The surreal experience of winning a regional

[nixiebunny]

Our team, the Bit Buckets, has been doing FRC for four years. This is the first year that we won a regional event. I don't mean that we were 2nd pick of the winning alliance - I mean that we were alliance captains and won every match in eliminations. Definitely unexpected, and the stars had aligned for us and our alliance partners.

I am curious if our experience was unusual, or if winning usually has this many things different from not winning. Things that I observed to be different this time:

1. The robot performed flawlessly throughout the event.
2. We made zero changes to the robot, only two minor repairs.
3. The drive team clicked. They danced instead of fretting.
4. The drive team got better and better and better.
5. We did not try to make the robot better, nor its code.
6. Scouting was done in stages, and the analyst did alliance selection.
7. Mentors worked hard to keep that one stressful student from stressing out the others.

Also, I spent Thursday (practice day) shepherding my older son through an appendectomy. I don't know if this had an effect on the outcome.

Is this experience typical?