[Billfred]

I just woke up after 20-some hours in the Irmo gym over the past two days. (Surprisingly, I'm not nearly as sore as I was the past two years!)

Before I get into my thank-yous, here were the alliances and bracket:

1) 4533/2059/2815
2) 3490/3489/281
3) 1758/343/1293
4) 3459/2655/342
5) 1553/4452/1398
6) 1539/4451/4901
7) 3506/2187/4582

(With 22 teams competing, we had 7 alliances. Left unpicked was 4261. Nobody declined.)

The elimination bracket went as follows:

Quarterfinals
1 had a bye
2 d. 7 in two
3 d. 6 in three
5 d. 4 in two

Semifinals
5 d. 1 in three
2 d. 3 in two

Finals
2 d. 5 in two

So first, congratulations to 3490, 3489, and 281, our SCRIW III champions!

Further congrats to FLL team 13297, who took first place in our FLL scrimmage in the morning. And a big thank-you to Mary Graves, FLL's operational partner in South Carolina for putting that on. I didn't get to see it, but I've heard a lot of good things.

A HUGE thank-you to FRC 4451, ROBOTZ Garage, who stayed after the finals to help us tear down and pack the field away. I've never had a year where we had more manpower than we knew what to do with, but their help shaved untold time off the process.

Also thanks to our referees Terrell Burch, Tina Drake, and Jacob Paikoff for their experienced help. We're exceptionally lucky to have a Championship division head ref in our area, plus refs that worked Palmetto, North Carolina, South Florida, and probably more over the season, and the entire crew handled every match with a healthy dose of Gracious Professionalism.

I missed a lot of names, but thank you to our entire volunteer crew, host teams included. I know my name is on a lot of things with SCRIW, but it is far from a one-man operation. We've already got a list of improvements going for SCRIW IV.

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To switch hats, SCRIW was 4901's first time entering a competition after just two weeks to get their robot ready. It was a crash course on everything from building bumpers to Why You CAD and Don't Build A Robot This Way If You're Gonna Play Defense (And You're Gonna Play Defense), and our small group handled it with flying colors. Thank you to FRC 1293, the Pandamaniacs for loaning the team a chassis and electronics, to FRC 1102, M'Aiken Magic for additional parts, and all the teams who helped with guidance and parts as we worked through our gremlins. (I think it was their third match when they finally moved; that was the first time the robot moved under its own power in our care.) Further thanks to teams 1539 and 4451 for picking them for eliminations. I thought to myself "Man, that combo might just do it!", but with 4451's arm issues it just wasn't meant to be.

I was also very pleased to have a couple of our kids stick around and help fill some volunteer gaps that developed late in the day. Sandstorm 0 isn't much more than a pile of two-by-fours and scrap wood at this point, but the lessons learned will definitely help Sandstorm 1 be more of a contender.

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Thank you again to all of the teams and volunteers for making SCRIW III a great success!