[Bongle]

Those eliminations were crazy fun to watch, and this was probably the hardest regional I've ever been at. Our robot was temperamental, the qualifying pace was _insane_ (about 30 minutes between matches. Thanks to a replay, we had 11 matches in a single day, and I think one of our alliance partners in our replay had 12 matches in a day), and the field was super-deep. With an average of 5 matches between each robot going up, it meant that most matches contained a veritable powerhouse (254/1114/2056), and due to the crazy depth at Waterloo, the rest of the matches contained a robot that'd be a thread to win any other regional on the planet. 3683, 4678, 781 pre-damage, 1241, 1285, 4917, and probably others I'm forgetting would all be big threats anywhere.

Outsider review: I had a friend come who had never heard of the game (or FIRST), and she thought the game was quite followable and was cheering at all the right spots. Granted these eliminations were among the best I've seen after 11 years going to competitions, so that may have played into it too. The (what felt like) 40-50-minute ref delay after the 4039/3683 semifinal was reviewed as pretty annoying, but overall she thought the game and event was pretty good. Looking at the match results it looks like it was only a 18-minute delay, but it felt _much_ longer.