[ElvisMom]

We had a great day on Saturday. Thanks to all the participants and our amazing volunteers. Special shout out to Evan who stepped in at the last minute to help us out as a referee.

We amped up the visual this year with 4 different camera angles, including one from within the truss. Brent and Seth set up a split screen view for auton that gave everyone a great view of both goals.

As for the quad copters, we had hoped to incorporate their feeds into the live stream but weren't able to this year; we did show the footage in the arena. In addition to a neat game perspective they provided a welcome breeze for the field reset crew and referees. I'll check on getting the footage posted to YouTube (no promises).

We collected over 600 books for our community connection, Reach Out and Read; thanks to FRC Team 1747, Harrison Boiler Robotics, for hauling several hundred from Indiana. They won a copy of "The New Cool." We also collected two crates of used tools which will be donated to FIRST teams in our area that are not well equipped for the upcoming build season.

Congratulations to our finalists: led by 2451 PWNAGE with 1732 Hilltoppers; 1646 Precision Guessworks; 3936 Michigan City Robotics.

The 2014 R2OC Champions were the first seeded alliance: led by 2481 Roboteers with 1625, Winnovation, 4096, Ctrl-Z and 3353 Flaming Monkeys 2.

The 2014 Making It Loud award was given to Patrick Murphy, Belvidere Township Supervisor, for his work in promoting FIRST Robotics and STEM education in our local area and across the state of Illinois.

Thank you to our major sponsors UTC Aersopace Systems, Woodward, and Greenlee, along with our facility, Rock Valley College. And a special shout out to Superior Joining Technologies for making our custom event trophies along with our annual "Making it Loud" trophy.