[Rick TYler]

Semifinals of Washington FTC regional. Exothermic teams 575 and 417 are teamed with a third robot in the semifinals. 575 and 417 won easily in the first match. In the second match, 575 and the third 'bot lost a very close match. We now come up to the third and final match, with Plan B and Captain Hook once again paired up to take on the same robots as in match 1. The winner of this match goes to the finals.

Due to a field error, the teams wait until the last possible moment to turn on their computers, because some robots (especially our 418 for some reason) have had their computers time out before the end of a match. In the excitement, the drive team from 417 forgets to turn their robot on, and as the announcer says "begin" the teams turn on their remotes, starting their robots (remember that the field software is down, so all day the matches are started by the drivers). The coach for 417 looks down and sees no lights and then bends over an flips the "on" switch. The referees rule that touching the robot is a violation of the rule against touching a field object during a match and disqualify them. They are out. When the match is restarted, 575 has to play one-on-two and loses.

In an incredibly gracious discussion later, a mentor for one of the teams on the other alliance said that all three other drivers should have touched their robots -- causing the referees to face the possibility of DQing all four robots. Didn't happen, though, so the #1 alliance did not go into the finals. Bitterly disappointing, especially as it was our only regional: the Oregon regional gives preference to Oregon teams and wouldn't accept our registration, and we missed the Vancouver, BC, event due to mentor failure.