Actually Rookie Inspiration is not a qualifier. Team 1503 was on the waiting list for the Championship. On the Tuesday after the last weekend of regionals, the team received a phone call from FIRST saying that a spot had opened up. Needless to say that the entire team was very excited about the wonderful opportunity.
Karthik PLS realize Iām in no way trying to be rude ~ and there is no way to copy paste this without sounding rudeā¦ but somehow I mean it with as much respect as I can
Important: 2005 Rookies are not eligible for to attend the Championship via Open Registration but must qualify to attend per the Merit Based criteria set forth above.
itās just a matter of confusion
Youāre correct. That applied at the beginning of the season though, when only tiers 2 and higher could signup (or whatever it was)
Since FIRST had spaces left, after that registration period had ended, and whenever and veteran teams could have signed up, the teams on the waiting list got in, including rookies.
Awesome! good luck you threeā¦
what stumps me isā¦ if your robot is the sameā¦ and you get first seedā¦ why donāt you pick the robot thatās exactly the same!!!
Thatās what Chatsworth 22 and the Cheesy Poofs 254 did at SVR and then they won.
I think that was more a case of 22 slipping through the cracks, but still very cool.
I waited all last year to see a 254/60 matchup, but I guess 22/254 will have had to make up for that 
Driving skill becomes much more obvious with identical bots, might be a reason for the discrepancies between thes triplets, it was something that was evident with 254 and 22 However theres also the randomness of the qualifiers as well, so it might also be just bad luck. Anyways, gj to all 3 teams for qualifying (2 of them are on curie yay). And wish everybody good luck
wow i neva seen three robots identical, iām suprised they all didnāt win the same thing =) very close though.
wasnāt there a rule that says you canāt have more then one robot that looks the same - oh wait neva mind that was if the team built 2 robots identical and used them both at the regional, if im not mistaken that was last year or the year before that.
anywho, good luck at the nationals. iāll come by the pits and say hi to the 3 of them, btw are they all boys or girls =)
This is awesome!
But what if, since all three robot siblings are on different fields, all three are in the winning alliances and they all make it on to Einstein. Who will you cheer for? 
so you can build the same robot for different teams
actually, according to the pic, 1503 and 1680 are both gonna be in curie, while 1114 is in archimedes.
No such rule exists. FIRST to this date, has been completely passive about collaboration.
So far.
If this gets out of hand, though, FIRST will change the rules. I know that there was a lot of discussion on the site when the first two identical robots were revealed during the 2004 season, and Iām a bit surprised this hasnāt drawn the outrage that that thread did.
Our team was at both of NiagaraFIRSTās regionals, and I was sort of thinking the same thing before I met the teams (I had the knowledge that they built identical robots). After seeing them play a few matches I was amazed at how differently each team plays, and I quickly lost any thoughts that these were three ācloneā teams who planned to carry each other to Atlanta. In fact, I have a video where one of them tips over the other in one of the quarter-final matches we played in Waterloo!
Iām sure those of you in Curie will notice the same things as well. I believe the greatest thing that was accomplished by the NiagaraFIRST āprojectā was that two different self-sustaining teams were created who have flourished rather than being āsubordinatesā of their mentor team.
I canāt wait to see them again in a few days!
Iām not. I donāt mean this in a derogatory manner to any other teams that have collaborated, but simply put, no teams that have collaborated were as successful and in the public eye as much as 254/60.
Two powerhouses collaborating? thatās a no-no (In the eyes of most)
Two lesser known teams collaborating? Sure, go for it.
Similarly, in 2003, at Sacramento, there were two teams with identical bots. Now why did people not care? Because they were rookies (or second/third year teams), and they didnāt do all that well.
The reaction has actually been very positive at both our two regionals. When Team 1114 founded NiagaraFIRST.org and decided upon the collaboration, the goal was not to give our teams a competitive advantage. We did this because we wanted to spread FIRST throughout the Niagara community. We saw the amazing impact FIRST was having on the students from 1114, and we wanted to share this with others.
We knew we that we did not have the mentor base or the funding to start a new team with out stretching 1114 too thin. Using a common design, and engineering and manufacturing approach allowed us to minimize costs and mentor load. Sharing the mentor expertise, equipment and tools, and the workload of manufacturing and assembly enabled us to reap economies of scale.
Most importantly, we were able to seamlessly pass on the lessons we had learned about FIRST. Iām not just talking about the engineering lessons, but we were able to teach the new teams about gracious professionalism. For most rookies, GP is something that they only fully understand after their first season. They learn it by experiencing at the competitions. In our case, by having 1114, 1503 and 1680 working so closely together, the lessons learned we passed along. This collaboration allowed 1503 and 1680 to skip the steep learning curve. They were two rookie teams who stepped into their regionals with poise of veterans, and were able to start spreading the values of FIRST to other rookies!
So, why hasnāt there been more outrage? Itās pretty hard to argue with a business model that allows for resources to be used effectively and results in three times as many students being inspired, and three times as many communities being excited about FIRST.
More inspired students, more community involvement, less drain on the mentorsā¦ Sounds pretty swell to me!
I agree, I think that what 1114 did for these two rookie teams is great. If we were to ever help start a team, I would like to collaborate with them the the first year.
I see this becoming a norm, that for every team started, there is another team to mentor them. I would love to see that happen.
Hey all, Iām one of the drivers in the niagarafirst.org teams. Iām with team 1503, really all I can say is that with 1114 mentoring us we did pass a large learning curve, it helped us to learn these things alot quicker and made us able to come up with a robot that is actually way better than I had expected at the beginning of the year.
Each team between us has their own driving styles, for example: our three teams have a arm system that all we have to do is push buttons on the controllers and on a button box that we had made and it would do picking up tetraās off the floor, from the auto loader and even a loading position for the human player. It also has the ability to cap goals with these buttons, including the centre goal. The system also had it so we can manually do things incase something was wrong with the program or the robot. Anyone who was at the Toronto Regional would of seen these buttons being used. Myself, I no that 1114 loves to use these buttons, as does 1680 although I donāt. At first I found them confusing, at times I still do, especially when your in a match and your being pushed and you have to cap at the same time. But the way we think when we are in a match is totally different. Like as said above when 1114 tipped 1503, when we are in a match against each other, we treat them as they are just a regular team to us. Off the field and at home we work together, have fun together, and even argue together at times.
But Iām am glad we had 1114 to mentor us, I learned more than I ever thought I would in a single year being with them instead of being on our own.
I had heard good things about these bots, but I was EXTREMELY impressed with 1114ās performance in Archimedesā¦so I assume the others were just as solid. What an impressive job done by the NiagraFIRST.org alliance. Wow!
We were cheering on the 2/3 NiagaraFIRST alliance too! They didnāt make it out of the quarters, but who couldnāt cheer for 1503 and 1680 hooking up to make a run for the big prize. Two rookie teams with such great potential.
What a successful year to all three teams!
Friendly rivalry between 188 and 1114 aside, weāre looking already looking forward to working with (or against ) you all next year!!!
-SlimBoJonesā¦