Congratulations to 1678, 148, and 862 on getting a chance to play on FRC's biggest stage!
1678 - You guys went out there and earned a #1 seed in the division. We were really impressed with your teams ability to do it all. Even playing defense in certain matches, when paired with better scores. That ability to play to your alliances strengths was very inspiring for us. I was very suprised to see you declined that many times during alliance selection. It was obvious that this was a planned move (very smart/strategic), and your student representative was very calm going through it. We were hoping to get a chance to play with you. Our styles would have been a good mix for one another, since we have similar capabilities to 148. Hard to argue with the results though. We were under the impression you were selecting 1717 first, I assumed they were going to accept your invitiation. If I had known they would decline, we would have made our sales pitch much harder.
148 - Ah...our GREAT friends from Texas. What a blast it was to finally play in a division with you guys. I wish we hadn't had to play each other so many times, without ever getting to play together. I'm sure we could have made a double FCS alliance work pretty well. I think I was with at least one member of 148 about 70% of the time I was in St. Louis, either standing around watching matches or hanging out afterwards. We just had an awesome time hanging together.
I had lots of text conversations with JVN through the build season. I know he struggled a lot with how to build a climber to play this game (we shared similar pain). I'm glad that all the hard work paid off and your robot was able to pull of a climb on Einstein. It's the goal we all work towards!
862 - You guys have been awesome all season. I love the adaptation from super cycler to full-on FCS defender. If not for looking for a very specific type of machine to help our alliance, I'm sure you guys would have been very high on our list of teams to select. Awesome job this year! You guys were impossible to push out of position to get our shots off. Thanks for representing Michigan so well on Einstein.
Thanks to 4814 and 1918 for being great alliance partners.
4814 - You guys are one heck of a defender. You shut down 2056 enough to beat them in your qualification match and ranked above them. Your defensive prowess really showed when you compare the performances of 1717, 3539, and 148 with and without your defense on them. Especially to see the Curie champs go on to Einstein and put up 233 points. Incredible defenders! I can't say this was the alliance of my dreams, but we made the most of it. I honestly think we would have had a shot out there on Einstein, with your defense and our offense. I think they might of let us shoot...
. I will be expecting great things from you guys in the future. You have the makings of another powerhouse Canadian team. Thanks for picking us, it was a fun while it lasted!
1918 - What a steal of a second pick. Since MSC I've wanted to do a double or triple climber alliance. We were so excited when you were available for us. I thought we could FCS + Climb our way there. You all worked so hard to keep that robot running correctly, especially after two falls off the pyramid. Just amazing how you were able to keep if shooting, driving, and climbing after all that. Unfortunately, we met our match with 862's drivetrain....at a certain point Shifter > Single speed. Not sure how you managed to get us a shooting lane in F1, but they must have learned what not to do after that. We've been trying to play together for years now. I'm glad we finally got the chance. Hopefully it will happen more in the future now.
67 - To my team....what an interesting season. Hold your heads high with your three silver medals. We gave it all we could! Thanks for working so hard on getting us a great machine to play with.
A couple of other shout outs.... 2056, we were so close I could taste it to getting a shot to play together. I guess third time is was not the charm. Fourth, maybe? You guys are awesome, #1 in Curie in our book. Keep it up, you'll get there! Congrats on an incredible season.
3539, our friends from MI. They are really bulldogs! They just keep working hard, cleaning up the floor and scoring discs. Congrats on a great machine and great season!
1717 - I always enjoy seeing you guys at Champs! Congrats on an incredible season.
-Adam