Top 3 Days in your Team's History

[dlavery]

May 1997: Amy F. became the first student from our team to receive an intern appointment at NASA. This was followed by NASA support for her grad school and her current pursuit of a PhD in astrophysics. Amy establishes the groundwork for other students to become NASA interns based on their FIRST team experience.

April 2000: The first time a student on the team states that his experience with the team was the causal factor for him to get cleaned up and able to deal with severe substance abuse problems.

March 2003: a father that has been helping with the team tells us how the ability to work on the robot with his son has changed them both. They see and appreciate each other in new ways, and their relationship has been significantly expanded and strengthened.

May 2004: Alisha W., an alumnus of our team, is assigned as the FIRST Israel Regional Director and begins working to bring the program to the Middle East. After an enormous amount of work, this is followed the next year by the FIRST Israel regional competition, with 12 new Israeli teams and a brand new set of relationships between FIRST, GM, The Technion, NASA, The Ministry of Science and Technology, the U.S. and Israel.


FIRST is about so much more than the competitions. With all due respect to the posts above, if the very best days of every team are defined just by the opportunities to collect plastic trophies, then we need to think again about what we have accomplished. I bet with a little more thought, we can focus on the things that are really important - the future careers created, the lives improved, and changes made to our society and culture. The competition events are just momentary celebrations of what we do. The real work - and real effect - takes place before and after the competitions. And that is where the important stuff happens.

-dave

[Rich Kressly]

Thanks Dave for reminding us all of why we are here (and making me feel six inches tall). I deleted my previous post and, now with proper focus, I'll try again ...

There's no way I can narrow this down to three days/occurances, but I will dig up a borderline ancient thread:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4028

Rob is studying Engineering Technology at Penn State University. Pat is at John's Hopkins, has already been hanging out in graduate labs, and is talking about a PhD in Public Health. Kathryn is at RPI (a Rensselear Medalist) with a major so complex I can't spell or pronounce it. Allison is at Ursinus College as a Steinbright Scholar studying Business and Education.

The graduating class of 2004 from Team 103 wound up at places like Tufts, St. Joseph's, and RPI. Last I heard current senior members of 103 are headed for incredible futures at places like Penn State, Carnegie Mellon, Boston University, Drexel, the list goes on.

At my current teaching job, just the promise of a FIRST team next year has increased one student's motivation and grade point average. His mother has thanked me profusely already and he has binders filled with programming and other FIRST information.

Awards are nice, really nice. I carry a letter from a former team member with me everywhere I go. When I think I'm too tired to "do FIRST" anymore and feel like the strain isn't worth it, I read the letter. The medals hang on the wall, but they are certainly not the reason I keep coming back.

Did I say, "Thanks," yet Dave?

[Kit Gerhart]

For Team 233, my present team. Caveat--I wasn't with the team for some of of the events on my list, so other's opinions may vary from mine.

Championship 2002--winning the division
Florida regional 2005--being top qualifier and winning regional
NYC 2004--going through the entire event undefeated


For Team 45 which I was with for 7 years.

Championship 1998--winning the Big Event the last year before alliances
Great Lakes regional 1998--finishing second after two "award-less" years
Midwest regional 2002--regional Chairman's Award

There have also been a number of less clearly defined "days in the teams' history" which are very significant, such as learning that team members have been admitted to MIT and have won major scholarships.

[jagman2882]

Im gonna have to dissagree with u alex!

1. Going undefeated at nationals and winning divisional title in 2004

2. Winning at Buckeye in 2003 as a rookie team

3. Repeating as champs at Buckeye in 2004

[Robotics Dude]

the top three days in team 311 history


2002 Long Island Regional- Chairmans Award Winner
2002 Nationals-Einstein Champions and National Runners Up
2004 Long Island Regional- Regional Champions, Engineering Award , Imagery Award.

[Bcahn836]

2003 Chesapeake regional, we seeded like 3rd finished 2nd and won i think leadership and control award for programming.



However we are looking to change that this week. 2005 Chesapeake regional

[team1611]

considering we are a rookie team...

1. 2005- the day we recieved the NASA grant

2. 2005- winning the highest seeded rookie award by finishing 5th after qualifying and 4th overall

3. 2005- being alliance captain and making it to the semifinals in our rookie year

p.s.- #'s 2 and 3 are from the same day.... but i couldnt think of a number 3... so there you go.

[killerofkiller]

im not to sure for 180 but here's my guess
2002 - Finalists in Einstien Division
2004 - 7-0 at nationals seated number 2
2002 - winning KSC Regional

[Anthony Kesich]

1. Winning Engineering Inspiration Award in 2004 as a Sophomore Team (And loosing Chairman's to the always Qualified De Anda)

2. Going Undefeated at Sacramento/UC Davis Regional after putting the bot on the field for the first time Friday morning

3. Having someone walk up to us after the Sacramento Regional in 2004 and Offer us a spot at Cal Games, telling us that they invite "all the big hitters." Yaaa! We're big boys now!

-Tony K

[activemx]

- 2004 Seeing Ted Shinta (My mentor) walking down the steps to receive the woody flower award.
- 2004 When we were the 8th alliance and i made a last mintue decision to drop all the scouted teams an pick our mentees. We picked Harker 1072 and Homsted robotics 670 as our alliance partner. It was the best feeling and decision i had made as an alliance captain.
- The team dinner and after party at pizza hut after MVRTs successfull run in 2003.

[TheShadow]

As far as I know, I'd have to say:
Winning Nationals in 2002,
Winning GLR in 2004,
and Winning GLR again last weekend

[Calvin]

We won the Sportsmanship Award by helping out team 1432 a team that came with basically no robot and we had them working in 4 hours.

That is not true; we did indeed have a robot. We came in 5th place in practice rounds. During the long practices our wheels got rubbed down to the plastic. A member in our team without telling us incorrectly replaced one of the wheels. In the first qualifying match, our robot was hit hard and that screwed up the Chassis.

So with the help of one member (plus his father I think; who showed up for a few seconds) from your team, we were able to open the gear box and set the gears back in to place.

[Nate Edwards]

Originally Posted by Calvin

That is not true; we did indeed have a robot. We came in 5th place in practice rounds. During the long practices our wheels got rubbed down to the plastic. A member in our team without telling us incorrectly replaced one of the wheels. In the first qualifying match, our robot was hit hard and that screwed up the Chassis.

So with the help of one member (plus his father I think; who showed up for a few seconds) from your team, we were able to open the gear box and set the gears back in to place.

sorry if this was misunderstood, I was talking about last years team, I think you are talking about what you did this year. You guys were well improved and performed well at the competition. Sorry for the confusion I was talking about the 2004 team, not this years 2005 team. We are glad that we have been able to continue a partnership with your team and hope to do so in the future. Sorry again.

Nate Edwards

[neilsonster]

I'm hardly a veteran on our team, considering this is my first and last year as a student on the team, but I know the history fairly well and I'll take a stab at it. (I think only two other people on the team even have a CD account anyways)

1. Being Finalists at this year's Finger Lakes Regional (and winning our first award ever in four years the day before, which was the Website Award)
2. Making it to the Semi-Finals at the 2004 Canadian Regional
3. Going to our first regional ever as rookies in 2002 (Canadian Regional), and getting the school hooked on robotics for life

[Calvin]

Originally Posted by Nate Edwards

sorry if this was misunderstood, I was talking about last years team, I think you are talking about what you did this year. You guys were well improved and performed well at the competition. Sorry for the confusion I was talking about the 2004 team, not this years 2005 team. We are glad that we have been able to continue a partnership with your team and hope to do so in the future. Sorry again.

LOL, ok I'm sorry... it's my fault

I'm having trouble remembering that it's 2005 already.