Congratulations to 1241, 1477, and 610- 2013 World Champions!

[Ken Streeter]

I'd like to add my congratulations to the 2013 FRC World Champion alliance of 1241, 1477, and 610.

Although I personally didn't have an opportunity to interact with these winning teams at the Championship until after their victory on Einstein, I know from qualification match alliances with 1241 and 610 in prior years at the Championship that these teams not only build top-notch robots, but are class acts that understand and embody the goals of FIRST. We've never before been on the field with 1477; hopefully they too will be able to count us as friends after our three matches on Einstein!

Furthermore, with 610 coming to New Hampshire's Granite State Regional this year, we were able to get to know some of the students and coaches on 610 a little better. (Hi, Mr. Lim!) They even provided inspiration and technical information on their shooter to us at the GSR Week 1 regional, enabling us to experiment with improvements and changes to our own shooter after the event that ultimately resulted in us increasing our own accuracy and reliability at full court shots for the North Carolina Regional. In short, without the "secrets" 610 freely and openly shared with us, we likely wouldn't have qualified to attend the Championship event at all, much less wound up on Einstein with 33 and 469!

The 1241/1477/610 alliance played superbly together as an alliance -- topping us fair and square in clean, well-fought matches for the Einstein finals. We're thankful to have had the opportunity to play in the big show, with all of the FRC world watching.

For 1519, though, this posting couldn't be complete without a big THANKS to our alliance partners, The Killer Bees (33) and Las Guerrillas (469)! We're especially thankful to the scouting and strategy folks on 33 who saw the potential in our robot and team to bring some significant capabilities and unique diversity to complete the 33/469/1519 alliance, despite our rather mediocre 50th place ranking in Archimedes and our 4-4 record. We made some significant improvements on Friday evening / Saturday morning which were demonstrated in our only Saturday morning qualification match. Before 33 picked us, we were concerned that we may be packing up our pit in a few minutes. Instead, our robotics team had the most incredible ride of our 9 years to date! However, we wouldn't have experienced any of it without 33 and 469 leading our alliance.

The whole concluding day of the 2013 FRC Championships is a day I'll surely never forget. Thanks to 33 and 469 for inviting us to share the magic with them. We'd love to be allied with either of your teams again some day; I can only hope that your teams both feel the same. Thank you!

There are a few other teams that deserve our thanks, too: Without Team 435, The Robodogs, picking us at NCR, we might not have been in St. Louis at all! In the CMP pits, we could not have repaired our shooter on Friday without the encoder MARS 2614 generously gave us, and Team 1334 helped us out with things like thread taps and talcum powder. Please know that you were each some of the many teams in FIRST that helped us this season and you deserve a portion of the credit for the recognition we received. Thanks!

Kudos to the 2013 World Champions - 1241, 1477, and 610!