[Shankar M]

After 20 hour bus ride home and getting 2 exams out of the way, I'm ready to jump back into the world of FIRST with a look back at an amazing Championship experience.

First off, congratulations to Team 341 on your Chairman's Award win. I've been following your team's activities pretty closely for a few years and like many people on these forums thought that you were more than due for the recognition that you received last weekend.

A hearty congratulations also goes out to Team 294, Team 67, and Team 177 on capturing the world championship. You guys were fabulous and took down an alliance that many people had favoured for a very long time.
That, however, should take nothing away from the incredible way that Team 1114, Team 469, and Team 2041 played. It's hard to believe that an alliance that had, arguably, the two best robots all year were unable to seal the deal. I, along with many others, long to know what would have happened had 2041 not gotten stuck in the goal. (A special thanks to Team 1114 for allowing a couple of our team members, including myself, the opportunity to watch Einstein with your team).

To the Galileo division champions, Team 1625, Team 2056, and Team 3138 (and the alliance that happened to bounce us from the eliminations): well done. You were the perfect synergy of offense and defense working together to systematically pick apart each alliance that you faced. For a while it looked like you had your ticket booked for the Einstein finals. To our Canadian friends, Team 2056, congratulations on finally clinching that elusive division banner, it'll look great next to the other 8 you've got lying around at your school, I'm sure. (Thanks also for working with us early each morning to secure the best seats in the house, particularly on Saturday).

To our alliance partners, Team 2016 and Team 1058, thank you and sorry. Though our run was short, the both of you were great to work with and executed perfectly. For not being able to do the same on our end (with a dead driver's station in the first match and a penalty in the second), we are truly sorry. I've got to take the blame for both situations, first for not having ensured our Classmate battery was secure and secondly for not calling our drivers off the balls when we got one stuck underneath us. Hopefully we'll get a chance to work together in the future, perhaps with some different results.

I could go through and list off all the amazing teams we had the opportunity to play with and against (and even those we only had the pleasure of watching on the field), but that may take a bit too time. I'll finish off by saying that Galileo was a blast. It was cool to meet up with so many of our friends from Curie last year (68, 79, 217, 1771, 1983), but also to meet a whole new set of teams. This year's showcase is over, but I'm already pumped for next year's Championship in St. Louis.