UFH: Christopher Hibner

FIRST General Forum
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Thread created automatically to discuss UFH Honoree: Christopher Hibner.

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Name: Christopher Hibner
Date Honored: 10-14-2003
Years involved w/FIRST: 7
FIRST Team(s): TRW &, Walled Lake Schools (0308)
Role: Engineer and Drive Team Coach
Quote: “What the mind can conceive, the mind can achieve” – Bo Schembechler
Bio: Christopher Hibner has been selected as our sixth Unsung FIRST Hero for his numerous contributions to both his team and the FIRST community. By day, Chris is an engineer for TRW Automotive and resides in Canton, MI, yet he still finds time to engineer and coach for Team #308 – TRW and The Walled Lake Monsters. This is a well-known and popular team in FIRST Robotics for its friendly students, helpful engineers, and innovative robot designs.

Chris has worked with the TRW FIRST team for seven years now, winning such awards as the 1997 Midwest Regional Rookie All-Star Award and the 1997 National Rookie All-Star Award (also awarded to the HOT Team #67). While these are prestigious awards, Chris says that these aren’t what he is most proud of. “I would say my best accomplishments are not reflected in any awards. I still have a number of students from the team that I keep in touch with, as friends. Some are now engineers in the “real world”. I guess that I’m still able to sit and have lunch, play golf, go to Cedar Point, etc. with former team members is my favorite ‘accomplishment’.”

Chris Hibner’s favorite FIRST memory is a famous one: back in the 2001 season, Teams 308 and 71 had robots that did similar jobs and both had a great shot at winning the Championship title. “We got to the championship event ready to go, but we had a terrible string of bad luck – the bridge was getting knocked off the pivot point, teams got flipped over on the bridge, goals got tipped, and so on. We ended up salvaging enough decent matches to qualify 6th, but more bad luck hit us in the eliminations and we were eliminated early.” Chris and the TRW team were not discouraged by this, and went on to IRI to rematch with the Beatty 71 team.

“We then went on to the IRI, hoping we could show what we could do. We qualified 2nd, just a few points behind Beatty. We picked our ideal alliance and thought our chances were good. Our first pick was WildStang, who we thought would be great at pulling the goal over the bridge. When we got to our alliance meeting, Mike Soukup was looking kind of down, especially after we said what we wanted to do. He asked, “so you think we’re going to out-Beatty Beatty?” I said, “that’s the plan.” In the end, it was a hard fought competition, but we pulled it out, knocking off the previously undefeated national champions, and finally realizing the potential that our team thought we had all along.”

That experience brought Chris to a higher respect for Team 71 – “I remember telling Bill Beatty after the competition that I thought that besting his team was my favorite moment in FIRST, since I’ve long felt that his team was the class of FIRST. And let me tell you, they were the most gracious team I’ve ever talked to – truly what FIRST is all about.”

Chris finishes with strong advice for many FIRSTers to look up to. “Do NOT forget that this is a competition. Of course it is much more, BUT it is competition that brings out the best in people. The desire and drive to be the best is what motivates people to work hard, come up with new inventions, figure out better ways of doing things, and discover new things. It is the desire to be the best that forces people to think, “this might not be good enough, I need to work harder, research more, learn more, achieve more.” A good competitive spirit drives people to exceed their own expectations, which is where real inspiration comes from – this is when students say, ‘Hey, I can do anything if I have the drive to do it. Just look at what we just did for proof.’”

Our congratulations to Christopher Hibner for being honored as our sixth Unsung FIRST Hero. Chris sets an excellent example for students and mentors alike.

Nominated By: confidential

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Congratulations to Christopher Hibner for being honored as our sixth Unsung FIRST Hero.

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I remember IRI that year and you guys were great! For the record, I agree that luck has a lot to do with any FIRST competition and in 2001, 71 definitely had a lot of good luck. There are always a lot of great teams and robots that get eliminated (such one of my favorites that year, HotBot).

Anyway, congratulations and thank you for what you do in the FIRST community!

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I first met Chris at IRI 2003, It was in the open bar at the hotel, he was there with many other awsome people including another UFH, JVN. Anyways, we all talked about everything FIRST that night. Chris absoletly amazed me with his knowledge of robot processes, and had many intresting stories to share with all of us. Congrats Chris on becomeing a UFH.

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Congratulations, Chris! I’ve always been impressed with 308, and their innovative ideas and designs. They always manage to come up with something noone (or few others) figure out, or a new, creative twist to a common solution. Good job, and keep up the good work!

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Congrats, Chris! You definitely deserve it!

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Way to go Chris. You & team 308 have been heros to me ever since we competed together at IRI in 2001. Wildstang was disappointed because we weren’t doing as well as we wanted at IRI and after getting 2nd place to Beatty at Nationals we wanted to prove to ourselves & everyone else that our ramp design and strategy was capable of putting up a 700 score. When you picked us we knew that our chances of using our ramp in competition were over.

I remember that exchange between us. I thought you were crazy. But I’m glad that our alliance proved me wrong. After our driver put the goal in the wrong spot during our first match (partly my fault because I assumed he knew where it should go) you & Kevin were still confident that we would get a 700 point round in the next match. Of course we did. What I liked most was your positive & competitive attitude. Not once did you say that we should go for a 600 score. You put it all on the line and went for the big score every time. That takes confidence in your robot & drivers and lots of guts. I’m glad we pulled it off and out-Beatty’d Beatty.

Mike

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Congrats, Chris! You definitely deserve this. It is great to see team 308 constantly push the limit with regard to robot design for FIRST games. Your efforts challenge the rest of us to keep up. If FIRST did not have engineers who push to be innovative and develop new designs, then FIRST would only be a glorified science fair.

I totally agree with Chris’ opinions with regard to FIRST being a competition. I love his competitiveness. The fact that I know he and team 308 are working hard to make a great robot pushes me and team 45 to work harder. We want to win… Chris definitely raises the bar and makes it harder to win, but that is life. Competing is reality.

As a side note, here is a story about Chris:

I’ve been helping to organize and run the IRI (Indiana Robotics Invitiational) for the past 4 years. Team 308 has attended each year we held the event. They always make the effort to come down from Michigan to compete. After our first year’s IRI was complete, the most encouraging thing I heard from any attendee was Chris saying this: “This is just as good as a FIRST Regional. I totally support you for sticking to the FIRST rules, calling the matches fairly and not backing down under pressure. We will be back next year.” As my role as an IRI organizer, I see Chris as my “customer”. When my customer gives me support like that, then I will work hard to make him happy to give him what he wants. So, for each of the 4 years of IRI, Chris has come up to me after the competition was over and said the same thing. His support gives me great encouragement. This kind of support makes all the hard work worth while.

Thanks, Chris.

Andy B.

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Nice going Chris…
Though we have not worked together at any events, I had the honor of being a FIRST volunteer in 2002 on the main stage at the Championship. (The final one at EPCOT). I ran the stage on the side where your team controlled their robot during those semi finals and Finals. I was so impressed at how well you worked with those students and kept settling them down between matches. You made a great impression on me…and of course your students…

Keep it up, you are young and must have 20 - 30 seasons left in you!