[Rick TYler]

Last year, we started a new community competition robotics club and had three mentors and five students. We built an FTC robot and went to the finals in the first Washington tournament. This year, with four students not returning to the team, we recruited 20 new students and four new mentors, and entered three teams in the Washington tournament. All three of our robots worked well, and any of them could have been in the finals of the event -- all did go to the semis and one to the finals. Team 417 was the #1 rated robot after qualifying, and Team 418 was #2.

For a bunch of rookies, they did amazingly well. I am so proud of them you can probably see me smiling right over the Internet.