[moderated] pic: The 2006 NiagaraFIRST Triplets!

[Not2B]

Part 1 - Those look cool! It's similar to our design, just much more SMOOTH! Can't wait to see one/two/three - (not sure how many will be where I'll be.)

Part 2 - So... they pick a different engineering challange from most of us. Most teams have the challange of designing a robot alone... sealed off from the rest of the FIRST world. But we only have to make one bracket. One hopper. So we try some stuff out, make a prototype, get one working. Yeah for us. THEY have to get each part documented with enough info to make several copies. That's an engineering lesson on it's own. It's not bad/good - it's different. Just like Battlebots IQ - which is more of a durablity and materials selection type of engineering activity. In other words, a big SO WHAT!

Part 3 - I love having the triplets in FIRST! It's something different. Something we all know about. We all know 71 kicks butt. We all know that we have a team named for a south part snack food. And we have those wacky triplets, like the Del Rubio Triplets - but in robot form. It's just great.

Part 4 - Once upon a time I would have been upset about this - I was upset about engineer built machines, about teams building practice robots, blah blah blah... but after about 2-3 years, I started to come around. And after 5 years, I've come to realize the errors of my ways. It doesn't matter. Did YOUR team inspire students? Did YOUR actions help someone out? Don't feel too bad, everyone will get it in their own way and in their own time.