[Christopher149]

857 can't lay claim to winning a regional, but our experience as finalist of a district competition last year feels very similar. Finishing as #1 seed was very surreal, as winning that many consecutive matches is so unusual for us. We did essentially nothing to the robot through the course of the event, having done improvements in our out of bag time after our first event. And then to receive the EI award at the same event was stunning.

Unfortunately, our drive chain suffered failures in our 11th qual match as well as F2 and F3, contributing to an 11-1 record and not winning the event (but congrats to 3602, 4391, and 4988). Trying and failing to make repairs in finals was stressful, to say the least.

So, here is at least one team with a similar experience (at least right up until the end; we spent half of MSC fixing our drive train).