team cheers

[Chris is me]

As for fun team spirit moves (I don't know of any as I was in the stands for approximately 4 of my team's matches this year), one of my favorites has to be in Minnesota 10,000 Lakes. We'd been talking with one of Wave Robotics's mentors (I believe he was the son of one of ours, if I remember correctly) after Wisconsin about plans for 10,000 lakes. Basically, he said that he thought his team had a real shot at the Spirit Award, and that they were going to cheer twice as hard as at Wisconsin. So we decided in the happy spirit of coopetition to sit with them in the stands and cheer with them... to win the spirit award ourselves, hopefully

Then we got to the event, did the usual bounce back cheering "We've got spirit" louder than I've ever heard it , and had a great time relaxing and maxin' all cool with Wave. We even incorporated them into the "What's better than robotics?" cheer, with "What's better than a shark? A land shark!" (their robot's name for the year). It was a lot of fun chanting and screaming "17!" "14!" "28!" "26!" (later with the addition of "24!" "70!").

Then they picked us and we won the regional. Can't say I've ever cheered louder than that. Neither of us won the Spirit Award, but we didn't care; having fun was the reward. The funny thing is that with all of this cross cheering, a few people came up to me in the pits and asked if our teams collaborated (we haven't... yet?) or agreed to pick each other pre-event or something like that. (nope, though 2826 was personally #1 on my list of robots I've seen before) We just collaborated with cheering, and it seemed to work out in the end.

It's too bad I'll never get to coach with them again. But at least I'll get to cheer. :3