The recent events surrounding the postponing and canceling of events has been hard on everyone in the FIRST community, and I’d like to check in with all the seniors. As a senior myself, I’ve found the recent cancelations to be extremely tough, although I am able to understand why the calls had to be made. It’s been hard on all the seniors on my team, especially since we’ve put in hundreds of hours (as I’m sure many of you have), and we never got the chance to see our robot out on the field. To all of you, how are you doing with this? What are you doing to cope with the recent updates and how are you planning on moving forward in relation to FIRST?
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Honestly, I was pretty upset about it but I don’t really care that much anymore. I know I’m gonna try out some fancy stuff we didn’t do with our bot to see how it would work and change out our bot. Moving forward, I’m likely gonna teach all the other kids in my department how to run stuff and maybe give them a challenge. I’ve talked about it with some other kids and hopefully our team can go to an offseason event during the summer so we can see our robot perform at least once.
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I was on one of the few fortunate PNW teams to attend a Week 1 competition before everything shut down. The competition was very successful for us, in every area.
Now that even our school is shutdown, I was going to program, but I finished up this morning and pushed to GitHub. I can go no further without a robot for testing.
Lastly, I might attend UW next year, so I can stick around and either compete by fall, or become a programming mentor the following seasons.
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Sad because our robot was the best we made, but also kinda happy that all that weight I was carrying because of FRC is now lifted and I am spend the last two months of my senior year studying for AP Tests in peace. Saddest part for me was that I couldn’t see 254’s robot play.
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I’ve been trying to get myself to accept the inevitability what has happened for a while now, and its just sad. Our robot this year is one of the better ones we’ve built, and pretty much all of our leads are seniors, so its been devastating for us. we were practicing today for fun, and the more the robot worked well the more disappointing we got. A blue banner has almost always just been out of reach, and still will be for now. I’m not too sad at this point, but its definitely unfortunate. Moving forward, I’ll probably work on some CAD design resources for my team, as well as savor whats left of senior year. As far as FIRST officially goes, I’ll probably not mentor a team (I’m likely going out of state). There are a bunch of cool collegiate competitions too. In the words of Karthik, “Don’t mentor as a freshman in college. Try something new, there’s a lot of other great stuff out there” (or along those lines)
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It honestly has been the best season for my team. How we designed and tested the different mechanisms and systems this year is leagues above how we built our robots from any previous season. Although we were fortunate to have a strong performance at our Week 1 competition, I am saddened by how the season had ended. I am hoping to go out of state for studying computer science. Depending on where I attend, I am looking to mentor a nearby FRC team probably starting my sophomore or junior year in college. I would probably try to find a team in the Peachtree, FMA, or New England District if I end up attending my top choice schools. Anyhow, I hope to spread the knowledge I gained and utilized for success throughout my high school FRC career. Hopefully I get to be at Detroit in that case and obtain some east coast teams’ shirts 
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254 part is very relatable 
It was the first bot that won an event in 20 years for our team, and now we can’t do anything with it. On how I’m coping with it, anyone wanna design a battlebot with me?
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We were very lucky in that we got to attend 1 competition, and both our bot and team performed well. Now that both our second play and our event are cancelled, I want to take this extra time to help create a good platform for the future students of the team. One thing that people always ask is “How do you want to be remembered”, and I guess I really want to be remembered for making a difference in someone’s life and making 1403 a safe space for people to go to and have fun while also learning about STEM and building a killer robot. Our team has created an amazing program as it is, and have over 100 passionate students, and I want to help keep that going and give the students the best experience possible this year and in the following years as well. Especially following the COVID-19 cancelation, I think it’s important more than ever to unite the team and remember why exactly we’re a family. If the students in the coming years take something carry the same passion and love for FIRST and keep the 1403 family alive, there’s nothing really else any graduated senior could want.
And thinking about that, and planning out events and activities to help do that is how I’ve been coping with the season ending. The team is still super excited to continue working with he bot and continuing the season as much as we can.
Thank you to everyone on Chief Delphi, to everyone on 1403, to the entire GDC and everyone at FIRST HQ, and especially to Vibhu and Dan, the two guys who went through these 4 years with me and put up with everything I did (or the other way around?), and the biggest thank you to Mr.Leicht, Mr.Leicht, and Mike, who changed my life around for the better and made me a much better person than I ever would have been. To then I owe the world.
p.s. Was writing this, didn’t mean for it to turn out super long and sappy but I just started to let out everything.
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5010 this year was very lucky that we actually got to play in one event, but ranking dead last leaves a bad taste in my mouth. All things come to an end but ti sucks we dont get a chance to redeem ourselves and show off our (in my biased opinion) underrated robot. Our school is also canceled for the next month so I’ll have my time to move on
This has been a really difficult time for me and the other seniors on my team but putting everything into perspective is the most important thing we can do. Back when I joined the team in 2017, going to a district championship was a complete afterthought and it was something absolutely unheard of. My sophomore year, we not only went to DCMP, but we went to worlds, ranked 7th on Daly field, and became alliance captains for the 1st and 2nd time ever at DCMP and worlds. It’s been a wild ride and I hate to see it come to a crashing halt, especially after winning our first blue banner at the FIM St Joseph event, but I’m already very grateful for the 4 years I’ve gotten to spend with my team and for the opportunity to turn 4855 into a huge success in such a short period of time. This is the third straight year we’ve qualified for the DCMP and it has certainly been against all odds, especially considering where we were in 2017.
I was fortunate enough to attend the Miami Valley Regional before the season got suspended. Even though it wasn’t that successful for us (we weren’t last), 7486 learned a lot about team structure as well as robot building. After I finish college- I’m hoping to mentor or start a team, or perhaps volunteer at FIRST events. I’m looking forward to the future, even though I won’t be able to compete.
I’m the lead for my team’s strategy department, so not only will one of 2265’s best robots never get to compete, but I’ll never even get to do many of the things related to my department—strategizing at competitions, being the team representative during alliance selection, organizing scouting, etc. What’s even worse is that the seniors were the only ones with any real experience strategizing during competition, and I’m absolutely terrified that strategy could end with me. So the rest of this year is going to be preparing my department to go on without the seniors of strategy.
I‘m probably going to be going out-of-state for college, so I won’t be able to directly mentor my team. More importantly though, I want to avoid interfering with next year’s strategy lead. It’s been hard to accept, but just because my last competitions as a student were taken by COVID-19 doesn’t mean that I get to take opportunities from next year’s leadership. Of course though, I’m going to still be available for my team virtually if they need my help/insight, and my friends and I already agreed that we’re going to volunteer at Hudson Valley together. This may be my last year in high school, but this isn’t my last year with FIRST.
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For 4253, this has been one of the smoothest year. Despite the setbacks from Coronavirus, we were able to produce one of the best robot in our 9 years of history.
Unfortunately we were unable to see our robot play in any official matches this season. We do plan on attending the postponed Science Park Taichung regional in the summer should the opportunity arise.
As a graduating senior, I do feel sad that this is how my final season of FRC will end as a student. However I do plan on supporting either my own team or US teams as I head to university in the states.
Sleep.
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FYI to graduating seniors from a post I made in another thread:
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Not gonna lie, my whole FIRST experience feels robbed from the get go. My freshmen year, my old team didn’t allow freshmen on the team (that was their first and only year of doing that) and instead have us “learn” how to use tools which was an exercise in patience as most of us already knew how to use them, my sophmore year I moved states halfway through the school year robbing me of my build season then, my junior year I was finally able to join my team as a rookie and had a fantastic time, and now my senior year. After I busted my butt last year and rose to Mechanical captain, I was ready to pour more time into this season than ever before. I learned so much about mechanical, electrical, and even programming aspects of our bot as it was built. To not see it compete felt like a punch in the face to all those late nights when I prioritized robotics over my math test the next day, felt like my extreme grade drop was in vain. Irregardless, we still got to compete week 2 which was nice but our robot didn’t perform nearly at its potential, mainly due to a bad PID, which was fixed thirty minutes after we found out we didn’t make it to elims. I am very grateful that our robot got to even touch the competition mat but am still heartbroken by how much we left on the table. I understand the closing, but the frustration is immense. After all the hurdles jumped through this year, from having our two main mentors be absent for the back half of build season because of paternity leave and coaching a soccer season which left us without anyone to watch our team and being left unable to use power tools to having our robot entirely machined by new members with a drill press and band saw because of our extremely reduced machining resources. I guess the one thing that I did learn from this expierence is that life do really be like that sometimes. Sometimes projects that you pour your heart and soul into fail for reasons outside of your control. That is going to be a tough pill to swallow but an essential one.
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This was certainly my team’s best season. I can say, without a doubt, that, as a team, we really stepped up our capabilities, and I had fun learning the whole way. This season, my team built a swerve drive, and as a programmer, I am grateful for that challenge (and the fact that it worked).
Although we never got to compete, I enjoyed my time with the people I worked with throughout my time in FIRST.
A toast to the community, for making me the person I am today…
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As a graduating senior, I can honestly say that I am super disappointed to have this year’s season cancelled. I hope that our team will be able to compete in the offseason so that we can at least go to some competitions.
I’d probably say that FIRST saved my life. Coming out of 8th grade, I was dealing with a lot of problems including an eating disorder and anxiety. Being able to join the team, and go to competitions my 9th grade year helped me to feel somewhat “normal” for the first time in years. (Not to mention give me a huge collection of buttons.) In 2018 when our team didn’t do as well as we hoped, I still had a lot of fun singing “Sweet Caroline” and trying to troubleshoot our problems. In 2019, when I relapsed, my teammates came to visit me at the hospital to remind me that I’m not alone. I really hoped to be able to compete this year to make up for everything that I missed out on last year, but at least there’s the offseason for competing and improving our robot.
I know I don’t want this to be the end of my FIRST experience. I want to volunteer and mentor for FLL and FRC, and I hope that I’ll be able to volunteer at both champs at some point. I loved being able to meet teams from other countries and states, and hope to be able to continue to meet more people and trade more t-shirts in the future.
FIRST has allowed me to break out of my shell. My freshman year I never really talked to anyone, but by my sophomore year I was helping to lead the programming subteam, volunteering at outreach events and going out to businesses to ask for sponsorship. I’ve also found a community that I can feel like I belong in, which I’ve never really had before this.
Thanks to everyone who has made these past 4 years so fantastic, and I’ll see everyone in future seasons. (Or in the offseason.)
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It’s a very mixed bag for me. I’m obviously very disappointed for this season to end not just for myself, but for the outstanding leaders on my team who weren’t around in 2017 and thus haven’t had the chance to experience the Championship. I sincerely hope they will all attend next year, as it was incredibly fun and informative the first time I went, and I want them to have their hard work pay off by getting this experience.
On the flip side, our class of 2020 ended our career on an extremely high note, with our first time seeding first and/or winning the event as a captain or first pick, in or off season. We’re already looking toward doing a lot of off-season projects, both fun and practical, training our returning members in all our skills, demonstrating our robot Clank to the community (it was BUILT for outreach and performs well too, peak potential for inspiration), and competing at off-season events such as IRI, WVROX, and Chezy Champs, with the goal of inspiring our young generation to be as passionate about robotics as we all are.
Lastly, all things considered, I’m grateful for all the experiences I’ve had, lessons I’ve learned, and friends I’ve made, as these past four years have changed the course of my life forever. I know my robotics career is nowhere near over, and I’m excited to see what’s next.