[PayneTrain]

Wow, what a competition.

Team 422 was snowed in for weeks at a time and unable to get in school, but we had a dedicated group of builders and programmers to piece together a robot in 12 days.

During competition, we had breakdowns due to old equipment (I think we had some Jags from last year's robot, Redemption) and problems with some parts we were never able to test.

I know some may think we didn't deserve to male eliminations, much less place 2nd overall after qualifying matches, but as broken as I am able to admit the system is (ala Portland Regional) we were the team capable of using every competitive strategy to gain as many points as we could by the end of prelims. We played methodical, penalty-free Breakaway, and positioned our Alliance to easily push in points while we tried to manage the back or mid-field and prevent scoring. We are all thrilled that we managed to pull together a robot in a short amount of time and after many late nights before and during competition to reach the finals against such a well formed opposition.

We'd like to congratulate Team 25; They didn't need a scoring strategy, they earned number one through raw power and perfect execution in their robot.

We'd like to congratulate Pascack (1676) on their part in Aliance 1's victory and say we are excited that you will be coming to the best regional on the East Coast this year. (maybe second to New Hampshire)

3053, you guys had one tough little pusher-bot that really drove the dominance of the Alliance home. Good luck to all three of you in Atlanta.

2016, man, what a team. We're almost ecstatic that 303 ended up denying a spot on the finalist alliance. We're sorry we couldn't help bring home a banner for you this year, but looking around your pit and your section in the stands, I picked up on a few things that I want our team to improve on next year.

816, you guys are some Anomaly. What was almost just another forgettable pusher bots at competition was heavily noted upon by our scouter and strategist, and picked up by us through selection. You guys always had us competing in every round, and did we ever give 25 and their partners a run for their money. Good luck guys.

Team 422 is really excited to follow up our semifinalist berth and Motorola Quality Award earned at last year's regional with another trophy and medal to bring back to Maggie Walker this year. I told some members of our team that someone is trying to tell us we need to go back to Trenton a third year to finally win the team another regional. It will have been 10 years since our previous regional win, and we seem to be crawling closer to a dynastic form of competition success.

We want to focus our time before VCU on improving our robot to reach finals and maybe even win there, and maybe look towards really refocusing the team outside of the build season. 2016 is a model team, even if they didn't win this year's chairman's. I've considered going after a northeast sponsor next year, since I'd like to go back up to Trenton again.

Good luck to everyone attending their next competition, be it Virginia (NASA/VCU) Atlanta, or anywhere else!