[Brad Voracek]

Well, we've had three really good robots... 2002, 2006, and 2007. 2002 was really simple, just two arms that grabbed the goals and then it lifted itself off the ground so it couldn't be pushed around, and that landed us our first regional runner up, and our first time into the eliminations at Championships.

2006 was also a good robot, although it didn't have anything to show for it. We could play mean defense and load balls into the high goal like nothing. However other teams could also easily play defense on us, with a stationary shooter and no camera to speak of. We also got jammed somewhat easily, which we had a fix for but never got around to using.

2007 I think was our best robot in our history, but random problems throughout the year didn't allow for us to really show that with awards or anything. We were third seeded in Los Angeles, where we did really good. Later on we found out techniques in driving that would make us even better, and had this regional been later on we may have been able to do a little better. Although beachbots (330) did take this regional, so it would have been a major challenge if we did make it that far. ;P
In Philadelphia we did amazing, and would have done even better had it not been for banebots problems. Our drivers had a lot of experience now and we were getting really good. The banebots transmissions failed in the second match of the semi finals, and luckily with the backup robot they were able to win the third match giving us a semifinalist. Our second in our 8 years of existence. However in this regional we did take a major hit which would prove to be a problem in atlanta.
In Atlanta, problem after problem occured. First we obviously had to change the banebots from the failure in Philly, so that made us miss our first practice match. Then we decided that with a hit in our "claw" (we used a suction cup, it had a lot more success than you'd expect though, and I think that deterred some teams, [suction cup? ew that'll never work]- the first thought I had when we started using it. I was proven wrong, but I'm sure other people though that when they first looked at it) we should change it. However changing it turned out to be more problematic, because now the chain it ran on decided to pop off every once and a while towards the end of the match. This really hurt us for picking, making us look unreliable. Then we fixed it, right before our last qualifying round. However we forgot to plug in one of the pneumatic tubings... causing a leak, causing suction not to work. Well that sucked. We played mean defense in a lot of rounds, but problems with our bot and a seeming unreliability would have made me not pick us for eliminations either. Ah well.

Besides robot, 2007 also turned out to be our most successful overall also, with our first blue banner in 8 years, a regional chairmans award. =)