oldest team?

[gondorf]

what surviving team is oldest? i mean i know that they used to switch numbers every year so what team was actually the oldest?

and btw welcome to the 2007 robotics season and good luck to all.

[AdamHeard]

I know a few teams from '92 are still around.

I'm thinking Gael Force and the XOX cats...

[Jeff K.]

Don't forget about WPI's Team 190, Gompei and the Herd

[Greg Marra]

As always, the FIRST Wiki is full of useful information. I direct you to Index of teams by age.

FIRSTwiki suggests that all of these teams are about tied for oldest, having survived since 1992:

• 20 (The Rocketeers)
• 45 (TechnoKats Robotics Team)
• 126 (Gael Force)
• 151 (Tough Techs)
• 190 (Gompei and the H.E.R.D)
• 191 (The X-Cats)

[KenWittlief]

when DK was pitching the idea for FIRST to several corporate leaders (back in '91?) I heard the CEO of Xerox ( Paul Allaire) agreed to the idea immediately.

I guess this is splitting hairs down to minutes or seconds, but I think Xerox was the first company to 'sign up' for the program.

[Schnabel]

Out of the 28 team that competed in '92, only 7 remain and yes, the TechnoKats have been there from the start!

[Dan Petrovic]

Originally Posted by Greg Marra

• 151 (Tough Techs)

151's high school has had a team since 1992, but I believe they separated and reformed before 1995... or something... I'm not entirely sure.
The FIRST website says that their rookie year was 1995.

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by gondorf

what surviving team is oldest? i mean i know that they used to switch numbers every year so what team was actually the oldest?

and btw welcome to the 2007 robotics season and good luck to all.

Before 1998 you were assigned a number based on an alphabetized list of teams by sponsor. These numbers changed yearly. This is why the X-Cats, although being around in 1992 is team 191 (Xerox comes late in the alphabet). The numbers assigned in 1998 remained, and after that teams were assigned numbers in the order they signed up, giving us the scheme we have today. At the time of the Great Renumbering (1998) there were just under 200 teams, as such only the original 200 teams have funky numbers. This is why the current team #7 didn't win the Chairman's Award, but another team #7 did (has anyone ever figured out what happened to them anyways?). Also, it's interesting to note that some teams where around early on and then died again until later. Wildstang (111) is an example of this.

[Chris]

Originally Posted by InfernoX14

151's high school has had a team since 1992, but I believe they separated and reformed before 1995... or something... I'm not entirely sure.
The FIRST website says that their rookie year was 1995.

Nashua High School Competed in 1992 paired with a company called Ferro-fluidics.

In 1993 they paired with their current sponsor who has gone through numerous name changes (Sanders, Lockheed Martin Sanders, and now BAE Systems) and have been around ever since.

I never understood why the first site lists them as 1995 rookies, if you note they won the nationals chairmans award that year...which probably wouldn't have happened if they were in fact a first year team at the time.

Chris C
Proud 151/229 Alumni

[Adam Richards]

Originally Posted by Chris

Nashua High School Competed in 1992 paired with a company called Ferro-fluidics.

In 1993 they paired with their current sponsor who has gone through numerous name changes (Sanders, Lockheed Martin Sanders, and now BAE Systems) and have been around ever since.

I never understood why the first site lists them as 1995 rookies, if you note they won the nationals chairmans award that year...which probably wouldn't have happened if they were in fact a first year team at the time.

Chris C
Proud 151/229 Alumni

If I'm not mistaken, wouldn't their sponsor name changes dictate a "new" team under the old system, since their relative position in the numbers changed?

[KenWittlief]

Originally Posted by Adam Richards

If I'm not mistaken, wouldn't their sponsor name changes dictate a "new" team under the old system, since their relative position in the numbers changed?

I think its up to the team. If a HS gets a new sponsor, that company may not want to keep the old team number, and be associated with the old sponsor

or the old sponsor may not want the team to keep the old number.

A team is the HS, the sponsor, and the the mentors who are not attached to either of those two. Depending on the balance of the team, getting a new sponsor may mean you have all new (rookie) mentors, or it may only mean there is a different company name on the checks that pay your bills.

So, in one sense, if a HS had a team in '92 but has changed sponsors, then its still the same team, but not really.

I hope this clears things up [°'°]