[Keith Chester]

I can not congratulate enough 1721 and 1725- while we provided advisors and robots, they proved that the future of FIRST is brighter than any of us thought.

I spent the entire day working as the advisor for prerookie team 1721, from asnwering questions for the adults and teachers on the team and helping the students get involved to coaching their drive team. With a slightly modified robot my team provided they were able to quickly learn the game, the nuances, the rules, and competed like a pro-veteran team. From dealing with losses and victories, challenges, repairs, complete design changes, a surprise placing, and a horribly vicious attack by another team that bent a drivetrain gear sideways, they quickly assembled themselves and handled it maturely. I honestly can not wait to see 1721 in their first year.

And the look on the faces of 1725, our other pre-rookie team... everytime they got to play with the robot they were as excitied as I was at my first regional. The idea of giving a pre-rookie team a robot to play with is nothing but a success thusfar, and I encourage every team to do it!

I shall post more on this later, complete with a "how-to" on what to do with your pre-rookie team.

But for now? Sleep.