[Eric O]

On behalf of Team 177 I would like to thank our championship alliance partners 2016 and 781. Although I was not on the dome floor, seeing you both perform on the field and hearing all the positive comments from our team showed us in the stands that you were the right people to work with. Although the chips didn’t fall our way in the end, we had a great time working with you and we hope you felt the same about us.

2016: You guys were the best and deserved your #1 seed. You proved that minibot consistency was just as important (if not more) than minibot speed. When you approached us to be your partner, our team was very excited. It was great to be able to build a pick list with you, and we thank you for letting us collaborate with you on the second pick. Speaking of the second pick….

781: Team 177 wanted you as our second pick so bad that it was actually a topic of conversation at our Friday night pick meeting. Our coach really liked working with you guys and especially enjoyed the comment made by one of your drive team members when you let another team minibot in our qual match together: “Sorry, we’re Canadian, we’re too nice”. You guys were outstanding to work with and did your job every match. You were the difference maker in those tough matches where 2016 or 177 missed an ubertube. It unfortunate that your guys had mysterious electrical problems in the last couple matches. It is more unfortunate that the Refs would not let our alliance take a time out after the first time it happened, instead of giving you 2 minutes in the dark! 177 wants you to know that there are no hard feelings over what happened, especially since we have been in that position before.

I also want to congratulate the winning alliance: 111, 254 and 973. You guys had a phenomenal alliance and it was going to be tough to take you out even with 3 robots. We appreciate you trying to call an extra time out for us when we were trying to repair our gas shock and our minibot was spontaneously combusting (Does anyone have video of this btw?).

A few other teams that made this weekend special:
67: We had a great time playing with you last year and it was great to get pit visits by you guys. We are huge fans of 67 as you guys are everything a team should strive to be. You guys know how to be HOT, but you also know how to have FUN.

148: Although we didn’t need to use your pit this year, it’s good to know that if we had to you would have let us. You kept our pit lead hydrated all weekend, which at first I think he found annoying, but then realized how much it helped him stay alive. You guys produced another great machine this year.

33: Thanks for letting us check out your machine, and specifically explaining the drive system. You guys run a great team, and I was happy to see how interested your kids were in our machine, and enjoyed giving them the tour. It would have been fun to work together, but things didn’t end up that way. Playing your alliance in the eliminations had me at the edge of my seat.

229: Our teams share some interesting connections, and it was great to have you across from us in the pits! You guys did a great job taking out a tough 118 alliance. I was hoping to see you in the finals, but unfortunately things didn’t work out that way. Regardless, you still had a great robot and team in 2011 and should be very proud.

I also want to personally thank the members of Bobcat Robotics. This has been an unbelievably successful year and it’s really because of the hard work of the students on the team. You have all made this year special for me for a number of reasons:

Mo (Al Mothersele) finally won a WFFA award! For those of you who don’t know him, he is the teacher that started the team back in 1995 and is the reason we exist in the capacity we do today.

One of our seniors, TJ, won the WPI Design Innovation Scholarship, which for those of you who don’t know, is a full tuition scholarship!

The students designed more of the robot than ever before. Usually we are 50-60% student designed. This year we were ~80%. Given we won 2 Industrial Design awards and were the #1 pick in our division I would say they did a pretty good job.

2 tube automode!! Thanks to our software team, we ended up getting it in a match at champs and I was so happy for them. I was also happy that we went through the elims running a completely student programmed center tube auto, even if he had to cross his fingers and say “please, please, please, …” every time it ran. That must be why it worked so well.

Again, thanks to all of you that made this year special for me and the rest of Team 177!

-Eric