Now that I've had a bit of time to collect my thoughts and clean my apartment, I wanted to write a bit more about our experience in Portland this weekend. I'd written a bit on Friday evening about the challenges that we all faced throughout the day, what with the tempermental scoring and ranking system and all, and I wanted to revisit that and add to it.
The scoring system continued to be troubling through the qualifying matches and the ranking that determined the top seeds was incorrect, to the best of my knowledge, but in the end that is secondary to the amazing, exciting event that this turned out to be. Without elaborating, as it'll serve no purpose, I did want to mention that the information I had at my disposal indicated that the win-loss-tie records were incorrectly input into the ranking system for some teams. I don't know how it happened, but I do know that everyone at the event sincerely tried to make everything correct before moving on. When I brought my concern to Jason and the folks at the scoring table, they listened and worked to see if they could find the error I'd seen. That was reassuring.
I'm notorious among friends for really disliking these events. I hadn't really enjoyed myself at a FIRST event since 2002 or 2003, but I had a great time this weekend. Some highlights:
- Team 488 worked together better than almost any team I've ever worked with in the past seven seasons. The students all got along with one another and with the mentors, we were able to make changes and repairs to our machine quickly and effectively, and, of course, we all cheered each and every time our hopper unloaded balls into the goals.
- I was offered some very meaningful compliments that took me completely by surprise.
- We built a fantastic, effective machine for this year's game. We were responsible for scoring 75% or more of our alliance's score in almost all of our matches -- all with a 1-pt. dumper.
- Ice skating at Lloyd Center on Friday was fun. It was nice to see some teams come out and join us again.
- Before the start of our first quarter final match, I had the pleasure of a conversation with Woodie Flowers about the game and how we thought it might play out. One of FIRST's greatest assets is the accessibility of its personalities. Go to an NFL game and try to have a conversation with the quarterback and see how far you get.
- Competing alongside teams 1839 and 956 in the eliminations rounds was an honor and a privilege. We came together after competing all three together in our final qualifying match and winning by a margin of ~50.
- Despite losing in the last few moments of our second quarter final match, I think we showed everyone at the event how to beat 254. It's a shame nobody was watching
- Winning a qualifying match despite being down one robot was a rush.
- The pride the kids have in their effort is amazing. They were grinning from ear to ear each time someone came over to congratulate them, to ask about the robot and the team, or to ask where we're competing next. Unfortunately, we're not currently registered to attend any more events, but we'll see what we can't do about that.
- Receiving an award from team 1425 for our robot's design was a flattering gesture that we all appreciated.
- Seeing Bill Gold again and finally being in the same room as Cory McBride. Cory and I had a near miss back in 2003. It's about time. I also got to briefly meet Akshay from 115 and EJ from 254, both very cool.
Congratulations to teams 254, 1887 and 753 for winning the event and to team 492 for winning the Regional Chairman's Award. I hope the momentum from this weekend keeps up through the rest of this season. Thanks, particularly, to Jason Morrella, Woodie Flowers, the whole FIRST staff and the volunteers for being the glue that held the event together. Based on what I've read about others' experiences at the other regionals, it seems like we had the best of the best with us at PNW this weekend.