Recently FRC teams 801 Horsepower and team 1592 Bionic Tigers sent us a letter and two signed t-shirts. Yesterday we signed FRobotics t-shirts to send to these two teams. The text of their letter was poignant and inspirational. Here it is for everyone:
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9 May 2014
FRC Team 801 Horsepower, Merritt Island, FL
FRC Team 1592 Bionic Tigers, Cocoa, FL
Dear FRC Team 4150 FRobotics,
As fellow members of the FIRST Community, we would like to join the FR Proud Team and show our support for your students, mentors, staff, and faculty. One tradition that our teams have it to sign team shirts and present them to our alliance team partners when we make it to the Championships at a Regional competition. In the true spirit of FIRST, we would like to present your team with signed shirts from our teams as your newest alliance partners.
Team 801 Horsepower, and TEam 1592 Bionic Tigers became sister teams 3 years ago as a way to share resources and continue our programs when prospects of our survival were bleak with the end of the Space Shuttle program, loss of sponsors, and a rapid downsizing of our communities as people left to find employment. We work together as one “Ultimate Coopertition” team year round, but compete separately as two teams.
Last season, just 5 miles from the University of Central Florida on the night before the Orlando Regional Competition, our trailer was rear ended, and all vehicles in the accident were a total loss, including both of our robots, Neil and Buzz. After the initial shock wore off, the students banded together and declared that failure was not an option and we would still compete. In the true spirit of Gracious Professionalism, with the help from the 59 other teams at the regional and sheer determination, we completely rebuilt both robots forms cratch in one day and did not miss a qualification match. We went on to play in the Quarterfinals and although we were eliminated, we knew we had just achieved what everybody said was impossible. At the San Antonio Regional, just three short weeks later, we helped a Mexican rookie team do almost the exact same thing — start over and have a robot that was completely ready in two days after the FedEx truck transporting the robot was stolen.
Our message to you is this: Never give up. Things can look pretty bleak at time and you don’t know how you will possibly overcome them, and then somehow you do. We added a symbol of a Phoenix to our robot logos to show that we were able to rise from the ashes. It is a lesson that the students and mentors alike never forget. You can do anything you set your mind to.
Congratulations on finishing as a Finalist at the Pittsburgh Regional this year! We look forward to getting to know more about your team, sharing ideas, and the possibility of being alliance partners at a competition one day!
Best of luck from the Students, Mentors and School Liaisons for Teams 801 and 1582
FRobotics Team 4150 