[Doug G]

Congratulations to everyone at the SAC/Davis Regional. So many to thank and praise. Hats off to the organizing committee, referees, judges, inspectors, and all the fantastic volunteers. You know you've been doing this for a while when you start recognizing so many FIRSTers that now are either coaching teams with or as inspectors, FTAA's, judges, or as volunteers.

Great job to the awards winners:

Chairman's Award: 1671 - Buchannon Bird Brains, well deserved and excited for you to punch that ticket to worlds!

Engineering Inspiration: 701 - The RoboVikes

Rookie All Star & Highest Rookie Seed: 5458, See you at Worlds!!

Woodie Flowers Finalist Award: Steve Harvey (1678), Super exciting and am super happy for him. His is so humble in his teams' success and really cares about doing it right and shows no sign of slowing down. You are an inspiration to many us mentors and coaches.

Volunteer of the Year - Mark Crusoe (701). He dedicates so much of his time to FIRST at all levels, FLL, FTC, and FRC. Congrats.

Dean's List Finalists - Alex Chin (4904) and Megan Yamoah (1678). These kids are class acts just like their coaches/mentors Michelle and Steve.

Regional Winners: 118, 1678, and 5458 - a unstoppable alliance scoring over 200 in all but one match. 118 and 1678 now have two wins each... should be able to see one or both of them heading to einstein next month.

Finalists: 2085, 701, 568: I was so happy that we got to play with our counterpart, 2085, they consistenly scored several capped six stacks each match. 568 was a perfect alliance partner as well clearing and stacking out of the landfill so we could get to an extra can.

Creativity Award: 692, the Fembots. Amazing design and it was great to see it work to its full potential. Tenacity is strong on that team.

Entrepreneurship: 100, Wildhats. A team that embodies so many FIRST ideals.

Excellence in Engineering: 118, Robonauts. An incredible landfill stacking monster of a machine. See you in a few weeks at Lone Star!!

Gracious Professionalism: 668, Apes of Wrath.

Imagery: 5496, RoboKnights. Way to go Rookies!! You have a bright future ahead of you.

Industrial Design: 2085, RoboDogs: Simple, effective, and efficient 6-stacking/capping robot. See you at Worlds!

Safety Award & Quality Award: 3250, Kennedy Robotics. They just keep blowing my mind with what those kids are manufacturing at that school.

Innovation in Control: 2073, EagleForce. They went all out this year to build an amazing machine, it was good to see it come together and be recognized for all their hard work.

Judge's Award: 4543, the Illuminators. Talking with them was truly inspirational... a new set of students each year and have them still perform at the level they did was fantastic to see.

Rookie Inspiration: 5430, Pirate Robolution. Way to go Jack!! Your team is poised for future success!!

Team Spirit: 4135, Iron Patriots. We had a chance to be pit neighbors at CVR and I was pleasantly surprised to learn they had earned a Golden Bell award for their program's engineering pathway success. Congrats to them and for being recognized for a lot of hard work and SPIRIT of course.

Finally, I'd like to thank Jeff Workman who took over as Committee Chair this year. You did a fantastic job and really made it a memorable event for all of us.