Favorite Memories Of The 2011 Season

FIRST General Forum
#21

The best part of the pre-season was discovering our team number was 3456 :slight_smile:

Moving from an experienced team (1569) onto a rookie team offered some really neat experiences. As a captain, I was really able to lead the new members and I felt that I really helped show them the true meanings of FIRST robotics, it was a really neat experience.

Winning Rookie All-Star was really awesome. I knew it qualified us for the championship, but I don’t think anyone else on my team realized. So when the regional director told us we were going to St. Louis, it was awesome seeing the looks on everyone’s faces and watching everyone jumping up and down, hugging everyone in sight, and being so excited for the amazing opportunity!

#22

-Having people come to our pits and become more impressed by our wrench-on-a-carabiner rack than our robot. =D

-Going to states with my buddy and missing all of the elims because we were in the practice field with other robots. (I will always respect 503’s drivers, their robot is really hard to drive)

-Playing a humongous game of ninja at the CMP afterparty.

#23

When our minibot won its first race at VCU, I proceeded to jump a good 3 feet in the air. I figured this out since I was eye-level with the top rack. I screamed, I danced, I hugged. It was a big moment.

My favorite moment was seeing a team dejected by our worst performance in 3 years at Chesapeake so excited, happy, and proud to be on Team 422. That’s why I’m so excited about the offseason. The kids get it. Now we just have to show that to everyone.

My third favorite memory this year is the help 340 gave us on the minibot. Great teams come out of Rochester…great enough that 422 is considering FLR as a 2012 destination regional. We don’t ever pick an easy regional (here’s to you, Trenton)

My last one was hearing what our projected 2011-2012 revenue was before I started putting the first legitimate business plan together for our team. I swear, we are going to be turning heads in 10 months (I hope).

#24

  • coaching a rookie Niles FRC team and hosting the first ever Niles District event and not going crazy.

  • being at a business presentation with our marketing unit and having a CEO ask a team member to describe our team and having my student say " we are basically the “super club” of Niles high school because there is a position for everyone such as design, marketing, electrical, software, hardware, and web site building.". That was a magic moment for this rookie coach!

  • watching the 18 students on the team “find their voice”. FIRST really does change kids!

  • winning the Rookie Inspiration Award at the Waterford district event.

  • winning the Spirit award at our own Niles district event.

  • watching the kids overcome discomforts as they worked with and got to know kids that were not the same race as they were.

  • watching the students cook hot dogs in the rain (and enjoying it) at our end of competition season cook out.

#25

One of my favorite memories of this season has to be our alliance’s amazing bounce back from the DQ we had during the Galileo Finals.

#26

This year was my second year in FRC and fourth year in FIRST total. By far, this was the best.

Offseason/Build Season:
-I had so much fun training 5 programming rookies about Java and electronics. We’ve had so many good times during these training sessions. I loved seeing a certain pair of freshmen grow from a set of immature kids to real leaders(Shouts out to Gabe and Brad!)
-The many hours we spent in the school’s quad driving around in the cold was another good time during build. It was especially funny when one of my team’s operators decided to talk to his girlfriend on the phone while I was driving.
-The day the electronics board(or at least it’s cardboard predecessor) was mounted was a great day. James Bot drove for the first time!

San Diego regional:
-My first time getting the robot inspected. It was especially fun to point out all of the little things my wiring team did to comply with the rules. I apologize to the inspector if I came off as a little talkative about the little details :stuck_out_tongue:
-The first FRC match I have operated in. A full logo up by us, we played with one of my favorite teams(294) and against another favorite(1717). Although I accidentally deployed early, it was a really fun match! Also, seeing our robot move and almost score was an awesome sight for our first match
-Eliminations:
-In the quarterfinals, we played against team 1538(a favorite of myself and our coach). That was a fun set of matches!
-In the semifinals, Seeing my driver juke defense while I brought the tube to scoring position was awesome!
-In the finals, we were clearly outgunned against teams 254 and 987. We played as hard as we possibly could, and that was apparently too hard for our arm, center wheel treads, and minibot! My favorite little bit was driving our roller claw back and fourth for about a foot near our tower.

Los Angeles Regional:
-Our team spent a day sightseeing on Wednesday. I enjoyed hanging out with my team mates.
-Thursday was a very stressful day for our pit crew. Repairing the arm system was the task at hand. We lost the chain somewhere between the San Diego sports arena and our shop! Thanks McMaster Carr for the speedy service! My arm positioning code did not work quite well with the new arm motors. For one: the pit crew neglected to tell me they did not check the polarity on the motors before wiring it up(Apparently, they assumed I would do it, so my fault, too). Also, they neglected to tell me the RS555s would be slower than the RS550s they replaced. The control over the arm was a bit wonky(the setpoint would change faster than the arm would move). This was fixed
-Practice matches were fun. These were the first matches with one of our new drive coaches, Brad(our driver from 06-09).
-While we did not fare as well as we wanted to during this competition, we lost to a set of great teams(330, 1717, 1515) in the semifinals

Utah Regional:
-It was a lot of fun on the practice field for a regional’s worth of matches all day on Thursday.
-It was great to meet and help the teams in the pits
-It was awesome being pit neighbors with team 2122!
-Snow!
-It was awesome winning the regional with teams 2122 and 3239!

Championship Event:
-I had tons of fun working with our qualification alliance partners on strategy! My favorite matches were the ones with 2337, 48, and 469!
-going up against teams 254, 111, and 973 in the semifinals! You guys were tough opponents and deserved the win.
-It was also really cool to walk around to other pits and talk to such teams as 503, 359, 294, 1197, 2122, 3239, and 330.

#27

Build Season:
-Being able to enumerate all the jags by myself, and then figuring out what my mentor was doing wrong.
-Learning how to debug jags
Dallas Regional:
-Me convincing our whole team to skip everywhere
-Our Coach challenged me:
Told me if I can pick up a flat tube, He’d buy me coffee. (guess what we did hang a flat tube)
-Having some of my mentors congratulating me; I was able to get the whole team to work together without the head mentor there. THIS NEVER HAPPENS
-Meeting Dean Kamen
-FINALLY HANGING A TUBE IN THE SEMIS! We had CAN issues, so we never got to hang with our robust claw/linear lift! What was ironic was that we hung the first two tubes of the practice rounds.
-Going out after the last day to get pizza.

And many many many more memories that I don’t have the patience to talk about.

#28

Ooh boy, my last year as a FIRST student. from now on I am a team 1089 alumnus, and hopefully a mentor for some team out there :slight_smile:

jersey regional:

  • i was really bummed about being sick the first two days of competition. even on saturday i was pretty under the weather, but there was no way i was going to miss the event.
  • i was informed about 45 minutes before alliance selection that i would be going out on the field for 1089. i asked our mentors if they were sure they wanted me out there, what with me being not present the first two days, and they assured me they trusted me. that felt really good. i was able to take in a few matches on saturday morning to get a feel for some teams.
  • i got down to the field, and watched as top 8 teams kept picking each other. i had prior knowledge that team 2180 was interested in picking us, unfortunately, we had decided that we wanted to try and build our own alliance. more pressure on me :stuck_out_tongue:
  • i declined 2180 and got booed for it… it was at the same time, one of the proudest, and lowest moments of my time in FIRST. i mean i got booed! lol that only happens to bad guys. it was a low moment, cuz i guess i was a bad guy?
  • anyway, i picked 1647 and 102, 2 amazing teams! im so glad i picked both of you, and i would do it again in a heartbeat. QF’s ,were facing team 25. first match we get blown out of the building. but we strategize. and we come back. all the way to the finals! we got beaten out by a clearly superior alliance, but hey i got out on the field to pick my own team, and i got a medal. thats what i call a successful regional.

DC Regional

  • i love travelling to robotics events. this was no different.
  • again on saturday, i went out on the field to make an alliance for myself. picked two great robots, and went into elims.
  • we beat the 2 seed! but then we lost to the same team we lost to in NJ (2016) hats off to 2016 they had one heckuva season.
  • a lot of inside jokes and memories created on the trip… i think ive gone on too long :stuck_out_tongue:

lol so yeah, thats pretty much my memories of this year. i know its REALLY long, and if you read it all, i thank you and congratulate you. truth is, all the moments ive spent on team 1089 have been my favorite. all four years. cant wait to be back as an alumni and do it all over :smiley:

#29

This match http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_2sm5-wmAE where we break a belt on our arm after a collision with 33 and still manage to hang 4 tubes after

#30

Although I have never been a part of the three game (I’m generally busy at events) I have heard stories that have made my sides hurt laughing.

One of my favorite that I’ve heard involved 2 of our students in a covert mission to get our threes back from 2337. They doned thunderchicken shirts (217 was sitting right next to 2337 in the stands) went and sat in the middle of the 217 kids for about 15 minutes. (to many weird glances by the 217 kids) Finally the cha cha slide started playing and while the 2337 kids were dancing our two coverts ran over and grabbed the threes much to the confusion of the 2337 students. (why the heck were thunderchickens stealing their threes?) They then ran away and pulled off their 217 shirts much to the suprise of the Enginerds. A successful operation… Although I’m pretty sure the Enginerds got the threes back later via cleaver use of a mascot.

Anyways, that was my favorite story this year.

(p.s. to all three game contenders): I’m not quite sure who is winning, but we will be ready for you next year!

#31

I have 3 distinct memories from this year that are all worth mentioning.

New Jersey Eliminations

These were the most fun I have ever had down on the field as a student. Playing with 1089 and 102 was surely a blast as we took down the power house alliance that included CT Regional Winner 1923, and Einstein Semi-Finalist 25. Even though we won by a different aspect of the game and not the main one (hanging tubes) it opened eyes and showed the importance of the Minibot. Even though we were only Finalists, I still love every minute being down there.

Philadelphia #1 Seed

I told Akash Rastogi that by the end of the day on Saturday of the Philly Regional that we would end up at #1 seed. Going into the last match, 341 deployed their Minibot too early and that gave us the advantage. I know that they deserved that spot and they should have had it but Philly has been unexpected over the past few years. Anyway, we had our last match up with us and 816 against the strong green machine, MOE 365. Before the match, we weren’t connecting with the field and we had our classmate replaced. After that was done, my drive joysticks were switched and I was driving the different sides of the robot. Trying to drive like that made me frustrated and annoyed that we might lose the match. However, we ended up in first place with a win and it was the most excited I have ever been about the performance with the robot and the team.

After Philly Wrap Up

I stared at the Logomotion field with tears in my eyes after the awards concluded. Yeah I was upset about the eliminations and the red card but I was more upset about the team and how we did so great but it just wasn’t enough to get us to STL. The pain I had from that was tremendous but it reminded me of how I will bring my FIRST experience my college and workplace. Also, I will try my best to mentor teams for as long as I am living because this program has given me the greatest experience of my life.

#32

Two quick memories:

  1. Watching our team pull together. While we are a second year team, almost all of our students (and mentors to be honest) are first year. I began to see glimpses of team unity at the Bayou Regional but it wasn’t until the Championship that I watched everyone band together. Now I watch students walk through the halls together as Robotics members.

  2. Being called coach for the first time by some of my team. My dad was a football player and when I told him that story he teared up a bit. Me? A Coach?

-D

#33

Best Memory was winning a match against 1503 (qualification). We were paired with one rookie team and 1507. We all new that if we worked great then us and 1507 would be 2nd and 3rd seed. After the great match, and my heart pounding out of my chest, I new we did it. I dont remember the final score but i do remember being so happy i was jumping like crazy. (i’m the driver) We congradulated our alliance partners on the win and then next match we wanted to win to over take 1507’s seed (2nd). Unfortunalty we didn’t win it but oh well we finished in 3rd… the best we have ever done. We thought that 1507 was going to pick us for alliance selections, but they didn’t :frowning:
I believe that if they did then we could have beat 1114 and 1503’s alliance in the finals.

#34

I’ve got two memories that are gonna stick with me for a while this year I think.

One was at our Oklahoma Regional. We were in the semi-finals with our alliance partners 932 and 935. Our first semi-final match ended with us winning. Our second one, however, ended with both blue and red alliance receiving red cards for minibot tower interference. While the next match was going on, one of our partners from 932 went to challenge it. After the other semi-final match finished, the MC stepped into the middle of the field and called for quiet. The entire arena went dead silent. “It has come to our attention by one of the red alliance teams, that there may have been a bad call in that last match. So, after some discussion, the referee’s have made their decision. The red card…on the red alliance…has been REVOKED!” After this, the entire arena went absolutely insane with cheering and screaming and applause. Our own teams were hugging and screaming as well. We won the regional after that.

The other was from Nationals. I was at our pit with a friend of mine talking to people and passing things out as they went past, when two kids from the chinese lego team came over. They both wanted a picture with the two of us, so we posed with each of them in turn. We then gave them our custom spinner necklace to remember us by, and they thanked us. A few minutes pass, and suddenly 4 people from the same team show up at our pit, and they all want a group picture with me. Several pictures are taken with all of us, and they then gave my friend and I one of their own cool give-a-ways. I have a newfound love for these people.

Also, meeting Dean Kamen. Great moment.

#35

Thanks for the memories, Coach.

Jane

#36

Watching the minibot successfully climb to the top for the first time. That more than anything, we had lots of problems with deployment since we didn’t actually test the minibot with the deployment that was on the robot, so it felt good to see it finally work.

#37

This entire season was a giant awesome memory for me. The 2010 season was really bad for our team. It started off with the lack of pre-season training. We started recruitment only two weeks or so before the season. We worked with an impractical schedule, had a pretty horrible administration, designed and built a swerve drive that was mostly made from KOP parts that was supposed to cross the bump (It even almost worked!) and then we got seeded 46th out of 52 teams, this was the first year we didn’t get into elims. It was a pretty traumatic season.

Our team is 95% student run. I and two other juniors (at the time, we’re currently decided that we wanted a better team for the future. With very little direct teacher help we rebuilt the team. We started with recruitment towards the end of the school year, we established a process that includes going through the freshman classes (We are only allowed to include sophomores-seniors in our team) and presenting the team to them. Then interviewing the student. We didn’t end the process there; we held summer workshops to train the new students in programming and building. This included us building a curriculum while being advised from our teachers and seniors we still did the majority of the work. Seeing these workshops come together is my first favorite memory of this season. We finally broke the cycle of the team only running during the season. It was one of my best weeks of the year.

Then came the off-season (We have only one off-season competition in Israel so we call it “the”), as I mentioned our 2010 robot was really horrible, so we decided we’re going to build a new robot to compete. We managed to get kids every day during summer vacation for three weeks to build a robot that’d compete in the off-season. It was one of the funner builds I’ve had. We even managed to produce new shirts just for the off-season (IMO the best team shirts to date). Although we ended up having a horrible performance all of our students enjoyed it a lot. So this was another fun memory for me, although it left a lot to be desired it still taught us a valuable lesson towards the 2011 season. 

The other two things we did in the off-season were trying to find sponsors, which was the first time we did it in a serious manner, and having more workshops for preparing for the season. The first time we got a sponsor to say yes was amazing. This is the third favorite memory of the season.

This time we built a more realistic schedule and managed to stick to it up until the fourth week as a personal reminder for years to come I’d like to quote a friend of mine: “schedules always work, until they don’t”. But we did a great design process; I want to believe we’ve established a groundwork upon which future seasons will be built. The season was filled with awesome moments for me; I mostly acted as a mentor for the team. I think my entire hands-on work was one class in the code and tightening a screw or two. But we worked in organized manner and the robot coming together was a lot of fun. There are two experiences during the season which I thought the most amazing. First one was our annual all-nighter, it’s always a fun experience but this year it was really great for me to see how the kids who a couple of months ago didn’t even know each other worked together efficiently to make the robot work. It was at this point I knew we did a good job as an administration. The second one was presenting at our school’s open house. This was the first time we did it and our room was always packed. There were so many students there looking at the robots, it was great. I think it was our first great step towards changing the attitude of the school towards robotics. I’ll wait another year to judge this but I’ve a feeling we’ll have a flood of Freshman when next year’s recruitment comes around.

This next memory is personal and unrelated to the team, this year I refereed at four out of five FLL regionals in Israel. This was a really nice experience for me, I got to mingle with the FIRST Israel staff more than ever before, and they are really awesome people. I helped set up the fields and take them down. When the 5th tournament came the volunteer manager asked me “How are we going to have an event without you?”. That was one of my highest points of this season.

My last two favorite memories came during the competition. Our robot was full of problems, one thing broke after another. We came close to breaking point and giving up at a few times but we never gave up. For example after our arm broke twice during the competition, we decided to improve our mini-bot deployment to remain competitive. My first favorite memory was after we got knocked out of elimination our entire team still stood and cheered until the end of the competition. At first we just cheered for our team but then we also started cheering for other teams, including the alliance that beat us during the QF. Winning the Gracious Professionalism and website awards was the icing on the cake for the competition. The last favorite memory of the season was the attitude of the students after the competition, we had every possible problem but they still stayed with the urge to succeed and came out of it wanting to improve for next year. Overall it was a brilliant season for our team, in my opinion it was the best so far but I’m slightly biased…

Sorry for writing so much, it’s just that I had a lot on my mind about this season.

#38

at the Grand Vally, Michigan regional we was driving against team 27 (rush) about half way through the qualifiers. it was a pretty vicious match and when the dust settled we had accidently broken a Pot on 27’s arm, rendering it usless. we had to get immedietly back in line for our next match (4 matches later). 27 was on our alliance, there arm wasn’t fixed, and the other team on our alliance didn’t show up. And if that wasn’t enough, the other alliance was pretty good. 27 played defence and mini-bot and we put up tubes. we won 52 to 2. it was pretty awsome.

#39

My fondest memory is realizing that two of the rookie teams that we had the privilege to work with won Rookie All Stars and that our old friend, team 1899 finally broke through and won both the RCA AND the Olympic Regional…what a great year for you guys!!!

It is great to see your friends and other teams succeed.

#40

haha, I feel like 503 dropped the ball this year on the 3 game… Def going to get some summer training on “3” stealing