An FRC Family Tree...

[dodar]

Our team spawned a team thats in Arizona now(sorry i dont remember the number/name) when a mentor split off and i would also like to know the origins of the pink team lol

[dtengineering]

Originally Posted by Karthik

If you were to trace the lineage of any Canadian team outside of Quebec, every team would lead back to 188.

While I agree with the spirit of the statement, and don't want to understate the impact that 188 and, in particular, the Breadners, have had on the development of FRC in Canada, I know of at least two teams here in BC that wouldn't trace their lineage back to 188.

1570, for instance, although on hiatus this year, competed for years in the Canada First Robotics competition before switching to FRC when that competition folded.

2273, which competed in 2007 and 2008, got their start in the Skills Canada competition and managed all their fundraising and organization locally. Although we (1346) were able to assist them in their rookie year and encourage them a bit, they would have done it with or without us. As far as I know they are the only Canadian team to have never competed in Canada.

And honestly, while Mark Breadner made a visit to our school to pitch FRC in the spring before we joined, put us in touch with the great folks at 1241 who billeted us our first two years in Toronto, and helped us find the final bit of sponsorship to get out to Toronto in our first year, we had no idea that there was even a team called 188 until we got to the then Canadian Regional. The deciding factor in the formation of our team was one of our students attending Shad Valley (a summer program for gifted students) and after spending a summer with students who had competed in the Canada First Robotics Competition (not FRC), coming back here and convincing the rest of us that we should build "a robot big enough to chase grade 8's down the hallway", as a follow up to the autonomous mini-sumos we had built the previous year and in place of the Electrathon race cars we had been building for years before that.

So I don't want to undermine the spirt of the statement, or downplay the impact that 188 has had... I think every Canadian team could make a two or three degree of seperation link to 188, but some team lineages predate the existence of FRC in Canada, and others clearly trace their lineages to the Skills Canada competition.

Jason

Now, if you're only talking about currently active teams... then the statement might be fairly correct given that 1570 and 2273 aren't competing this year.

[waialua359]

Hawaii got into it fairly early as the Cheesy Poofs (formerly as Broadway HS) brought their rookie robot to Hawaii with Jason Morella as their teacher.
2 Hawaii teams were formed in 1999. 359, then 368. We were both selected because of our success in doing electric vehicles back in the day. Last season was finally our last year in doing it nationally in Portland and New Hampshire.
Personally, I got involved from the beginning, but only as a construction team mentor. I took over as lead person in 2003, the birth of our long term sustainability plan.

Another Hawaii team 636 was formed, but then dissolved, only to come back as 2477.

[Akash Rastogi]

Team 11- No mentor teams back in '96-'97 Although our team founder was heavily influenced by Bill Beatty I'm told. One of our first engineers in 1998 came from team 13 (our bad joojoo comes from this?)

In 1997 we were team 8

Started/Helped start/mentored(excluding EWCP)- 41, 522, 555, 637, 714, 1302, 1676 (11+25), 1881, 2458, 2554(started by 25's Brunswick Eruption and 1089, mentored by us), 3142, 3231

The most well known alumni of ours are those crazy kids running 125 in Boston.

In NJ the most critical teams have been 11, 25, 75, and 303 it seems.

Team 75 started the J&J family (1403, 2016) and 25 started the BMS family.

[Mark McLeod]

I posit that a strong FIRST community requires the eventual development of a cross-linking, circular support web, where as team strengths wax and wain they help others and in their turn receive help themselves.

While I'm sure it's fun to say how many "children" you've spun off, a stronger relationship ensues when the "child" becomes a partner and a certain amount of give and take occurs.

As far as the FRC family tree, I found that it becomes a meaningless morass fairly quickly if you consider the tiniest contact between teams, alumni, ex-mentors, to qualify as having parented or spun off a team. For one it's very hard to document and track such things except through personal accounts.

Also, one team hosting a new shadow team that then becomes a rookie is a much stronger tie than simply adopting a rookie by visiting them a half dozen times during the build season. Actually registering a new team is a much, much stronger connection than lending them a mentor or two.