[nerdherdmember]

I had a blast at my last regional as a student, although now we on 422 have to hope that the wait list is kind to us after being eliminated by the eventual champions in the quarterfinals at both regionals we attended. Meeting Woodie Flowers, Dave Lavery, and Dustin Benedict was quite cool, given that the regionals 422 normally attends do not attract very high profile names, and Shan from 612 and Tom from 79 were both kind enough to put up with my ramblings during and after the competition.

We on Team 422 would like to congratulate to team 79, 379, and 383 for their regional championship, and thank them for an extremely exciting set of quarterfinal matches. The scores and defense our alliance put out would have won any other set of quarterfinals, but we could not top your deadly autonomous accuracy and consistency and your blazing fast cycle times.

A thank you to our alliance partners and friends 2642 The Pitt Pirates and 166 Chop Shop – you guys were amazing, and with a little smarter defense and more autonomous shots in QF2-2, we could've gone on to win the whole thing. It was great being on an alliance with both of you, as your drive teams are a blast to compete with. 2642 – you guys were simply amazing. Friendly and high scoring, we couldn't have asked for better partners. 166 – after competing with you in qualification 40, even though we lost by two points that would've made us the #1 seed, we knew that you guys would be our second pick regardless of our first pick. An ungodly 6 CIM drive train with blue nitrile treads and a consistent autonomous and hang coupled with a tough robot and very agressive drivers made a perfect second pick. In Qualification 40, you successfully pinned two robots behind our pyramid for a period of time, and generally made 2974 regret their decision to go mecanum. Great job.

One team I do not see congratulated here yet that undoubtedly deserves it is team 612. After the Virginia Regional, in which my team's drive chains snapping and comm issues kept them from going for gold in a close quarterfinal against teams 1541, 1262, and 1610, they came to DC ready to win the whole thing. Both team 612 and 422 made one significant change to our robots before this event – we added larger pieces of lexan to the feeding slide to our hoppers. In the strategy meeting at the end of day 1, a lot of teams were discussed – Team 79, 2642, and 116's fast cycles, perfect auto scores, and fast hang; Team 2630's full court shooter and adaptability; Team 2415's 7 disk auton and ground pickup – but the one team my scouts placed as the number one contender to win the regional, after analyzing a 3 inch thick binder of data, was team 612. When they put up a triple digit score in Qualification Match 2, everyone at the event knew that they were the team to beat. Because of a servo-shifting problem with their supershifters, they were unable to capture the #1 seeding spot, but still formed a very threatening alliance that averaged 123 points per match in elimination rounds. Because Virginia has not yet moved to a district system, their falling short of the finals has left them without a ticket to championship, and getting a judge's award cannot repay that. Although the trophies from this event didn't stay in the region, 612 has proved that Virginia is a competitive region without a doubt, and for that, I thank them.

- Harrison