Favorite FIRST Memories

[web_master_dpep]

This can be anything you want, if it was at a competition, during build season, off season, anything FIRST. I'll start it off.
My favorite memory was two years ago at Wayne State when my team Chairman's. Me and another member had worked hard on it every day after build until at least ten. When we won, our coach, me, and the other two presantors huddled together and said our "good jobs" then when our team saw it they looked at us giving us a round of applause. It was the best thing that could happen. We had won safety and the competition that year but Chairman's was all that I wanted.

[Zuelu562]

Last year, my mom (one of our lead non-technical mentors) and my dad (a half-technical mentor) joined the team. At the BAE Granite State Regional I watched as my parents were awestruck by both the scale and the "odd" occurrences at the "competition". Saturday I grabbed my mom and said "Now you see why I love robotics."

We didn't do nearly as well as we had expected in the very beginning, but better than we expected after ship. Either way, last year was fun.

[kwojcik]

Laying down between Galileo and Einstein after we lost in the Galileo finals in 09 just happy that all the stress was gone and knowing my 1000 hours of work during the year was worth it.

[varun1718]

I remember being in the Pit trying to fix programming issues, sipping energy drink and the next thing I know I'm wearing my team's mascot costume and running around like a 5-year old.

[treffk]

At the GKC regional we always have FLL kids come and run a mini-rumble. The greatest thing was last year while I was helping with it, watching the FLL students explain to curious FRC students about what they do. It's normally the other way around.

[klmx30302]

When I was at Battlecry 11 and saw a triple hang in a match.

[J.Warsoff]

Rookie year as a Freshmen, last year, at the Trenton Regional. So I'm at the hotel for the first night, and I go to get ice, which is right across the hall from my room so I wear socks. Being the klutz I sometimes am, I slip on the floor and bang my head on the corner of the wall. I pass out for a minute, and wake up with half of the mentors and coaches surrounding me. I tell them I'm just a little dizzy, and I'm fine, but of course, they call the hospital, and next thing I know, I'm strapped to a stretcher in the back of an ambulance. Then I get wheel-chaired to an MRI, and my uncle who lives nearby picks me up and I stay with him for the night. Woken up by my little cousins, not exactly pleasant. I end up making it to the regional, and I get a big welcome from my team, when I realize I'm still wearing the hospital armband. What a great first regional...XD

[Akash Rastogi]

Senior year my parents surprised me by coming to watch the Trenton regional. They had always known about robotics since my oldest brother started on team 11 in 1999 and usually stopped in during build, but they had never gone to a single event because of scheduling.

They were awestruck and loved every single moment of it. Seeing my parents smile and give 100% approval of my time spent those 4 years was something I didn't expect to be so happy about. They were already supporters of FIRST, but that day they fell in love with engineering too.

[FRC4ME]

My senior year (2009) on my high school team, 339. We had won Delphi DTT for a completely student-designed component at a regional and were quite excited about it. It was, at the time, the FIRST award that meant the most to me, personally.

By the end of Friday at Championships, everyone in the pit had been eager demonstrating the component to the judges. We were quite passionate about it, but ultimately we had to focus on playing the game. Saturday morning, the judges were visiting our pit multiple times. Rumors started going around...why are they so interested? Do you think we could...nah, don't be silly. There are 400+ of the best teams in the world here. They've got flywheels, gyroscopes, and propellers. There's no way our little moving platform could be worthy of international recognition. We've never won a CMP award before.

We didn't make the eliminations, and our head mentor wanted to leave early to make sure we could catch our flight. We begged him to wait until the announcement of awards, as a sort of wishful thinking. He ultimately agreed that we could stay until 6:00 PM, but no later. So we were watching the matches on Einstein interspersed with award presentations. At 5:58 PM (seriously), they get to Delphi DTT. And as the presenter began his speech, he included in his first sentence a clue that left no doubt: we had won.

The twenty seconds of disbelief as the presenter finished his speech, the almost tearful cheering as our representatives accepted the award, and the sixty seconds of hugging among team members that followed, were truly indescribable. Our first international award in ten years of existence, for the design of a component I was directly involved in creating. With such an amazing cap, I cannot look back on my experience as a student in FIRST as anything less than perfect.

[Nick Lawrence]

Probably being on the floor of the Georgia Dome in '08 standing with 1114 when they won their first championship.

So much magic. That's huge when you're a freshman.

-Nick

[MarcD79]

My favorite memory was in '07 in at GTR. The alliances were being chosen for the quarter matches. Here we are the only team from the N/E in Toronto & not known by anybody there. The alliances had been chosen all but the last team. 1114 & 2056 then announced our team, 176! We all jumped for joy & hugged each other happily. Unbeknown to us, our team captain was told prior to the picks, but was sworn to secrecy. Well, we helped our alliance partners kick butt & won the regional!

[Chaoskitty]

I will always remember everyone at the Travers City regional singing happy birthday to me. It was a great way to spend my birthday and my first competition.

[GaryVoshol]

Watching the FLL kids come through the tunnel into the Dome in Atlanta. They get such great looks on their faces.

[Astrokid248]

Last year, I was the copilot, and it was the finals of the Lone Star regional. The red alliance had one match, the blue another. Ridley (one of our mentors) came running from the field, shouting that the field cleanup had found a #25 half-link. Earlier in the year I was made "chain queen", so I flipped the robot and checked the chain. It wasn't ours, but one chain had slipped a sprocket and wasn't tensioned. That repair allowed us to win the final match and go home the champs of Lone Star. I felt so friggin happy for that fix, I was even brave enough to hug the head coach (two years previous i learned that this is a bad idea without the influence of victory). It was the best moment of my robotics career.

[JohnBoucher]

Championship 2004 The "One Day Wonder"

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/18269

1396 arrived in Atlanta to find that the robot did not make it there. There were enough parts available in the pits to make them a competitive bot.