Thanks everyone for your incredibly kind and gracious words.
Words cannot express how I'm feeling right now, because this is something I've never felt before in my life. I am happy and grateful for so many things at once, that it all is such a blur. I simply can't sort it all out, and may not be able to for quite some time.
What I can say for sure is that I am eternally grateful for the opportunity to have worked with everyone on the winning alliance. I've had amazing alliance experiences in the past, but I don't think I've ever quite felt like all 3 drive teams were operating as one large drive team as we did yesterday - all with the same philosophy, determination, and ability to share, communicate, read and react two and three steps ahead. I wanted to give a special mention to Thuvishan R, the drive coach for 1241 who drove the co-ordination process between all 3 teams. He is a special young mentor who is now a World Champion drive coach, and has the medals and scars to prove it
. I personally attribute a large amount of our alliance's success to him, his ability to plan, deliver and execute a "simple" strategy, ensuring all the "little details" were explicitly laid out - i.e. switching at the feeder and pyramid for all 3 robots. I wish all of FRC could have seen our strategy sessions, and pre-match huddles. They were special, and something I will remember for the rest of my life. I learned a lot from Thuvishan.
If you had told me we'd have a legitimate shot at the World Championship on late Saturday morning, you'd have promptly been met with this expression:
I am forever the optimist, but things were pretty grim for 610 at one point. Obviously things worked out (VERY) well for us in the end, but it certainly was a whirlwind tournament for us!
I'd love to recount a coherent story of our 2013 CMP one day, but until then here are some random thoughts:
"This one's for you 188! None of us would be here without you. To me, you represent what FRC is all about. You're next."
"Mark Breadner and family - you made this happen. Thank you for everything."
"This one's also for the Ontario underdogs 188, 1310, 1334, 772, 3161, 2702, 3683, 2809, 4814, 4039, 1503, 1547, 4069, 2852, 781, 1305 and more. We live in an incredible region for FRC, and we're still getting better. Scary thought."
"Mid first-round pick? No? Late first-round? No? Err... second round pick? Disappointing, but ironically the second best thing to happen to us this weekend!"
"If there's any team who can understand what kind of teams 1241 and 610 are and our experience playing in Ontario, it's 1477..."
"You can tell these 1477 guys have competed in 4 regionals. They've seen everything. Nothing phases them."
"None of us have anything to lose."
"1114 and 2056. Woodie Flowers said it best: Compete like hell on the field, help each other off of it. Thank you both greatly for the blocker materials, and for the Einstein scouting assistance. No doubt, I expect us to still try and crush each other on the field in the future, but healthy rivalries have pushed us all to be better. Here's to this one! Team Canada Robotics forever..."
"Did that girl just tell Lang (our operator) that he was hot, high-fived him, then walked away?"
"Lang? Hello?"
"Galileo Match 109: Deadly tall FCS opponent, a robot that does everything else, and a defender/linebacker. So who's up for playing some defense with an 84" blocker? 1114, 111 or 610? Well, any of us COULD do it... but who'd look good doing it?"
"I genuinely thought the flowers were too pretty to be shot at, and hoped they would survive the match. The hot pink boas, I could've done without"
"Wow that match was still pretty close..."
"The teams from Arizona, are some of the nicest in FIRST. 842, 1726, 1011, 2486. Some of my favourite teams to bump into."
"How is one supposed to react when you walk into your pits, and it is decorated with flowers and hot pink boas? And strangely, over night, your all-boys school has somehow managed to recruit a brand-new all-girl pit crew, who are all wearing team + school attire. Thanks SWAT 771, easily one of the most memorable moments of Champs for us!"
"There are a lot more ground pick-ups on Galileo than I originally thought."
"Everyone is terrified of the FCS. Tall FCS + linebacker + ground pick-up is the strategy du jour, and we are none of the above. "
"Okay... I've spoken to 4 teams, and none want to pick us. Should I be worried?... yes."
"No one wants a cycler. Not even a pretty darned good one."
"Mr. Lim, a team dropped by our pit after match 109. They said they just added us to their pick list because they were really impressed by our blocking ability. If they need a blocker for elims, they might consider picking us."
"Me at the time: ...great...
didn't we score 112 points by ourselves at BAE? Are we really doing that badly? Maybe we need a bigger FRC Top 25 (Ranked #10) sticker."
"Me just before the 20th pick during alliance selection: HEY 1241, WE HAVE A FREAKIN' SWEET BLOCKER!!! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD PLEASE PICK US!!!1!!!one!!!!111!!!eleven!!!"
"Okay, now what do we do with 2 cyclers and a ground pick-up?"
"JNo: you know, there's only really 12 cycles of discs in your stations. That's 4 per robot. Even under defense it's really not that hard to cycle all the discs, and not miss any. Think about efficiency, vs the missed discs by opponent FCSes. There's even time for 1477 to sweep some of their misses up, and to tie up the opponents high-value climbers."
"Shut up JNo. We're going to FCS whether you like it or not."
"One match later: I'm sorry JNo."
"That was an early climb... the opponent's best cycler sat there on the pyramid stationary for 40 seconds while we cycled away at full strength and passed them. Not expected, but we'll take it if it's given to us. We shouldn't have won that match. Strange."
"Let the FCS shoot. Cycle hard. Steal their misses. They can't defend all 3 of us. The numbers don't lie, we should come out on top. Their FCS % is good, but our cycling % is better. We win if we both shoot ALL the discs."
"Don't wear the medal... put it in your pocket. It's curses and superstitions from here on out."
"What are we doing Thuvishan?!"
"Hello Einstein! Meet the Galileo Double FCS + Ground Pick-Up alliance! Hopefully your scouts were paying attention.
PRACTICE SESSION SURPRISE!"
"Ouf something cut out AGAIN. Check the connections to everything! Tighten everything up. Was that a loose cRIO power connection? Argh @ those tiny screw terminal connectors."
"Recipe for success: Cycle ALL our discs. Don't miss. Block <60" FCSes. Steal their misses. Delay their high value climbs. Climb for 30. Serves ~230 points."
"Assume both alliances will shoot all their discs in a match. You should be able to tell the winner from the number of discs on the floor, given equal climb/auton points. See why we shouldn't double-FCS now?"
"Ouf... dead for 25 seconds again. Wait it's the radio? Not the cRIO. Swap out the DC-DC converter, cross your fingers, and have another radio programmed for the next match."
"Hmm... I see how we got 225. 254 for the opponents was surprising, especially since one of their robots sat motionless the entire match. We should send a student to ask the refs to double-check the scores."
"Mark Leon: This is why we do the math!"
"254 final score, less 20 climb, less 42 auton leaves 192 in teleop. That's 64 discs scored in teleop. With two robots, they'd have to both score 8 cycles @ 100% accuracy in the match. Neither remaining robot was an FCS, and one of them spent the last 44 seconds climbing the pyramid. On top of that they would have had to score ALL 51 of their discs, and steal and score 13 of ours, assuming we even missed/dropped that many. They had discs in their feeder station at the end of the match, which made this even more unlikely. Something does seem off. Send the students to the refs again with the math."
"Uh oh, they're lining up the robots for Finals. If this match is started and there WAS a scoring discrepancy, I don't see how we could ever go back and fix it."
"Students, politely remind the refs that if there IS a scoring discrepancy and it's not corrected, the last thing anyone wants is another Einstein situation like last year... "
"Wow... they did it. They found a math error in the addition of the discs when they were counted, and changed the final score of the match. I feel both great and terrible at the same time. My heart really goes out to the other alliance. They're feeling just like how we were minutes earlier. I wouldn't wish that on anyone."
"What do you do against 469/33/1519? Kimura, Zondag and Streeter. Good to see you all again! It wouldn't be so bad to lose to them now, would it?"
"What are we doing Thuvishan?!"