Titan Robotics Club: 2006 Pacific Northwest Regional Chairman’s Award Winners
This last weekend, I attended the FIRST Robotics Competition’s Pacific Northwest Regional. This year’s regional was packed with talent, with the best West-Coast team (254), us (492), another two-time champion (753) and old-schoolers such as Tacoma’s 360 and Los Altos’ 114. We knew the going would be rough, especially with a robot not performing to our high expectations, but we were still pretty disappointed after being eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. The TRC is also pretty accustomed to getting a few awards at our home regional. Past years have seen at least one, and usually two or three awards coming our way. So when it came down to the last award, and we still hadn’t won anything, some of the Titan’s faithful were feeling a little low. But I had my camera rolling as the following took place:
The Regional Chairman’s Award was created to keep the focus of the FIRST Robotics Competition on the ultimate goal of transforming our culture to one where youth aspire to careers in science and teechnology. This award honors the team that, in the judges’ estimation best represents a model for other teams to emulate and which embodies the goals and purposes of FIRST. Among the factors that the judges evaluate are: concrete examples of mentorship between students and engineers, demonstations of how a team inspires others in its school, community and beyond to share the excitement and fun of engineering, and finally, compelling stories about how the partnership has impacted the lives of those involved. This is FIRST’s most prestigious award. The winner of this award will be invited to the 2006 Championship in Atlanta where it will compete against the winners of the other 32 regionals for the Chairman’s Award. And now, here are what the judges have to say about this regional Chairman’s Award team:
This team is widely recognized for the impact on the FIRST community. They host kickoff, pre-ship events, and (OH MY GOD!) (laughter)… and you can download their code on their website. This team has perpetuated itself through active recruitment and FIRST Lego League mentoring. They have grown to a team of 49, including 21 girls. These Titans of the Community exemplify the meaning of FIRST by all acounts. The 2006 Regional Chairman’s Award for the Pacific Northwest Regional goes to team number 492!
March 8th, 2006 at 09:28:56 pm
Where did you find the text of the speech? Please tell me you transcribed it from tape. Kevin’s “Oh My God” is absolutely priceless! I know we are going to be able to remix that one to no end! I am glad that someone got the speech down, as I think I was having a stroke or something at the time and don’t quite recall what was being said about the team
-Dan
March 8th, 2006 at 09:52:07 pm
It was transcribed from the video I was recording when it all happened. I was also reording during the engineering inspiration award, but I deleted that one after the winner was announce to make space for this one, just in case…
March 9th, 2006 at 03:38:12 pm
This is awesome. Could you possibly hook me up with a copy of the tape for the promo vid I’m doing?