Mike Corsetto used to be tall. But then he decided he didnât want to stoop to go under the truss last year, so he shrunk. He decided he liked being short for now (and apparently his fiancee likes it tooâwho knew???) (And I think he was trying to make me feel better because my son, themccannman, may have surpassed me.) Watch for modifications in the future⌠
There is a Subway next to our build space(its no more that a 20 second walk). We go there so much that the team is on a first name business with the employs, and we have âSubway runsâ. Witch involve several team members running to Subway for drinks, cookies, subs, or all of the above.
We fund a small portion of the team using script cards for Subway. We have even discussed funding the entire robot (not the whole team) on Subway script cards!!
Robots and SubwaysâŚIâm flashing back to Lije and Daneel running the strips in Isaac Asimovâs The Caves of Steel.
We constantly argue over which mobile OS is the best. We use that to insult each other when we are poking for fun and/or angry at each other.
My avatar explains my stance on our debates.
I already had an frustrated outburst at competition sayingâŚ
âSHUT UP APPLE!â -
which frightened a family next to me when leaving the pits
YepâŚStuff gets weird sometimes on my team.
we seem to build the best robot for the worst strategyâŚ
We forgot to name our practice robot this yearâŚ
We have a not particularly consistent tradition of naming our robots after shades of blue. (Hooloovoo, Cerulean, Willow, Azure, Mazarine) <-- some of these things are not like the others
I was going to say that our teacher sponsor on Team 1339 can do a mean rapâŚ
Then I realized that this is about things that arenât on the internet.
My team has high school teachers, quite a few electrical engineers, a few software engineers and even a machining expert as mentors but no professional mechanical engineers.
We seem to do fine though. 
We also have some taboo words:
âWater-Gameâ
âSwerveâ
âCarbon Fiberâ
The latter two were taken off the list after this year as the entire team came together and helped our mentors overcome their traumatic past 
We have a thing for spoons.
(Be prepared for the surprise ice cream social)
2013- mechanical
2014-mechanical, design, human player
2015- mechanical, design, CAD, driver
2016- ???
For most of the days of build season, 2169 would listen to an hour of Opera music and an hour or two of âChicken on a Raft.â
This is the first year that plywood was not part of our robot.
We always have plywood on our robot⌠::safety::
We actively MAKE SURE there is plywood on our robot! Somewhere. Plywood was a material of choice for much of our early year so we now keep the tradition. Our most reliable robot we ever built was our 2012 robot and was at least 30% plywood by weight. It was so simple that it just worked every match. Being in the pits that year was awesome, queue for match, play match, bring to pit, change battery, break out the chairs and lounge, wait for pit scouts and judges. Good times plywood, good times.
OK, my other post wasnât really true, that Mike Corsetto is actually Chuck Norris in a poor disguise (trying to hide under his beanie). But what is really true is that our second longest termed mentor Devin Castellucci (RoboChair) in the last 2 years has spent much more time in other rookie teams pits at competitions than our pit. Weâre afraid that heâs lost any allegiance to our teamâŚ:eek:
At least 7 of our original students are still involved with the team as mentors.
And on the lighter side, we call FTC Team 4251 (Cougar Robotics) awkward potato puppies.
We never put any kind of wood on our robots (bumpers aside). From inception to 11 years later, the robot has been wood free.
Everyone on our team knows each other we all work as a big family. We establish team building exercises together like going to the movies or attending scotching hot beach clean-ups which leads to sand ball fights and full body sunburns.
Regardless of how our team ends our year even though we set focus on winning we all are still one big robotics family. :]
Even though FRC 4607 (CIS) is based out of our local High School (Becker ISD 726); has myself (teacher) and our Assistant Principal as the Head Coaches; the school offers no financial support for our team. Even our MSHSL banners hang from the gym rafters and we have roadsigns that welcome people to Becker.
In fact, the Robotics team actually purchases tools and equipment for our FabLab - upwards of $2000 per year. The last two years we invested in capital purchases that include a new laser for our Middle School and a vinyl printer for the HS Tech Ed Department.
Currently, the Tech Ed Department is working with one of our students to build 25 new PCs for our CAD lab.
So even though the school does not recognize our team as an official sport or activity, our robotics team supports the school.
Oh yeah, of the three flags that we have had - none of them are emblazoned with our official Hex Logo.
We have a cursed van that hauls the cursed trailer. We have yet to go anywhere without something breaking on either the trailer or van. Last competition, the trailer latch came off (thank god it was bungy-corded closed). We have gotten multiple tickets for not having a brake lights on the trailer (our mentor claims thereâs one light for every function between the van and trailer). At one competition we put the trailer hitch through the back window of the van.
Oh, and for us 2013 happened, but we have collectively decided to forget about 2014.