pic: Lone Star Winners

[Pjohn1959]

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[ginosoprano09]

Y'all made a great job against team #118.
...Im really impressed

[JaneYoung]

Congratulations to the finalists and to the 2008 regional winners of Lone Star!
Someone is going to have to fill me in on all the fun!

Looks like everything went very well in Katy, Texas!
Again, congratulations all!

Jane

[RoboGeek99]

We were one of the teams who made it to the Finals in that regional Rookie Team 2582, The PantherBots, and I would just like to say CONGRATULATIONS!! Y'all did awesome. I'm glad that if we had to lose it was to you guys. Y'all worked so great together and Im glad yall won

[James Tonthat]

I would like to thank you guys for all the congratulations. We had awesome alliance members that worked together very well and complimented each other really well to give us the win. See you guys in Atlanta!

[Pjohn1959]

We would like to thank team 1477 for having the confidence to pick us in the 1st round. You guys were solid all weekend. Team 57 (thanks Kevin), had an incredible hybrid mode. This gave us a great start to each of our matches.
This has been an dream year with a Chairmans, and now a regional robot win, we can't wait to go to Atlanta and see what is next.

[lynca]

Lone Star had some of the most competitive rookies this year.

2468 rookie all star
2582 made finals with 118 and rookie inspiration
2583 had a fantastic offensive robot, should have been picked for eliminations
2585 had a solid robot, should have been picked for eliminations
2587 won the website and judges award and made semis
2664 had a great fast robot

[gibbyrawr]

Pantherbots......
How do you mentor 40 teams with a team of 22 students?
We still dont get it.

[lynca]

Originally Posted by gibbyrawr

Pantherbots......
How do you mentor 40 teams with a team of 22 students?
We still dont get it.

Where did you get this information from ?

[ADHDassassin]

Originally Posted by Pjohn1959

We would like to thank team 1477 for having the confidence to pick us in the 1st round. You guys were solid all weekend. Team 57 (thanks Kevin), had an incredible hybrid mode. This gave us a great start to each of our matches.
This has been an dream year with a Chairmans, and now a regional robot win, we can't wait to go to Atlanta and see what is next.

It was our pleasure to pick team Kaos as our first pick and we couldn't have been more pleased with the results of picking team 57 as well. We thought that we picked the best two sleeper 'bots out there. Our scouts told us who to pick and who would have though that an alliance with robots that seeded 3rd, 14th, and 31st, could beat an alliance with #1 and #2

[roboticWanderor]

Originally Posted by ADHDassassin

It was our pleasure to pick team Kaos as our first pick and we couldn't have been more pleased with the results of picking team 57 as well. We thought that we picked the best two sleeper 'bots out there. Our scouts told us who to pick and who would have though that an alliance with robots that seeded 3rd, 14th, and 31st, could beat an alliance with #1 and #2

this goes to show the importance of good scouting. figuring out what teams compliment and fill in the gaps of your strategy are sometimes more important than pure scores. they did the exact same thing at Bayou as well, picking a strong shooter as their 1st pick and a competent lap bot as their 2nd.

[RoboGeek99]

I think that yall are confusing us (PantherBots) with Panther Robotics, 2 separate teams, i have no idea how they pulled it off b/c i know we couldnt have done that this year even if we tried, i mean seriously we were still putting finishing touches on our bot 2 hours b4 fed-ex arrived

[lynca]

Originally Posted by gibbyrawr

Pantherbots......
How do you mentor 40 teams with a team of 22 students?
We still dont get it.

Panther Robotics obtained a 2.5 Million Grant to help setup those 40 teams at the KC Regional , you can see the list of teams sponsored by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. They outlined their progress for those teams in the wrap up Chairman's after the Regional. See the details posted by Richard McClellan of 2158,

Originally Posted by richardmcc2

A little information about 1108:

* 97% of team alumni went to college
* 50% of their finances came from their community
* They only have 22 students on their team, and have still managed to accomplish incredible things
* They started the No Robot Left Behind (NRLB) program three years ago and their team members offer technical support and parts to all of the teams at the regional.
* They obtained a $2 million grant from the Ewing Marrion Kauffman Foundation! I wish we could find something like that.... They used the money to start 40 new FRC teams in the Kansas City area. Each team was given around $15,000 in their first year, $10,000 in the second year, $6000 in the third year, and then they were expected to have enough sustainability to find their own funding
* They held workshops for these 40 teams, not only technical, but also a practice Chairman's Award day, and gave all of these teams feedback on their presentations.
* They are trying to implement Project Lead the Way at their school
* They left the judges with a copy of their chairman's essay, a business card, and all of the posters that they used for the presentation.

Other helpful tidbits:

* 11 teams submitted entries at Lone Star this year (418, 499, 1108, 2158, 118, 922, and a few others)
* The Chairman's Award winner is chosen based on your essay submission February 19th, the 10 minute interview, and whatever additional documents you give them during the interview. The judges that walk around the pits are only judging the other awards, not Chairman's.
* Biggest advice for the essay - Be more specific. Instead of "We mentored 2 teams," say how you did things, include names of schools, quantify hours of help provided and number of people helping.
* It is important to distinguish between what was done this year, and what was done last year.
* Presenters should be absolutely comfortable presenting - get students from speech and debate.
* Don't rush through the presentation - make sure to focus and emphasize your key points.

922 has also done a fantastic job outlining their community impact on their website. 922 also posted their Chairman's submission.

I hope 418, 499, 2158, 118, also post their Chairman's work so all the other teams can grasp the impact on their community.

[Danny Diaz]

Originally Posted by lynca

Panther Robotics obtained a 2.5 Million Grant to help setup those 40 teams at the KC Regional , you can see the list of teams sponsored by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. They outlined their progress for those teams in the wrap up Chairman's after the Regional.

Yeah, 1108 made this very clear during the discussion at the Chairman's recap. I did feel bad for their lead spokesperson during the recap, though, after the rigorous badgering they took from a certain mentor/coach from a past winning Chairman's team. I personally felt someone wasn't showing any graciousness in losing with the types of questions that were being asked - or more it may not have been with the questions per se, but the way they were asked.

I'm not so sure the Chairman's recap meeting was originally designed to be a Chairman's Defense meeting, but that's what it turned into - I'm not so sure Chairman's winners will be so willing to come in and present to the group if they are going to be pestered and badgered. Asking questions about how they were as successful as they were in an attempt to gain knowledge is one thing, but asking questions to cause them to defend positions or remarks is completely different.

-Danny

[jayjaywalker3]

What is the Chairman's recap meeting?