[engunneer]

Seattle was certainly dramatic. Most memorable for me were the following:

#1 seed was #3070, the first time I've seen a rookie go first. They made a great pick of 1983 (The same first pick we made in Oregon that took gold). LF is right that many of the best teams were heavily defended, and most went 6-1 or 5-2 in quals.
We were grateful to be picked 8th (though we were hoping to be picked by 360).
#8 beat #1 in QFs in two heavily offensive matches. it's scary to see 1983 left with an open field.
488, 1425, and 1569's alliance were clear favorites from the start of QFs. They held a decisive win in most of the elimination matches.
The 4 round semifinals aren't shown in the FIRST official rankings, but they went Tie, #3, #8, #3. The last two matches were especially dramatic due to 1318 being partially dead in both matches. We lost a PWM cable on the left drive at the tail end of the third round, and two independent wire failures on the scoring mechanism in the fourth. Had the upper conveyor worked at all in that last very close match, we would have met (and probably lost to) the 488 alliance in finals.
This regional also marks the first time 488 has gotten gold after many (8!) years of superior, but somehow non-winning robots.

All in all, a nice selection of top PNW teams will be heading for Atlanta this year. 360's chairman's win brings another great robot to the fray in the Dome.