FIRST Competitions

After six weeks of the blood, sweat, and tears that goes into the fabrication of the robot, here is where it all pays off. The competitions run from early to late March each year, with the FIRST Championships in April. On the playing field, you are out to win, but gracious professionally. Off the field, you cooperate with the other teams. FIRST does not have long-standing rivalries like other sports, as a team may be your partner one match, but your opponent the next. And that is what gracious professionalism is. Learning to compete, but not violently, but then cooperate the rest of the time, to openly share ideas and concepts, to synergize together. This may should new and unique to rookies and newcomers, but this is what will fuel the industry of the future, competing while cooperating in an open and friendly environment.

NERVE (FVC Competition) (2006)

Held in conjunction with the 2006 UTC New England Regional, the NERVE, or New England Region Vex Event, was held on March 10, 2006 at the new Connecticut Convention Center in Hartford, Connecticut.

The 2006 NERVE Event was the fifth of six regional FIRST Vex Challenge (FVC) tournaments across the country. Thirty two teams competed at the 2006 NERVE Event, and among these was FVC Team 59, The Vexperts. Formed in the fall of 2005 by Gus Robotics Team 228, the Vexperts is a "junior-varsity" level robotics team, and is a stepping stone to introduce new team members to the world of FIRST.

Already having competed at the NERVE Scrimmage on February 25, 2006, the Vexperts entered the NERVE Event with high hopes. After having competed at the NERVE Scrimmage, being selected into the second-place alliance, and making it all the way into the finals, the Vexperts had a lot of experience under their belts.

But as all things go, not everything went one-hundred percent smoothly. Between minor tweaking of the robot and working the bugs out of the autonomous mode, the team was kept busy for most of the day. However, their performance on the field was strong. After a few disappointing losses early on, they began to win their later matches in huge landslide victories.

The Vexperts high performance impressed Team 29 - Sigma FORCE. Team 29 was already familiar with our Vex team; they were the alliance captain that picked us at the NERVE Scrimmage. Together, our alliance shot through the elimination rounds, and into the finals, becoming the second-place teams (tournament finalists).

Our performance during the finals at UTC was just as good, if not better. Together with FVC Teams 29 and 96, our alliance powered through the quarterfinals, and steamrolled through the semifinals. When it came time for the ultimate showdown in the finals, our alliance stood up well. Unfortunately, one of our alliance partners (Team 29) damaged their arm during one of the matches, and was unable to score in the ever important center goal. Left with only our team to score in the center goal, we were unable to keep up with the huge influx of balls being scored by the other alliance. After three tough-fought matches, our alliance ended up losing in the finals to FVC Teams 43, 78, and 160 - all of whom put up quite a fight.

After everything was said and done, our team ended up once again as tournament finalists with FVC Team 29. During the qualifications, our team ranked 13th for our operator matches, and 17th for our autonomous matches, giving us an overall ranking of 17th place.

‹‹ Go back to the 2006 FIRST Competitions page.