[jblay]

I haven't had the chance to read through all the madness on ChiefDelphi or in my email after yesterday since I woke up about 30 minutes ago and am currently consuming every food item at my parents house, but just some initial thanks and comments.

I heard there was some drama about our human player removing the slot, when we were told this was okay by the ref staff, I found it a little odd, but figured it was just something I hadn't thought about before and especially since those slots came off so easily it made sense that you were allowed to remove them.

In terms of the craziness with the field, I still don't know exactly what happened, I understand why teams were forced to lose their camera, because we wouldn't be able to play otherwise. 3137 basically couldn't score in teleop in the elimination rounds as a result of this and it was a huge blow to our alliance. As soon as I heard about this I walked over to the FTA to see if anything could be done, admittedly I would probably not have done this so eagerly if it didn't effect our partners, but I was informed that nothing could be done and I had to accept it. We modified our strategy as a result of this and rolled with the punches. I'm not saying this series of events was fair to anyone, because we all had to deal with them, but they existed so we dealt with them. I do appreciate the time that was put in especially in the semifinals to try and get everyone at full operation and the recognition that the #1 alliance deserved a replay in the semis despite the fact that we argued the call because that is always the initial response once you've won a match that is about to be replayed.

With regards to penalty calls, this game has extreme penalties and you have to develop strategies around them. We worked hard to make sure all our partners always understand the rules with regards to fouls and that made us walk out of the qualification matches with only 3 foul points on our alliances. This was a big reason that despite all our mechanical troubles during the first 2 days, we ended up in the top 5. Different refs have different interpretations of the rules, especially in early weeks while the game is still evolving and we emphasized understanding how the game was going to go at the regional, not how we thought it should go.

Now some shout outs:
375, you guys are the epitome of gracious professionalism, you just get what FIRST is all about, it's because of that, that you guys have so many wins and awards under your belt, you guys are the team I looked up to as a student and still learn from to this day. It was great getting to play a match with you despite the loss, and those elimination rounds against you were the craziest that I have ever been a part of.

334, you had the best robot at the event without a doubt, you were the first team on our pick list, no offense to our partners. Great job this weekend and really just proving yourself to be a force if not the force at NYC going forward, it is wild to think how much your team has grown in the last 2 years, I have a feeling Brooklyn Tech will be back with a vengeance next year.

3137, such a consistent auto and climb, and that was exactly what we needed. You guys have a great group and it was amazing getting to work with you. Your ability to just flip your strategy and just be the perfect teammate was unreal. A huge part of the reason our alliance won was that we weren't 3 teams operating on the same field, we were one unit playing towards one goal. It was an honor getting to work with you guys for the first and hopefully not the last time.

4797, showing everyone why you should not hesitate to pick rookies. We picked you guys cause you were consistently worth 20 points a match. 10 from the auto and 10 from the climb every time. What we didn't realize was that once we were with you and were able to help with some of your electrical issues you were able to be an awesome defender. Aldo, I hope I'm spelling that right, you were an awesome driver and seriously slowed down the best robots at the event while not committing penalties or slowing down our scoring. I hope you guys can get the money together in time and make it to St. Louis, we will try to help you get the sponsorship and fundraising you need.

To the finalists, it was awesome to see 1660 make it so far and pick up the chairman's award, I know you guys have been waiting a long time to qualify for the championship. 4122, just consistently solid all weekend, if you guys weren't scooped up we would have been facing a very rough decision between you and 4797. 3171, it was great to see you recover from that fall off the pyramid in the late matches of qualifications and still put together a finals run as an alliance captain, I hope we get to cross paths again in the future.

To all the teams that were at the competition this weekend, the volunteers, the judges, thanks for helping make this NYC regional what it was and hopefully next year will be even better.