past Wildstang."
"Did you see what Wildstang does in autonomous? Crazy..."
"Wanna submit for the Inventor Award? Better see what Wildstang did last year."

All of that talk might leave some people thinking that the 111 Robot IS Wildstang. Just looking at the photo of Raul embracing his drive team members thankfully shows us all that people (just like any FIRST team) ARE Wilstang and Raul Olivera happens to be one of the very special people that make Wildstang a reality every year.

I've never met you personally Raul, but I always read what you say here and what others say about you. Your fierce dedication to 111 and to the student team members coupled with your generosity and willingness to help the entire FIRST community creates the type of changed culture that FIRST strives for. Thank you!

[Andy Grady]

To one of the greatest strategic minds in all of FIRST...congrats!

-Andy Grady

[Andy Baker]

Raul is long overdue for recognition. FIRST would not be the same without Raul, that is definite. Not only does he inspire Wildstang team members, but he challenges the rest of us to work hard in designing competitive robots.

I have so many great memories of Raul. We've had many late-night discussions where people would laugh at us because both of our voices were hoarse after long weekends at a FIRST competition.

I vividly remember the 2003 Championships when he stood on Wildstang's winged robot and lifted his arms in the air, finally grabbing the Championship that 111 worked so hard for all of these years.

On his UFH profile, he tells a bit of the story of the 1999 Nationals when he "pleaded" with me and the TechnoKats to pick them for an alliance. "Plead" was not quite the right word. Raul's negotiation tactics were quite straightforward. His "pleading" went something like this:

Raul: "Baker, hey, I need to talk to you. You guys are seeded 8th. Have you decided who to pick yet?"
Andy: "Well, we are just now going to meet and finalize our decision."
Raul: "Before you go, hear me out. You need to pick us."
Andy: "Ummm... ok... you guys are great, but I really don't know where things stand until I talk to our scouting team."
Raul: "Let me tell you why you need to pick us."
Andy: "OK... go ahead."
Raul: "If you don't pick us, we will beat you."
Andy: "Really? How so?"
Raul: "well... we would grab the pipe first, before you get to the puck... (yada, yada)"

<edit - we HAD a video of this conversation... I need to find it>

Raul goes on, in detail, with their strategy to beat us. In the end, he made much sense and we picked them when it came our time to pick.

To add to this story, we attended the 1999 Rumble at the Rock (the last one, sadly) and got picked by 126 for the finals. We had a pretty good alliance with our robot paired with a mobile Gael Force robot driven by Colleen Shaver. In the semi-finals, we were beat by the Wildstang-led alliance, just like the way Raul described they would. We saw it coming, knew their strategy, and they still beat us.

Way to go, Raul. Thanks for all that you do. Thanks for sticking with FIRST and inspiring countless students and engineers to work hard at making FIRST a great competition.

Andy B.

[Ken Patton]

Congratulations Raul!

It ain't just the students that are inspired by you.

I admire you and think of you as one of the legendary competitors in FIRST. Those of us who aspire to have competitive programs have you and your team as an example of creative, strategic, and technical excellence. Every year we KNOW you are going to be awesome, and it brings us up to try to compete. You and your team are imho a huge part of the "show" that makes FIRST tournaments such an awesome experience.

Do you know how people get nervous when they talk to someone "important?" That usually doesn't happen to me. But, there are some people, for some reason, that make me feel like a kid walking up to talk to a rock star. You are one of those people. Thanks for being a rock star.

Ken

[suneel112]

Congratulations, Raul! You definitely deserve this award.

Raul is very knowledgeable, a fun person to be around, and he never brags. He is one of the best engineers in FIRST, and I have been inspired by him (and by the stuff he helps design ).

[JVN]

Originally Posted by Ken Patton

It ain't just the students that are inspired by you.

Boy I'll say!

This is truly a well deserved honor. I'm one of those individuals truly inspired by the efforts of Raul (and all the other stangers). They always provide an example of what is "great" that we can all aspire to.

This past year at championship, I had a HS freshman who was particularly excited by FIRST and by the great robots of the competition (you know the type). During some downtime on Thursday evening, he asked me to take him down to the Archimedes Pits and walk him through "Murderer's Row" (if you saw it, you know what I mean) pointing out some of the great robots and people of FIRST. After walking around for a bit, we ended up standing in the Stang pit (surprise, surprise). Raul was there working on their robot with one other mentor (it was late, the pits were pretty empty). The cool thing was, we ended up giving him a hand. (Literally, we held the robot while they worked underneath). We were all joking around, and just having fun.

This HS student, to this day, talks about how exciting it was to be "Actually right there, holding the Wildstang robot and talking to Raul!". (He also loves his stang tiedye safetyglass straps).

To me, this experience just speaks bounds about the impact of team 111 and Raul Olivera himself. These guys in TieDye don't just inspire their own students.

Thank you Raul, for all you've done -- and all you continue to do.
John

PS - Keep building those pretty robots, and I'll love you forever.

[jonathan lall]

Congratulations Raul. Your FIRST savvy is to me visible everywhere, from your always-interesting (and more importantly, useful) posts on CD, to the genius of your robot every single year, to your ability to strategize on the spot.

Last year's elimination rounds, we had the opportunity to form an alliance with 111 and 65, and I remember as the three teams got together and hammered out a plan, you singlehandedly challenged our strategy and helped turn it around for the better. We would have been crushed first round had you not done that.

In one match, you encouraged us to use the 60-degree incline on the back of our robot (by no means a "wedge") to right your own robot which had been tipped, and make a valiant effort to take back control of that game. We managed it and came ridiculously close to winning. Again, it never occured to any of us.

This makes me conclude that you don't think like the rest of us, and this is always UFH-worthy. You can be our wingman anytime.

[Gary Dillard]

Y'know what I love about Raul - he doesn't act like a stereotypical "engineer". He's cool, laid back but still full of energy, always pleasant, just a great guy to be around. That's why he's so great for FIRST - what kid wouldn't want to grow up to be like him? And he definitely knows his stuff - his engineering insight is right on the mark, and the success of his team is proof of it.

It was great to hear the comments from people who have teamed with Raul and discussed his knowledge of strategy - c'mon buddy when do I get to share some of that? We're always up against you - have we ever been allied with you? I'm tired of the same old discussion at team meetings at competitions: "How do we beat Wildstang?". I don't even want to think about our record against you (although I do recall one victory, I'm sure you know which one; Fluffy still has the scratches on the wedge and I show them off all the time). Show a little love bro' - pick us for a partner just once

[Jeff Waegelin]

Congratulations, Raul! You are an amazing person, and an inspiration to us all. It was always a great experience to coach a match with or against you, and I'm glad I got a chance to at every event for the better part of two years