So tonight, I thought of an idea. During a late night discussion of the various connections between some storied FRC teams (sometimes Akash and I stay up late to talk about robots, since we’re giant losers), a question came across my mind. With so many teams being the result of other FRC teams, either through direct / indirect mentorship or team splits and combination… What would a FIRST family tree look like? With so many teams partly responsible for the success of other teams, the amount of inter-team connections must be astounding. So, after a quick search on CD turned up nothing, I’ve decided to collect a little data and make one of my own in my spare time.
So seeing as there really isn’t a database for any of this stuff anywhere, I would love your help! If you could list what teams your team’s mentored, or what team mentored your team in your rookie year, that would be awesome! Any other additional inter-team information would also be appreciated.
edit: Akash found this really old thread a few minutes after I hit post. We’re playing with graphing / charting software and want to make a new, fresh tree for only FRC, though, so a new thread would make more sense.
It would be cool to have a family tree version of that, and I completely missed that thread when it first came out (course I think it was right around when I was moving!) (amazing job to 358 for pulling all that data together WOW!).
I was trying to wrap my head around it, how would the parent/child thing work for situations like 176/229/1511?? 176 was my HS team, then I founded 229, and then founded 1511… so technically 176 is a parent, but is 1511 the child of 229 or 176?? I doubt I’m the only case like that these days…
For a number of years we had a giant gear we would take to competitions (and later a computer with a projector) that would have the numbers of all the teams at the competition around the outside. Every time a team came up and told us about a connection we would connect the two teams with string and a note describing the connection. By the end of a competition it would be a mass strings. The connections could be something as simple as “677 lent 1014 a drills bit” to “Our mentor Danny used to be on your team.” It really brought home the interconnectedness of the FRC competition. I will have to look for one of our old pictures of the gear. It’s too bad we had to stop doing it (stopped getting permission to set it up).
Chris, if you’d like a bit of History on 816, here it is:
In 2001, Team 87 Reached out to our school (BCIT Westampton) and invited some of our students to join there FRC team. That year a handful of students and a teacher from our school were full members of their team and even traveled to the “National” Championship with them.
Then, in 2002 the two schools split, and 87 remained 87 while a new team was created out of BCIT Westampton known as 816, “The Anarchists” with their robot being named Anomaly. Over the years our name has gone back and forth from being “The Anarchists” to the “Westech Panthers” to “Team Anomaly” or “The Westech Anomaly” due to various issues.
Also, 816 has an indirect relationship with 203 out of Camden County Technical School. The Teacher that started 816 worked at Camden County Tech in the early years of 203. I do not believe he was directly involved in any way, but he knew of their existence.
We still have periodic contact with some of the area teams; 87, 203, 1647, and 2729, but I wouldn’t really call any of the contact mentoring. Also, 87, 816, 1647 and 2729 are all sponsored by Lockheed Martin in some form or another…
And a nifty bit of FVC (Not FTC!) history for you. In 2005-2006, 816 chose to field a team for the “First Vex Challenge”, and this team was 68. We competed at the Diamond State FVC Tournament that year and were the #4 or #5 seed. The next year, 2006-2007, we became FVC team 816 and competed at the inaugural NJ FVC competition and the Diamond State FVC competition. The next year, 2007-2008, we chose not to go back to FVC due to the various restructuring shenanigans.
I know that 1114 was spawned by ex-members of 188, and 1114 then spawned 1503, 1680, 2056, 2166, and possibly more, and have had a large effect on many more teams than that.
1075 hasn’t really done much in that regard, we briefly flirted with the idea of a 1075/48 trackdrive defensebot collaboration in late 2007, but it never really amounted to much.
I believe 188 has ties to many Canadian teams. Mark Breadner (one of their original mentors, and for a time chairman of FIRST Robotics Canada) led the drive to create alot of the Canadian teams that exist today, 1075 included.
188 has supported 1075 by letting us come to their school, and use their practice field setup, as well as providing us with bits and pieces required/lost.
You’ve got some of it right. Team 1114, was one of the teams that Mark Breadner started during his tenure as Regional Director for Canada. In 1114’s second season, Ian Mackenzie and myself (188 Alumni) became 1114 mentors.
Team 2505 was started by 188 alumni, with support from 1114. Team 2809 was not started by 188 alumni, rather they were founded by a combination of 610, 771, 1114 & 2166 alumni.
If you were to trace the lineage of any Canadian team outside of Quebec, every team would lead back to 188. Mark Breadner started an astonishing amount of rookie teams from 2002-2005, at least 60 perhaps even more. Some of these teams, such as 781 and 1114, have gone on to start numerous rookie teams themselves, further extending the family tree that Mark and 188 started.
Considering the legacy of their family tree, it astonishes me that Team 188 has not won a Regional Chairman’s Award since 2002.
My mistake Karthik, I thought you and Ian started with 1114 from the beginning in 2003.
As for them not getting an RCA since 02… I agree its astonishing, but with teams like 1114 and 2056 stealing all the limelight, I’m not overly surprised. Its hard to turn your focus away from the wild success experienced by 1114 and 2056 to see that alot of it is because of the efforts of 188 over the years. The programs run by 1114 and 2056 are nothing short of impressive. Keep it up guys.
Team 64 founded in 1998 has since split into two teams, 39 and 1013
One of the founding members, Rob Mainieri, went on to start teams 498,812 and 3170. Someone else can fill all the details with 812 and San Diego Robotics. Former students from 64 helped found team 1011 and are currently working with team 1492.
This could get really weird if you add in mentor travels and other FIRST related organizations because you get some craziness happening like circular references and younger teams influencing older team.
If you look at the teams you can see the influences of these un-named mentors going from team to team, but you can also see overall progressions for each team advancing toward certain styles of design and play for the games.
The craziest family tree would be to that of The Blue Alliance.
177, 195, 20, etc… all added to the cause initially.
I’m not sure about our teams beginning…the only story that almost every team member knows about our beginning is how we got out team color and eventual name.
I’d be interested to find that out and also if any other teams had a hand in our beginning. I think I’ll ask the next time I see a mentor.
Edit:
You’re welcome. I wasn’t there for it, but Mrs. P always makes sure to keep up on how your team is doing.
Our team spawned a team thats in Arizona now(sorry i dont remember the number/name) when a mentor split off and i would also like to know the origins of the pink team lol
While I agree with the spirit of the statement, and don’t want to understate the impact that 188 and, in particular, the Breadners, have had on the development of FRC in Canada, I know of at least two teams here in BC that wouldn’t trace their lineage back to 188.
1570, for instance, although on hiatus this year, competed for years in the Canada First Robotics competition before switching to FRC when that competition folded.
2273, which competed in 2007 and 2008, got their start in the Skills Canada competition and managed all their fundraising and organization locally. Although we (1346) were able to assist them in their rookie year and encourage them a bit, they would have done it with or without us. As far as I know they are the only Canadian team to have never competed in Canada.
And honestly, while Mark Breadner made a visit to our school to pitch FRC in the spring before we joined, put us in touch with the great folks at 1241 who billeted us our first two years in Toronto, and helped us find the final bit of sponsorship to get out to Toronto in our first year, we had no idea that there was even a team called 188 until we got to the then Canadian Regional. The deciding factor in the formation of our team was one of our students attending Shad Valley (a summer program for gifted students) and after spending a summer with students who had competed in the Canada First Robotics Competition (not FRC), coming back here and convincing the rest of us that we should build “a robot big enough to chase grade 8’s down the hallway”, as a follow up to the autonomous mini-sumos we had built the previous year and in place of the Electrathon race cars we had been building for years before that.
So I don’t want to undermine the spirt of the statement, or downplay the impact that 188 has had… I think every Canadian team could make a two or three degree of seperation link to 188, but some team lineages predate the existence of FRC in Canada, and others clearly trace their lineages to the Skills Canada competition.
Jason
Now, if you’re only talking about currently active teams… then the statement might be fairly correct given that 1570 and 2273 aren’t competing this year.
Hawaii got into it fairly early as the Cheesy Poofs (formerly as Broadway HS) brought their rookie robot to Hawaii with Jason Morella as their teacher.
2 Hawaii teams were formed in 1999. 359, then 368. We were both selected because of our success in doing electric vehicles back in the day. Last season was finally our last year in doing it nationally in Portland and New Hampshire.
Personally, I got involved from the beginning, but only as a construction team mentor. I took over as lead person in 2003, the birth of our long term sustainability plan.
Another Hawaii team 636 was formed, but then dissolved, only to come back as 2477.
Team 11- No mentor teams back in '96-'97:( Although our team founder was heavily influenced by Bill Beatty I’m told. One of our first engineers in 1998 came from team 13 (our bad joojoo comes from this?)
In 1997 we were team 8
Started/Helped start/mentored(excluding EWCP)- 41, 522, 555, 637, 714, 1302, 1676 (11+25), 1881, 2458, 2554(started by 25’s Brunswick Eruption and 1089, mentored by us), 3142, 3231
The most well known alumni of ours are those crazy kids running 125 in Boston.:rolleyes:
In NJ the most critical teams have been 11, 25, 75, and 303 it seems.
Team 75 started the J&J family (1403, 2016) and 25 started the BMS family.
I posit that a strong FIRST community requires the eventual development of a cross-linking, circular support web, where as team strengths wax and wain they help others and in their turn receive help themselves.
While I’m sure it’s fun to say how many “children” you’ve spun off, a stronger relationship ensues when the “child” becomes a partner and a certain amount of give and take occurs.
As far as the FRC family tree, I found that it becomes a meaningless morass fairly quickly if you consider the tiniest contact between teams, alumni, ex-mentors, to qualify as having parented or spun off a team. For one it’s very hard to document and track such things except through personal accounts.
Also, one team hosting a new shadow team that then becomes a rookie is a much stronger tie than simply adopting a rookie by visiting them a half dozen times during the build season. Actually registering a new team is a much, much stronger connection than lending them a mentor or two.
I doubt I’m the only case like that these days…