Team 217 - Thunderchickens

[tim-tim]

I have only had the honor of being at the same competition as the ThunderChickens once, Nationals in 2006. They were in the pit dirctly behind us through the curtain. I know we used them as a resource the entire weekend, and they never once hesitated to help.

They are a very well organized and run team from mentors and parents all the way to the students. I was never under the impression that they knew they were better than everybody else. All they did was help others. As someone said earlier, you look in the pits and all you see is that TC Green. That is who they are!

Yes they may have the luxury of not having to hand cut everything, but what is wrong with that? This gives something for other teams (like mine) to shoot for. It gives us motivation to go out and find that sponsor that is willing to produce our parts so we can have a "better" robot. I am using the term "better" loosely because the robot is only as good as the designers made it. So give them credit, they have good (very good) designs year in and year out. That is what we should be jealous about, the ability to analyze the game and figure out the "best" design. That is really the special skill. I don't care if you had all the money and all the material resources, that does not make up for an efficient and effective top caliber robot on a yearly basis.

To end, I would like to thank the ThunderChickens for all of their effort they give to teams year in and year out, and setting such high standards for other teams to shoot for!

-Tim