[Mike Soukup]

The following statement may come off as mean, but I know it won't offend anyone on 971. I believe the reason they weren't picked earlier in the draft is because they weren't that good on Friday, they didn't live up to their potential until Saturday. I know that statement won't offend them because all reports I've gotten from Wildstang members have been that any time they ran into a member of 971 they all got the same question: "why did you pick us?". I think their entire team was surprised by that pick. I was asked this question and I gave a simple answer: "you pick up well, you drive well, and you score well."

Before Atlanta, Raul ranked all the robots in Galileo and 971 was pretty high. I don't remember the specifics of Thursday, but I don't think we saw your robot on the field until late in the day so we didn't know if the ranking was accurate. Then on Friday I believe you had communication problems and didn't move during a match and other matches were unimpressive, so you trickled down our list. Saturday was completely different, you guys rocked. So we bumped you back up near the top of the list. It just goes to show that even if you're having horrible luck early and aren't performing well for a few matches, keep working hard and get the robot performing at its top level, it will be noticed.

Like Paul Copioli said in another thread, we do not scout based on rankings or record. No one on our scouting team even looks at the rankings other than to determine where we are and where we may end up after qualifications. We had no idea that your record was 2-5 or that you were ranked 66th. I found that out when I was going over the rankings Saturday evening.

After watching almost every match on Galileo over the three days of competition, I can say that 971 was easily one of the top 10 robots in the division. Anyone who uses 254 as a regular sparring partner must be good. It was a steal to get you with the last pick of the draft.