Gear it Forward won a Regional Chairmans Award at Midwest for the 3rd year in a row! We were so convinced we wouldn’t get it bc we had won the past two years and no other teams had won Chairman’s more than twice in a row at Midwest.
In our 4th year of competition, we won our first Banner in Georgia. This was for the Peachtree District Championship (Thanks 1746 and 5074). In addition we finished #1 in the state of Georgia District rankings and made it all the way to the Hopper Quarterfinals. We had a lot of great successes this year giving this was our first year as well being alliance captains for multiple events.
This was by far the Peachtree districts best year overall. 24 teams from Georgia made it to Houston with 1 making it all the way to Einstein finals.
1241:
- Made a few modifications and lots of practice which allowed us to finally average 4 to 5 gears at St Louis Championships
- Making it to Einstein for the second time
1285:
- Second event win at ONT Durham District
- Winning our first Chairman’s award at ONT Windsor District
After looking through our team history on TBA, it looks like we’ve never won when we weren’t on the #1 alliance. This year, we won twice, neither of which were on the #1 alliance. One was as the #3 alliance captain, the next was as the first pick to the #2 alliance.
As the scout captain and alliance selector, it felt really good to go down onto the field in week 1 with my laptop and the database I helped program to put together a winning alliance in an “underdog” position (#3 alliance captain).
(Hey, OP said to brag, so I will :P)
Not sure if it counts, but essentially bringing a new robot to champs.
At kickoff we decided our priorities were 1-gears, 2-climb, 3-high goal. Well, the robot didn’t turn out exactly like that for out 1st event at Tippecanoe. Ended up jury rigging a passive gear system for rest of event and building a new climber that worked well at Perry.
Ended up missing state so we brainstormed a new strategy, scrapped the hopper and shooter and built a brand new active gear system and transplanted it unto the competition bot on wednesday night, rewiring and plumbed it. Our performance wasn’t great, but much better than before.
I never imagined we would completely redesign before champs, but we felt it was needed to succeed.
I got to see some former students of mine do awesome work as college mentors/volunteers. Regardless of how anyone performs, those are the moments that make a great season for me.
Getting to recommend a student to the Chief Master Sergeant when Brig. Gen. Paul Tibbetts visited our pit at GKC was special.
Reading thisabout Cougar Robotics 1982’s well-deserved GP award at GKC was very humbling and I shared it with our team a few times.
Lots of people inspired me at Huntsville with the work between our team and Cyber Jagzz (6107) including our build mentor, students, their teaching mentor and students. Their public school faces challenges and I feel very fortunate after briefly talking with their mentors. With many tools and parts flying between our pits, they got their robot up to competition shape, even adding a climber. The letter we received from them is a highlight of the season, along with this partnership contributing to our GP award. Despite the distance I hope we can keep this relationship.
How cool is the Saturn V and the rocket center? Wow! I learned a lot.
Making some auto high goals (7-8 in one match) and modifying the robot to carry gears on top of our cords, were two highlights. Last second climbs, replaying videos and hearing “it couldn’t be any closer” definitely made me smile.
Although, not as much as seeing students take charge. Going up to judges right away to talk, being confidence in their Chairman’s speech after many nervous practices, getting told “we should have a scouting app, and here is what should be in it”, watching a shy freshman turn into a sophomore who pilots with gusto.
My initial answer would be everything about the season but it boils down to…
Designing and building a very consistent and competitive robot
Having a world class OPR rating the whole season including Worlds
Ranking 20th in qualifications on the Tesla field at Worlds as a wait list team
Being selected by the sixth alliance on Tesla for eliminations
Being part of the finalist alliance on Tesla after having never made it past semi finals at any event EVER.
Being inches away from making Einstein on our very first trip to Worlds.
Going to worlds as a Rookie.
Winning Rookie All-Star on the Tesla-Carson subdivision
Having a robot that attracted multiple comments of “That’s not a rookie robot!” (with the vast majority of it being designed by students!)
Team 1595 had our most successful season by far.
We won four events and made it onto Einstein for the first time. We also won our first ever Chairman’s Award. This brought our banner count up from three to eight. We also almost made the “most successful teamups” list on The Blue Alliance with 2046 Bear Metal in a single season with three consecutive wins with them (huge thanks to them!).
Coming ~1 climb away from a wildcard berth to Champs at the same event where we placed 49th of 49 in 2016.
Winning 2 awards in a month when it’s been almost a decade since the team won its last one.
1073 had an incredible season. From not making it to DCMP last year and making champs on a wildcard, this season was a huge step up
-Custom drivebase that held its own and was incredibly simple and strong
-Passive gear mechanism that managed to stay competitive at the world championship level
-First blue banner since 2010
-First season winning more than one event
-Industrial Design
-Ranked 9th in NE from district points
Overall, it has been 1073’s best season in the 15 years we’ve been around
Best. Season. Ever.
- Our First ever Chairman’s Win
- First Maryland team in 16 years to make Einstein. (Thanks to 3452, 3683, and 2084)
- Our Dean’s List finalist streak has hit 4 years in a row, making this not only the longest active streak in CHS, but the most total DLFs in CHS.
- We now have 3 times as manny blue banners as the rest of our county combined (7 other teams)
- What is easily our best robot ever was built with almost no mentor involvement. (Not that our mentors didn’t help, but the students designed and built the bot)
Best robot ever.
First student-designed, student-CADed, and almost entirely student-built and programmed robot.
First student-run and organized build season.
First engineering award. (Yee hah! Way to go, “guys”! 
)
Biting off (almost) more than we could chew with a variation of an older iteration of 2767’s swerve drive. (Thanks to 2767 for sharing with us)
Collaborating with 5162 on the swerve drive modules and programming implementation and seeing them make it to St Louis.
Winning our first out of state district banner (Indiana)
We started a new rookie student on-boarding process that I think really transformed how younger students view the team, and how they treat their own membership on it. I think we went a long way to transform that element of high school culture for our students.
It was a great year for our team. Our robot looked pretty, and we won the Industrial safety award (AZ west), gracious professionalism (At AZ west), Woodie Flowers (AZ west), finalist (AZ west) And the gracious professionalism award at Turing/Hopper. We also made some good friends this year from some other teams.
I have to say, I love that this was the best season yet for most
Team 1706, Ratchet Rockers, had our best season ever. At the St. Louis regional (where we won the Innovation in Control Award), we were ranked #2 and were the first pick of Alliance #1. Our alliance (1732, 1706, and 537) won the St. Louis regional. At the Rocket City Regional (where we won the Industrial Design Award), we ranked #4 and were the captain of Alliance #4 (1706, 3490, and 6366). At the St. Louis Championships we were the first pick of Alliance #5 (3419, 1706, and 4481) on Tesla and won our first match ever in the Quarterfinals at the Championships. At the 2017 Missouri State Robotics Championship we were the first pick of Alliance #2 (1806, 1706, and 2357) and ended up as the Finalists. Along with Team 4329, we also hosted the Missouri State Robotics Championship for the first time ever. Overall, the best part of the robot was our autonomous hopper high goal shooting.