[av11d]

We did in fact win EI twice this year, but really had no intention of doing so. In fact we had no intention of winning this award at EITHER regional.

In NJ we were of course aiming for chairmans, but came up slightly short. 25 just had some really awesome stuff, and were well deserving of it NJ. So we won EI.

In Boston, on the first day, when the judges came around, we tried to make it especially clear we were going after a robot award. Specifically, I even stated to a judge "We're really trying to win the Delphi Driving Tomorrow's Technology award. I feel we're really competitive for it." We wanted to win this award mainly becasue we wanted to be eligible for that FIRST book that's being published. We also stated we were competitive for the AVA award.

When the awards came around, we were pleased to see we had won the AVA award. We were a little dissapointed we hadn't won a robot award, but then they announced the EI award. We were completely shocked and had no intention of winning it.

I feel bad knowing that we could have potentially taken someone's CMP spot, but we really had no intention of winning that award. I talked to some judges afterwards and they stated that we had too strong of a presence at the regional (giving support to a number of rookies, rookie workshops, spare parts, etc.) to not be given that award.

On behalf of Team 75, I'd like to apologize for not taking further steps to remove ourselves from EI eligibilty in Boston. We had no intention of running for it.