pic: All NASA Teams - 1997

[dlavery]

A total of 155 teams competed in the 1997 FIRST competition, and the highest team number was 155 (Motorola Inc. & Camelback High School - Phoenix, AZ).* Team numbers were assigned in 1997 primarily based on the alphabetical order of the team names, using the convention of "corporate sponsor name(s) / school name(s)" to determine precedence. This explains, for example, why there is a contiguous block of "NASA & xxx High School" teams with numbers 83-92 (which later became 114-122, except for Team 121 "Naval Undersea Warfare Center & Middletown High School" which got dropped in the middle because someone didn't know that "S" comes before "V"). There were a few minor variations due to some late registrations. As late teams registered, they were dropped into the "holes" in the numbering scheme, rather than being incrementally added to the end of the list.

A total of 199 teams competed in the 1998 FIRST competition, and the highest team number was 206 (MASSPEP, Inc./Boston Edison/Boston University & John D. Bryant School of Math & Science - Roxbury, MA).** Team numbers were reassigned in 1998, again primarily based on alphabetical order of the team names. Late registrants were tacked on to the end of the list (primarily team numbers 192-206). Most team numbers were frozen at that point, and carried forward into future years. As new teams registered, they were just added incrementally to the end of the list.

A total of 269 teams competed in the 1999 FIRST competition, and the highest team number was 336 (Robotics International - Chapter #303/Best Software & South Lakes High School - Reston VA [coincidently, this was one of the spin-off teams from Team 116, which moved from South Lakes HS to Herndon High School that year]). **

It is correct that in general teams kept their 1998 team numbers from that year forward. However, there were about a dozen exceptions to that rule. According to FIRST, some teams were renumbered between 1998 and 1999 because there was some uncertainty about team sponsors, school participation, physical location and/or contact information with some of the teams. FIRST included Team 82-330 in that set. But in their records, they considered the renumbered teams to be the "same team" (i.e. considered a veteran team, and not counted as a new rookie team).**** On that basis, I would make the case that Team 61-82-330 is the same team.

What any of this has to do with the original question of "which teams are in the photo?" I am not sure, but going through the history was fun!

-dave

* source: 1997 FIRST Annual Report, and 1997 FIRST Competition Program
** source: 1998 FIRST Annual Report, 1998 FIRST Web Site, 1998 FIRST Competition Program, and 1998 Executive Director's Presentation to the FIRST Board of Directors
*** source: 1999 FIRST Annual Report, 1999 FIRST Web Site
**** source: 1999 Executive Director's Presentation to the FIRST Board of Directors