[Tom Line]

I don't know how many people knew about it, but the Hot alliance was having serious issues during the finals.

On Newton, in the second match of the finals against us, 294 stopped functioning and it was game over for the #1 alliance in that match.

DURING the finals, if you were watching carefully, you would have seen team members from our team (1718), 16, and 343 sprinting for bumpers, batteries, and other things behind the curtains. None of us had packed up and all of the 3 teams were told to be ready to go on the field because of continued red-alliance issues (I heard it was watchdog issues but I can't say for sure because I didn't see it with my own eyes).

I would have felt horrible had they had to run one of us. 343 had some mechanical issues in elims, 16 had kicker cable issues, and our motors were so hot after 7 consecutive matches that the robot was barely turning. I would have loved to be on einstein, but frankly I don't think the red alliance would have won with one of us - we didn't have the chemistry they had developed through the elims.

If we had been called on, they would have randomly selected one of the three teams from our alliance.