[Mr MOE]

Thanks to everyone who made the Pittsburgh regional special. We barely had enough teams and volunteers, but, somehow, the event went on and was a great time.

The volunteers worked very hard to make this event go as smoothly as possible. Special thanks to Pete Kieselbach for being the glue that held the whole event together. Pete was one of the last people to leave the field and was one of the lone remaining people to ensure the playing field was loaded on the truck on Saturday evening.

Two of my best memories during my seven years with FIRST occurred at Pittsburgh and are connected with Team 1708. Last year, the memory was the utter joy the 1708 team (a rookie at the time) had at being called in to replace a damaged robot in the finals. The team put a defensive move on MOE 365 in the last match of the finals and won it all, qualifying them for a trip to Atlanta.

This year, the memory was different, but just as powerful. During the alliance selection, when the #5 alliance led by Team 63 - The Red Barons, selected 1708 as their third alliance partner, a collective "HUH" went up from the 1708 team. They had not expected anyone to select them and thought that their only chance was as a standby if other bots were not functional.

What happened next could only happen at a FIRST event (even though we all wish it could happen everyday anywhere). Teams 63 and 365 swarmed the 1708 pit to assist them get their robot legal. Apparently, the bot, when reinspected before the elmination rounds, was 4 lbs overweight. Students from all three teams were working as one team to get this robot ready for the first match of the elims, which would be happening in 30-40 minutes. It was a beautiful sight.

Unfortunately, time was not on our side and we had to use a very effective standby team, 859, who are terrific and fun people and did a great job with our alliance.

If all the volunteers and organizers of the Pittsburgh Regional would not have done what they did to make this event happen, the above memory I encoded in my brain would never have happened.

Thanks to everyone for the memory.