[John Neun]

Wow, Tom, that is very high praise; THANK YOU! You know how I felt about the 195 robot. Those tracks moved with great authority! We elected early on to accept team 126's gracious offer to play with them, and you were way to good to be available to us for our third pick. I hope we get a chance to play together sometime in the future.

This regional was the best FIRST experience I ever had. As Joe Barra has said, we think of this as our "home" regional, even though we are from New York. (I grew up in Wethersfield, though!) It's great to come to Hartford to see the many "old" friends we make every year.

Let me say this officially, as Chairman of Team 20's parent corporation: THANK YOU everyone, all teams and organizers, for this great experience. We got a chance to participate in a competition at this great new venue. We were awarded the Delphi design award, a humbling honor considering some of the beautiful robots in the field. We had a chance to see some fabulous machines. The core of our team, Paul Kane, got the Woody Flowers Award, and that alone made the whole competition sublime. There was not a robot in that room from which I did not learn something, including the rookie teams. (Did you see the beautiful weldment that is the 1740 robot?) I was involved in our design and many of the robots I saw made me cringe, thinking, "I wish I had seen that in January!"

Thank you, Team 126, for asking us to play with you. You are a terrific team with a wonderful machine, and we were honored to be part of your alliance. I have never liked the rough defensive nature of some games, but we got a lesson in defense, and we will learn from it. Congratulations to 176, 177, and 1124.

It was a positive experience in every way, and we look forward to being back next year.