Hello CD,
Something that I’ve been thinking slot about recently is that there are awards for both teams who do great things on the field and awards for teams who do great things off the field. Of course, the best teams are able to be great in both aspects, but there is nothing recognizing an extraordinary feat like that. So what I’ve been thinking about are teams that have great robots year in and year out, show cooperatition and gracious professionalism, and are great teams in their communities off the field. Here are two teams that I think of:
Team 1114 Simbotics: this was a pretty obvious choice, as they are this years World Chairman’s award winner and they are a perennial powerhouse on the field. Any team who can win as many regionals and Chairman’s awards as they do is obviously a great team.
Team 175 Buzz Robotics: 175 has a great robot every year, and all of their members show great spirit and professionalism. They are a past World Chairman’s award winner (I believe it was 2001 or 2002) and they are a great inspiration to many teams up here in New England.
So which teams does anyone else think are great both on an off the field?
Team 1540; They build great robots and do well at regionals. What really makes them shine is their work off of the field. They host the Girls Generation scrimmage (girls only on the robots), FIRST fare (workshops for everything FRC related) and the Bunnybot scrimmage (a sort of mock FRC season and the reason why I joined my FRC team). Through hosting these events they have helped grow FRC in and around Portland, Oregon.
They are also great people. Dale Yocum (their coach) is very experienced and will help you fix your problems. He definitely deserved his Woody Flower’s award.
There are obvious examples in the FIRST Hall of Fame. So there’s really no point in listing those teams. They didn’t get there by mistake.
As for teams not in the Hall of Fame (yet) my choices are:
Team 118
Team 233
Team 71
Team 25
Team 234
Team 45
We all know they’ve won every regional they have attended. But most over look the fact that they are also great off the field. Usually because they are in the shadow of 1114 for chairmens. This year they finally won the chairmens award, at waterloo i believe. A few years ago at a skating tournement mu sister was participating in (on kick-off), 2956 just happened to be helping out at the event. Thought it wa pretty cool to see that. They are a great team and alway nice to talk to.
Teams that work closely with Chairman’s winning team very often have Chairman’s winning traits of their own or develop them over time. I suspect 2056 will be winning Chairman’s awards on a yearly basis.
Pretty much every HoF team. You look at the list of HoF teams, and you’ll find that they a pillars of the FIRST Community, as well as amazing field competitors. That’s not a coincidence. Those are teams that have pushed so hard in their program and the results are not very questionable.
233 and 118 are both teams renowned for their excellence on the field. They are also both active members in their community and do a lot to support FIRST. They are both teams who, in my opinion, could easily be contenders for the World Chairman’s Award in the coming years.
Locally, 1511 and 340 are both teams who have done great work on-and-off the field. They’re both very involved in their communities, through FLL, robotics demonstrations, and community service. They both have an impressive streak going. 340 has taken the Chairman’s Award home from Finger Lakes for about 6 consecutive years now, with a total of 8 under their belt. And it’s been quite a few seasons since 1511 has gone without either a Chairman’s Award or Engineering Inspiration award. 7 seasons have gone, and they’ve taken home either the CA or EI for those 7 seasons. Very impressive, considering the team is 8 years old now. They are also both great teams on the field, always being a very competitive team on the field and high pick or captain in eliminations.
When a team brings back both blue banners from a regional, that’s about as extraordinary as you can get. I think that the teams that consistently do well in both aspects of FIRST also get a lot of recognition from their peers. It really says a lot when this kind of question is posted on CD and we get the kind of responses posted above. As for my experiences, 399 and 1983 stand out year after year in my area. Congrats to them and all the other teams out there showing what FIRST is really about: excellence in engineering and leadership, on and off of the field.