The year 2000, the regional: Motorola Midwest, the teams: 45, 47, 111 all on an alliance in the finals. After going through the bracket we make it to the end and come out as the winners. I tell ya what, that event alone left a big impact in my future FIRST “career”…
The year: 2002… the end 
*Originally posted by Mr.Volcano *
** how this: one year our robot was known for its ability to burst into flames when ever it wants to
thats right how would you like to be known as the team that when entered the field, the Officals would be issued a fire extinguisher (sp?) **
In Seattle our robot started smoking…like as in smoke coming from the robot because tape was burning. That definately was not good and do you know how many jokes we got about it, especially since our team name was Hart Burn?
Hehe this was our first match last year. It was funny as hell. It started off with our robot falling over backwards. Whoops… two years in a row that happened. As it turns out the other team thinking they actually won the thing started helping our score out so that they’d get a pretty decent score. As it turns out we fell backwards into the scoring zone so we had actually one by I think a few points. Thats got to be the luckiest thing to happen ever to anyone.
2001 MMR… We wernt doing well at all in the competition and we had turned off our power and the air in the acumalator(sp?) went into the cylinders for the arm and it hit 2 liquid crystal clocks off. We were lucky they didnt DQ us for that one. Looking back to it was kinda funny.
This year we won nationals, but it was a fight. Our alliance was perfect, it was funny i studied 71 for its previous regionals and knew its flaws, little did i know they would be partners for national championships.
Anyway there are two scary moments in divisionals and chanpionships. The first came in the first match of divisionals, against the 8th seed should of been a pushover, but when beatty fell, it fell wrong the most horrible thing i could imagine. We lost our first match against the 8th seed.
The second disaster was in the last bracket of national champs, beatty went out with 173 and something happened on its fall, but when it came back to the little pit behind the field i noticed that its wheel had sheered off. We and 173 had to do it alone (god bless the ballers)
My story comes from nationals in the archemedies division. Our strategy guy, Rick, had told everyone that we were going to get a 190pt match next. No one really believed him but he claimed to have it planned out so perfectly that it would not fail. We went into the match knowing we had to give ourselves a score in the high 60’s and give our opposing alliance a score in the lower 60’s. Towards the end of the match we noticed that our opposing alliance had not scored enough and that we had 76 points. So we moved our robot into the opposite home zone to try to give ourselves a decent multiplier. The match ended and we were not too happy because the opposing alliance did not have many points. When the announcer came on with the score you could tell that something was going on. No one had actually noticed…except for the refs (thank God) that one of the opposing robots had let out a tether under a goal at one point during the match. Thus they were disqualifed. My team was not really expecting to get the 190pt match that Rick had actually planned. But we did…the highest score ever…198pts. And to think, we gave away points during the match…if we had only known.
I went crazy!
during a match at kennedy space center in 2001. 234 was on the ramp when another robot came behind us and hit our robot. our battery dislodged and fell off of our robot into theirs. so we dont have power and are right in the way because the ramp was really the only way to go unless you were small enough to fit under those bars. but the same robot then came at full speed, or something close to it, and rammed us off of the ramp right on to our grabbers on the left side of the ramp. we all thought that we were broken after that.
jessi
OK, I’ve got a lot of these… but here is one:
It’s 1998, at the Nationals. I think that the elimination rounds are just beginning. We were on stage at Einstein, getting ready for a match against team 65, the Huskie Brigade.
Right before our match started, a TechnoKat 8th grader ran up to our drive team and said:
“Watch their human player. He will try to knock hit your ball out of the middle scoring zone right when you put it in there… fake putting it in there, so he throws his ball away.”
This 8th grader was very excited that he found this news out… the drive team acted like it was no big deal and said “yeah, thanks.”
So… we get into the match, and we get a ball ready to score into the middle scoring zone. Our arm operator started to roll out the ball to let it go… but he faked letting it go and rolled it back into the gripper. Right before he rolled it back, the Huskie HP threw his ball hard, right at where we were scoring our ball.
After the Huskie ball flew over the top of the middle scoring zone, our operator calmly scored the ball.
The match was close, and we won. We have been using this example on the importance of scouting ever since '98. Of course, we made a big deal about how important that information was and gave alot of credit to the 8th grader who found it out.
Andy B.
It’s 2000, in New Jersey.
We’re down be a few points. That was the year if you suspend yourself from a center bar, you scored 10 points.
The opposing team had locked onto the bar, and they were blocking the whole bar.
It was put up or shut up time. We back’d up, and went forward at full ramming speed!
Wonder of wonders, we actually lifted them enough to knock them off the Bar, and clamp ourself onto the bar with just one or two seconds left.
We got best play of the day for that one.
Too bad I don’t have a picture of it. 
It’s hard to pick one. We’ve always had great years, and great moments. 1999, doing a perfect score and having the #1 seed.
1998, our Main gear snapping at Rumble at the Rock, and sending us crashing down!
1997,was a great year. We had the highest score at any competition!
We lost the the New jersey regional by a matter of 1/16th of an inch. They ended up pulling Woodie onto the field to make the final call, cause nobody wanted to do it.
It’s the wfinals at Rumber at the Rock 1997. That year, Team 121 made it there stragegy to flip every team over, usually breaking the robot in the process. (Nope, we’re not bitter)
the first round, team 121 skipped grabbing tubes, and went for us. We were on the goal at that point, fully extended, but we hadn’t locked on yet, they got under us and flipped us with there spatula. SMASH our main arm was in two pieces from the impact. two time outs later (Thanks again Gael Force for loaning us yours), One minute Expoxy, and some band-aids, we had managed to glue it back together. . The second round,
We make a quick grab for 4 tubes, and again go for the goal. Again, team 121 got under us, and flipped us again. This time, it’s in 4 peices. There isn’t enough time, and glue to put it back together.
It’s very hard, but try to imagine being faced with a descision. We had to rip our main arm off our robot. Ouch. we try’d to compete, to try and keep them from scoring, but it’s hard when your only a moving box.
year 2002.
Qualification match at UTC regional.
we get one goal and we position ourselves in the scoring position. 20 seconds left in the match. 716 is trying to steal the goal from us… our claw comes out and 716 keeps trying to steal our goal. 10 seconds left, 716 tries to rush into the end zone…we try to block them; the match ends. A small wire of our robot was touching the white line and the ref says that counts and they give them the 10 points. we tie 30-30, but we still win the match (we had more balls). pretty crazy.
the year: 2001
the competition: second annual WRRF cal games
within the alliance, the plan is that our robot will cross the bridge first, go to the end zone, and get a goal ready to balance. another team, able to reset the bridge, will follow us and sit in the end zone. somehow, Vulcan got to the end of the bridge, and then backed up, forward, back, forward, back crash crash as the bridge hits the floor of the gym at Evergreen community college, and the robot that’s supposed to follow us, which has somehow driven under the alliance side of the bridge what was the driver thinking? i have no idea. maybe he panicked when he could no longer see the robot from the alliance station? or maybe our gyro chip decided to kick in? who knows…
a couple matches later…
we’re supposed to be the first robot over the bridge, in tandem with another. the (same) driver i guess hit the trigger on the joystick, and the pneumatics of our bridge resetter actuated, hitting the ground, then released, rising back into its initial position. within this second, the driver positioned the robot such that the resetter was actually under the edge of the bridge…of course, since the view from the alliance stations aren’t that great, this was un noticed until the resetter released, completely removing the bridge from the 4x6 on which it rested! NO robots made it over in that match…and i don’t imagine that we were very popular with the other teams
ALright i got one here. Its the 2000 Midwest Regional. Im a sophomore and pumped up about my first match driving ever, except i have an unknown surprise waiting for me. Over the day on Practice Day we had been making adjustments to the drive and at somepoint had disconnected the the motors for some reason. Well something happened to one when they reconnected them. Well, unknown to anyone the match started, and all of a sudden TOBOR III was doing doughnuts for some unbegotten reason. Well after about 30 seconds of looking over the joysticks and connections and practically making a mess of myself, i dicovered that by running the joysticks oppisite of each other the robot would go staight. Well after manuevering under the bar i was able to bring the robot up the ramp and hang from the bar to score the 10 points, even though we still did lose the match. Regardless, it was determined a motor was wired backwards causing one joystick to have its controls reversed, and I impressed everyone by getting to the bar, and had a most stressing but fun introduction to the world of Driving for FIRST.
I Have many more stories about matches if anyone wants to hear some more( ie. “winning” the play of the day award MMR 2002, I Believe a guy named Baker called that almost immediately after the match).
Some of the best storys happen after the competition part of the day is over…
Hotel+college students+bucket of water+second floor+wet Dave+Dave’s revenge=great story
Stop by
Tigerbolt Chat, be warned, it can be nuts most of the time.
Wetzel
Lazy Bum
H:\Limp Bizkit\Limp Bizkit - Faith.mp3High school students- hotel- appoxy- mountain dew- window - 6th story---------------------- video tape…
*Originally posted by Joel J. *
**The year: 2002… the end
Hell yeah!!
but i got another one also:
Way back in 1999: the year of the floppy, my first year. Rage had our trademarked arm, as always, i was a rookie arm driver, and we we average. In the best match we had that year i don’t even remember the score. Anyways, it goes like this.
We were against some team with a big basket that was made of some sort of wires or tubing for walls. The game progressed, and it came down to the final thirty seconds or so. Everyone prepared for lifting their baskets of floppies up. As we lifted ours up in the last few seconds, the basket got caught in the other teams wire basket thing. Me being a freshman, not knowing rules too well, and being really aggresive, started prying our basket out of theirs. Exactly how i don’t know, but it ended up with me knocking the other robot over. It didn’t just fall though, it fell, hit the outside pipe border, and smacked the top of one of the camera men’s cameras, and knocked him over.
i believe i saw his video later, and it was the funniest video ever. A regular match then some sort of problem, you couldn’t tell from the angle, and then smack the camera just whacked and it was then filming the floor.
Good times.
Story 2:
"KILL THAT GOAL!!! KILL THAT GOAL!!!’’
there’s probly 6 people who know what that means, but it was the best moment i’ve had in four years
Oh… so many to choose from that I don’t know where to start. One that will live on for ever:
Nationals 2002… Newton Division… my team (84) had been dreading a match against MOE since the day we heard they were in our division. Finally, on day three of competition, or last match would become a nightmare. When we found out that we would be against MOE, myself, the other driver, and our coach immediately started planning and stratezizing. However, as usual, every thing you plan for does not happen, and something else totaly different occurs. I can’t remember who we were with, but MOE was with 710… the match began, we went out in high gear, and went straight for MOE’s armpit. It was almost a complee deadlock in the middle of the field. Come to find out when we hit MOE, we jumped thier arm, and were on top of it. They had two goals barely in, we continued all efforts to push them out. The match ended, and we had no idea if the goals were over or not. Myself, the other driver, and our coach stood nervously with our alliance partners on the sidelines. It took a very long time for the judges/refs to call the match. When it was finally announced, MOE had been disqualified. Eventhough, we did not complete our task, we were able to meet up with them later at the PA Robot Challenge, and succeed at what we wanted to do.
*I attached a photo that captured the moment at Nationals. Our floor team and our alliance’s floor team are overlooking the field, while on the right hand side, Chuck sits atop MOE’s arm.
*Originally posted by Wetzel *
**Some of the best storys happen after the competition part of the day is over…Hotel+college students+bucket of water+second floor+wet Dave+Dave’s revenge=great story
**
Yup. Share these kind of stories too!
Since it was such a big topic on here, I think everyone will know what I am talking about(ahhheeemmm, RICK). The best match ever happened at Battlecry III in the finals.
I have a LOT of good ones from two years ago. The game with the balancing of the two goals.
First ff, I was on team 249 and that year I was the driver of the component on our robot that lifted the goal. (Yeah we were successful at lifting a 73 lb goal at the front of the robot. We came in 2nd at Nationals in the Archimedes Division that year!)
Anyway, what happened was our strategy was to grab a goal while one of our alliance partners grabbed the other one. The alliance partner would then have to drive up one side of the ramp first (robot in middle of ramp, goal on outside) so this would cause one side of the ramp to be down and the other side to be up. The side that was up would be the side my team was on with the goal. You see, our robot had these monster wheels with great traction! And so the height of them were just enough so that when the ramp came down, the end would sit on our wheels. So the game starategy was the robot would be on the teter totter thingie (balancer/ramp) and we would be on the other side with the goal in the air. Just high enough so that we could go forward, and sit the goal on the ramp. As we sat the goal down, the balance ramp would come down on that end and sit on our whels. As soon as it touched our wheels, we released the goal and drove backwards into the scoring zone. And it worked most of the time. A few times we had roblems with the hook unlatching. But it worked a lot in Nationals. Anyway, as the ramp was coming down, the other team panicked and thoht we needed room and drove back. But they drove back too far and decided to drive back forward really quickly. WEll, the result of that was they hit the goal that we were sitting on the ramp, knocked it forward and it fell the long way on the ramp. The thing about it is, it still balnced! It was a great site! We didn’t get the score for balancing though cause it was supported by the metal bar. But it was still a great match!!!