[MasonMM]

For 118 there were many factors to why i would justify our sucess at two regionals.

- A good robot. We really hit it hard this year during the build season. We set super hard to reach goals, like building our robot in 3 weeks. Alas we missed it by a few days, but we gave ourselves almost 3 full weeks to test out our bot and find problems with it, train the drivers, make modifications, and figure out it's limitations, all with good time before we had to ship it off. Being able to manipulate the tetras is huge this year, as it's almost the only way to score in the big matches. You can't push a goal around, guard a ramp, or push balls... like in other years, you've got to grab tetras and grab them well. we designed our robot around this and it has proven to be very sucessful.

-Gread Flight team. Lots of driver training, in all situations. Our drivers are well practiced with using just 1 arm, using 2, using sensors, using no sensors, and starting off with the wheels backwards. This all proved useful in the competition as we had some failures, especcially in denver, but our drivers were able to keep calm and adjust to the changing needs on the field. Even when our turret broke during the finals in colorado our drivers were able to adapt and still keep capping. Communication between the upperbody driver and lower body driver and the on field coach was curcial and all three have really gotten along well on the field. The Coach position is very important. Our drivers just focus on the task of getting tetras and placing them, only the coach worries about scores and where to put the tetras. Having each individual do their own task well has led us to be a huge contendor on the field.

-Strategy is huge this year. With one cap you can make a 30 point or more swing of the game, and with teams that can cap in less than 10 seconds, it makes for a huge change in the final seconds. The coach has to know where to put what and when, because the fate of the game can come at the last second. As the on field coach, i've worked hard to make the right calls and this has kept our team winning.

-Scouting. Knowing your opponents is a big deal. Our bot works best when we are alone, so it's curcial that we know ahead of time which robots to stay away from on the other side of the field, and who's mosy likely to charge us. At the same time, we've gotta know what our allies can do so we know whether or not to ask them to cap away, or help body guard us.

-And alliances. Such a huge factor. We've been very lucky at both competitions to have a sucessful alliance in the finals. Every team has there own idea of what they want the other two robots with them to be like, but for us, we've been able to get the type of robots on our side both times which has led us to victory.

I hope to see some exciting matches in Atlanta, and i'm sure there are other factors, but i know that these are the main ones that has lead the robonauts to sucess.