[smcmahon]

Thanks everyone. We ended up having everything we needed due to great suggestions here. Everything went smoothly. We passed all the inspections first time through.

On the field we found that crates are a bigger obstacle than we anticipated, in autonomous mode. We got wedged on them a few times while trying to turn inwards towards the bowling ball. We ended up just going straight the last three matches and taking the 5 points for the alliance.

In teleop, WOW were those racquet balls causing trouble for driving. We had built some guards around the wheels and stuff, especially between them, but those little balls managed to squeeze their way into all sorts of problematic spots. We spent as much time trying to work out of jams caused by them as we did trying to do anything else.

Anyways, we finished 2-3 and ranked 13th out of 19 teams. No penalties that I'm aware of. Not bad for our first competition!

I was rather surprised at only getting to play 5 qualifier matches despite there being only 19 teams AND two fields, which were even run simultaneously after lunch. I was figuring to play 8-10 matches. We'll certainly remember in the future that each match played is that much more important due to how few chances we have to prove ourselves.

Overall my team had a very positive experience with FTC this season. The team is looking forward to trying to make a few refinements to our robot before the school district's "Tech Expo" in April, wherein I requested a booth setup to showcase our FIRST teams and their robots.

Thanks to all the judges, refs, and volunteers who were there on Saturday making FIRST magic happen. Much appreciated!