[Grim Tuesday]

Wow, what an event! Going from not making eliminations in Fingerlakes to being second alliance captain and taking home a blue banner for the first time in 8 years is really an experience to have. I can't wait to redesign our pit to make a place to display it!

There is no doubt in my mind that we could not have won without the help of 2252 and 2834. Watching this alliance play...there was no way to tell the order that they were chosen. In fact, you couldn't even tell who was the alliance captain! Take any one alliance partner out of the equation (which did happen a few times in fact) and we still had an amazing alliance. It was especially nice meeting and celebrating with the drive team of 2252. Also, it was not until we were on the bus ride back that our coach said to me "so how did you like meeting the Ed Law" and I was like wait, "he was the strategist on 2834 with the laptop?". Ed, if you're still reading this thread, I was the guy from 639 who came over and shook your hand right after alliance selections. You guys are the definition of a steal, it was absolutely criminal and unbelievable that 2834 was not picked early in the first round.

Congratulations to Chairmans winner 2016. Watching the entire arena doing the 'silent clap' in honor of your programs to help the deaf was really, really neat and inspiring. You could tell everyone there was just saying themselves: wow these guys absolutely deserve it.

To Engineering Inspiration winner 1629, just wow. If I get a chance at I want to talk more to you guys about your program at Championships, just to learn how we can improve and emulate a team of your caliber.

One interesting fact: 639 (us), 2016, and 1629 all stayed in the same hotel. Walking down to breakfast yesterday morning, who would have known that we would have all won something that qualifies us for Championships!

I want to give my thanks to all the amazing alliances we played against in Eliminations. 1014, 3266, 4269 - you guys were no slouches and I remember thinking "this will be no cakewalk" right before the first quarterfinals.

The semifinals were real nail biters. 1551, 4085, and 1126 gave us some of the most intense matches I've played. Seeing this alliance put up 156 pts in QF4 made me exceedingly scared going into the Semifinals. I honestly would have been completely okay being beaten by an alliance this caliber in the Semis. To address the call made in SF2-2, I will complain about officiating later in this thread but I would like to note that if it had been not made we still would have won 105-104. By the time Eliminations came around, it was clear that 1551 had really earned their seed. 4085 is a scoring machine and 1126 was another second round steal.

To be honest, my least favorite part of the event was the finals. Going in, I thought our alliance had about a 50-50 chance. 1507, 706 and 3260 were a great alliance. 1507 and 706 were scoring machines and 3260 supported them well. I find it a real pity that we couldn't play against the 'real' 1507 as in F1-1 their shooter didn't seem to be completely working. And to have to call in a backup robot for the alliance captain in F2 is a really sad way to end the regional. 4121 was just about as good as backup bots get but I don't think many robots at the event could fill in a hole left by the first alliance captain. I really wish our alliance could have provided you guys with a WildCard but this was all our first championships qualification this season. It was an honor to play against 1507; you guys continue to inspire us every year.

In fact, I think it is one of the greatest pity's in FIRST that there are not enough awards and Champs qualifications to go around. An amazing team won the Engineering Inspiration award but I'm sure our friends on 340 gave them a run for their money. GRR is another team that constantly inspires us and makes us want to do better, both in robot quality and in outreach. I'm really sorry we will not be seeing the orange of Churchville/Chili in St. Louis this year.

Special shout out to 174 for giving us their front and center seats after we got to eliminations and they didn't. The old fingerlakes teams seem to have a special sort of partnership that is never officialized but just exists.

Now for the regional as its self:

Load in was fine and parking was good. The venue was great for spectators viewing wise but awful concessions wise. The only food you could get was greasy and the boxed lunches were not very good (but what can you expect). The biggest issue was the concessions stands running out of food for parents on our team who had not ordered the boxed lunches. It was very odd to have only two stands open and a ton shuttered with a captive audience.

Volunteers as well were a hit or miss. The head judge was one of the nicest people I've ever met but in trying to find the Chairmans presentation room, our presenters were almost directed into the judges room and immediately afterwards told that if they had entered we would have been removed from consideration for any awards.

The field seemed somewhat worse for wear. The goal counters were almost always off (though they got better as the event went on). The pyramids looked like they were going to fall out and wobbled a little bit.

The officiating was not the best, and I agree that there should not have been a tech foul called in SF2-2. I could see Dante, the head ref from FLR wearing a SparX shirt getting absolutely livid about some of the calls made at this event and I completely agree with him. Our teams run in with the head ref and field personal happened between the finals and semifinals; there should have been a field timeout called because we were playing back to back matches, instead we were forced to use our coupon so two robots on our alliance could make repairs. We also got a weird penalty for 'destroying the field' when the carpet just become untaped while we were driving over it.

Announcer JonDarr was amazing as usual but the announcer on Thursday was insulting and unprofessional. His embarrassing jokes and penchant for making fun of teams that weren't making their shots made me want to miss our practice matches so he wouldn't poke fun at us. If he had continued past lunch we would have lodged a formal complaint with the regional director but it looks like someone else did and he got kicked off. The MC was good but not on the tier of someone like Angry Eric or Karthik. He did what he needed to and got the crowd going but was rather wooden and scripted when introducing teams and giving opening ceremonies.

Pit Admin was really good in general though matches queuing 30 minutes early was somewhat inconvenient. The practice field from my view was fine, though nothing to write home about.

I don't mean any of this as a knock on the volunteers who made this event run smoothly and ahead of schedule for most of the time. It's unfortunate that we end up remembering the bad things that happen and not the things that go perfectly.

Finally, the match schedule was wonky. I know this has nothing to do with the event its self and completely luck but the seeding positions were luck, pure and simple. We were second seed because we coasted through our first four matches with great alliances before getting our robot working and actually winning matches on our own merit. The same thing happened with 1551. Other teams like our partners 2252 and 2834 ended up underseeded due to bad schedules. However, by the end of the event, I think all the top 8 had truly earned their seeds.

Finally, if FTA Paul is reading this thread, we did end up finding out Robot Lockup Form right after we told you we lost it.

Overall, Buckeye was a fun regional but I don't know if we would return to it. The officiating is a major problem. There are certainly some problems that need to be worked out but I hope the planning committee will take all that has been said into consideration and make it better next year.