[Eric Brummer]

For those of you who are wondering about the controversy during the Final match, the alliance, Red, had a higher score but was assessed 30 point penalty resulting in a win for Blue who then did far better in the second match thus winning 2 - 0.

The penalty itself was this; a red robot was in its loading zone, and a blue robot not touching it. It then was pushed into the red robot by another red robot. The judges used their best knowledge to assess the penalty to red seeing as how they caused blue to violate the rule.

The main problem behind it was, after the ruling was discussed, there was uncertainty about the existence of a rule allowing this, but they were unable to determine a "more official" ruling in the time needed while keeping everyone hanging. Everyone there worked very hard to see that the rulings were fair and attempted to clear things up as much as possible.

The rule itself is this:
Example 8
Robot "RED01" is in the red alliance loading zone, retrieving a tetra. Robot "BLUE01" next to the loading zone, but clearly not touching the loading zone or RED01. Robot "RED02" approaches BLUE01, and pushes BLUE01 into the loading zone, where it contacts RED01 and prevents it from completing the tetra retrieval. No penalty is assessed against either alliance. RED02 was the source of the interference. Because BLUE01 was merely the object used by RED02 to interfere, and not the source of the interference, it did not violate <G15>. The red alliance is not given a penalty, because interference with their own alliance partners is permitted (although not very wise). <Team Update #4, page 4.>

It's unfortunate that the Final round between such great teams had to have conflict, especially since the quarter finals had almost no penalties whatsoever. It was kinda sad to see such an absolutely great match have technical issues. I personally think it would have been nicer for an out right win. The final match has to be the most impressive display of competetive robots in FIRST I've seen.

There were many teams that were excellent and the alliances were great teamed together. I question whether any matches in Atlanta could top these last few games in the elimination rounds.

The Cheesy Poofs may have won along with their great alliance partners 980 and 22. (By the way 980, certainly no hard feelings for the match ups since you were concerned we'd frown upon your team not alliancing with us. It's a game with strategy, you had yours and we had ours. Both seemed up to par.)

254 definitely had a run for their money during the finals so this wasn't just "their 7th win." They fought hard and well. 840, 1072, and 668 almost took the Poofs and their alliance down before getting to the finals. These games were all close and an absolute amazement to watch. By some point I ceased caring who won in the pure excitement of how close the game was.

Thanks also to the Americorp people. They were absolutely wonderful working with in San Jose and Sacramento. The philosophy and idea behind Americorp is wonderful, and the people we worked with were personally wonderful people to meet and talk too.

Congradulations to all of the teams on their spirit, competitiveness and GP. Jason Morella was talking about how well we all did in the competition, not just as teams competing but in the spirit of FIRST and he wasn't just saying that. We were running ahead of schedule this weekend from what I was told and there were very little to no penalties. Working at the scoring table, it was very nice to have everything with the teams running smoothly and efficiently. It also helped we're one of the only regionals with Real Time Scoring functioning.

Congrats to the Finalists, and the award winners, and all of the teams that did their best. FIRST never gets old.