2013 Connecticut Regional

[jblay]

What a way for the CT regional to go out, some of the best competition we have seen in our trips out there, can't believe how quickly the last 5 years have rolled by. StuyPulse has had some amazing times and we wish all the NE teams the best, maybe some day when NYC is involved in a district we can jump into a few of the district competitions in the NE area.

Such an amazing weekend, from getting to play a match with 177 for the first time in our trips to CT, to getting to team up with a hall of fame team in the eliminations. I always knew 236 was an amazing team in terms of spreading FIRST, but I never really saw them make a splash at CT like they did this year, such an amazing robot, such a great group of kids, and such amazing strategy. Thanks for taking a chance on us despite our inconsistent qualification play and recognizing what we could do for you. It was really an honor working with you guys and I learned a lot from the experience. Also huge thanks to 1991 for your attitude throughout the elimination rounds, you guys had an awesome machine and our alliance was very fortunate and surprised you guys were there for us to scoop you up in the second round. The fact that you were so willing to have the alliance throw a wall on your bot so last minute really speaks to what kind of team you have, you were willing to do what it took to go all the way and that is special, I hope we cross paths again in the future.

To our QF opponents it was great playing all 4 of you, I thought you had our number. Specifically 228 and 2168 who we are both friends with, I hated the fact that we had to face you, but I had a ton of fun while it was happening and I hope you guys did too.

Congrats to the winners, 20, 195, and 95. What an amazing alliance. From practice day I knew that if 20 and 195 hooked up it would probably mean game over for everyone else. Include 195's 30 point climb and you have a deadly combo. Even when 1991 was blocking 195, those discs were on the ground for 20 to pickup. Those Semi Final matches were some of the best I have ever been a part of. You guys dominated the field and earned the win. Can't believe 195 just took their 3rd straight CT regional victory, I believe the last team to go on a streak to rival it was 1124 from 2006-2008. What an amazing accomplishment especially with the field being so deep year after year. I've loved your team ever since we joined forces on Galileo in 2011 and I hope to see you guys at champs.

Huge congratulations to 230 for their Chairman's award. You guys have really done some amazing things and really earned it, not to mention your amazing finalist run. I'm glad you were the ones to end our streak of Chairman's awards at CT, I can't think of a more deserving team. It was great working with you guys last year in the eliminations and I hope we get put in the same division at champs this year.

A side note on the drama with our headlight on Friday, just so everyone is aware of what went down. Dave, the head ref, told us our headlight was too bright after our first qualification match, so we scrambled trying to turn it down. We had very little success and were forced to turn it off for one match before the Jerry, the FTA, let us keep it on for at least one match before getting an official ruling, we of course did not wire it back in correctly and despite that had an amazing match. We quickly got an official GDC ruling that it was okay and played on with it. I'm in the process of emailing FIRST HQ about this, not to put Dave on the spot for anything, but just to make sure refs and FTAs are aware that these headlights are just fine because a significant number of teams are using them and I don't want them to go through what we did.

Also a thanks to 237 for their awesome water bottles, much better than the ones FIRST gives the volunteers, I switched it to the one I now keep in my backpack.

And most importantly a huge thanks to all the volunteers, referees and judges for making CT the best event on the east coast year after year, I will miss all the great times and look back on them fondly. From Andy Grady making his classic, awesome calls, to Peter saying AmsterDayum along with Justin calling out the slamajamas(hope I spelled that right). And on the other side of the announcing team Jack in the Hat and his amazing enthusiasm for the teams and Angry Eric bouncing around the field being the first MC to ever get electrified by our drive team. I have a feeling we are going to be doing that as our intro for a while. Also seeing Josh take his first run at MCing was awesome, clearly a great MC in the making, good luck in Maine.

Lastly I want to bring light to something special I saw yesterday during the elimination rounds. In QF2-2 our lead screw broke. We were working on it and thinking about taking a timeout when dave from 228 tells me if you need a second time out, we are ready to use ours. We had a quick fix and didn't end up needing to use our time out nor Gus', even though I'm not sure if timeouts can be taken consecutively. But it all really spoke to what kind of team 228 has. Even when we are facing them they are trying to help us out. That's just awesome.