[mwilbur]

Team 2363, Triple Helix, has so many teams and people to thank for our Palmetto Regional experience that I don't know where to begin.

For starters, let me thank the many volunteers and organizers that made the event so pleasant for us. Everyone that I spoke with had a smile on their face and was most helpful even if they didn't immediately know the answers to my questions. We definitely recognize that there would be no events like these without your efforts, and for that we thank you very sincerely.

As for team 180, SPAM, and team 2815, Los Pollos Locos, thanks so much for partnering with us in the elimination matches. Things didn't get off to as great a start as we had all expected, but we got steadily better as an alliance as time wore on. For us it was something truly magical, and we are truly thankful for our first FRC win. You will be honorary Triple Helix members for the rest of your lives!

To team 1902, Exploding Bacon, we are truly humbled to have received your Most Valuable Pig award! We had seen you for years on the streaming video, but to have experienced your team in person was truly special. Thanks for the nod of confidence with the MVP award!

To team 1319, Flash, many thanks also for the Flash-E Chassis Robot Design Award. The awards from our peers are in many ways more special than the Excellence in Engineering design award that we received on Friday evening.

To the many teams that came around to study our robot, Genome Gamma, from every angle and asked how you could build a minibot deployment mechanism as consistent as ours, thanks for the vote of confidence! I don't know that we did an adequate job of answering all of your questions, so feel free to ask some more if you didn't receive the help that you were looking for. We will freely admit that we never expected to play 16 matches and have 16 successful minibot delpoyments -- most for 30 points -- so we were as caught off guard as any of you.

To teams 343, 1287, and 2751, thanks for putting the pressure on in the finals. Our team philosophy is that you have to beat the best in order to be the best, and your performance kept us performing at our best to the very end.

Finally, to team 11, MORT, thanks so much for showing us what a great team can do. To have won four awards, one of them being the Chairman's Award, is truly an outstanding accomplishment. Your alliance in the elimination matches was amazing, and everybody on Triple Helix knew that we were going to be in a dogfight if your alliance made it through to the finals. To be honest, we didn't know whether to feel bad or be relieved about your alliance's red card in the semis. In any case, how fitting it is that you qualified for the Championship with your Chairman's win. You are truly a team with great class, and Triple Helix aspires to be just like you. Thanks for setting such a shining example!!

On a side note, for those who are interested, Triple Helix has devloped and now tested an Android tablet scouting software package. It seemed to work well for us at Palmetto, and our scouting results matched up well with those of team 180's when we were discussing alliance partner selections. We plan to release the software to the FIRST community soon. It will run on virtually any Andrioid device and includes a Java program to sort the results. We will announce the release of the software on Chief Delphi.

For now, we are looking forward to the Virginia Regional and our first trip to the Championship. What a rush! I can still hear the strains of "We are the Champions" running through my head!! It's time for somebody somewhere to pinch me so that I can know whether this is real or not...