[Adam Freeman]

Thank you GVSU for the wonderful venue! Thank you to all the volunteers, FTA, Refs, and judges for working hard all weekend to make this a great event.

Congratulations to 1918, 27, and 3357 you guys formed an incredible alliance. We knew we would have to execute flawlessly to defeat you. Unfortunately we did not and you guys we too way to strong for us to overcome our issues.

I have a lot of respect for 1918 and 27, both teams experienced some troubles early Saturday morning, but in each instance they quickly changed strategies and kept fighting to either win the match or make it as close as possible. Then worked to correct those issues by the afternoon to perform at an incredibly high level in the eliminations.

To 3375; we were hoping that you would make it all the way back to us. Not sure how you made it all the way back to the #2 seed. We wanted you guys to play your same role for us instead of against us. Credit to the scouts on 1918 and 27.

To 2054; you guys were nearly perfect all weekend long. From autonomous, to tube scoring, to minibots you were as consistently awesome. It was great getting a chance to work with you guys.

To 107; it was great seeing and working with you again. You guys were willing to do whatever we needed. We picked you guys for autonomous scoring and you guys worked and worked all elims to get the "twitch" at the start out. We finally got it that last match, when we really needed it! Thank you for always working with us!

Between 1918, 2054, 3357, and a hand full of other veteran and strong rookie teams on the West side....they are going to start challenging the East side for State dominance. Future state championships are going to be really exciting.

Congratulations to Fighting Pi (1718) on the District Chairmans award. You guys are a great team and have quickly improving robot also.

To my HOT teammates; Our #1 goal was to collect as many points as we could to give us the best chance at qualifying for the State Championship. I think (hope) we accomplished that goal. All the hard work and dedication over the past few weeks paid off. Our performance showed exactly how dedicated we are to being the best!

On a side note, the HOT team is 0-5 (2004-07, 2011) at West Michigan regionals / districts.

Additionally it seems Team RUSH is having some type of strange effect on our robot performance. In matches with (2) / against (5) them this season we have not moved three times, broke a lift pulley, run into a partner trying to deploy our minibot, have both partners lose control of their robots, and finally drive over a deflated Uber-tube and get it caught in the drive train disabling our robot!

We might need an exorcism... or I need to find my lucky shoes out of the landfill.