[Starmast3r]

I have to admit, being on that field saying "Team 2159 graciously declines the position of alliance captain" was probably one of the most hilarious moments of my life. Firstly, I'm not even the team captain of the RoboPirates-- I'm simply the driver that was called to be the representative of our team at the last second simply because our own captain was not feeling too well about the whole moment.

As a small, 6 member team in the finals, we were simply overwhelmed by what the judges said. Did we scout before we were called up to be an alliance captain? Yes, and no. We were solely a strong, defensive team, and we looked for teams that would balance our alliance. We had not been able to finish the other features of our robot, so we were forced to lean on our strongest feature: our two speed transmission. Team 691 and team 3256 would have been my top choices IF I would have remembered their team names. However, our mentor told us to simply decline being an alliance captain so that we would not have to worry about picking teams.

Why did plan on declining the position of alliance captain? Well, a couple of years ago, our team was an alliance captain at the Davis regional. We declined the position then, BUT the judges still allowed us to be picked. In fact, we were picked by the Fembots, team 692. I was stunned when they told us that we would not be able to compete if we declined, so I was forced to turn to my handy-dandy SVR Flier that I picked up at the last second before running on the field.

You'd be surprised at all of the people that came up to me after the alliance decisions and asked what was up. After telling them this whole story, they understood completely. Do I regret picking team 100 and team 766 for our alliance? Nope. They're all great people who I had a lot of fun with. In fact, I want to thank our good friends at team 100 for getting me out of that mess. Sure, winning is awesome, but to us, FRC is about having fun, making new friends, and spreading the values that FIRST teaches us all-- most importantly gracious professionalism. Let's keep it that way.