A Shared Victory on Einstein

[Coach Norm]

Originally Posted by Treebeard

...
One piece of advice we at 1671 took from you this year was to "strive to get significantly better between each competition."


When we got to champs we knew we were taking a big risk. The 3-tote auton was not ready. But our student leadership would not play it safe. They came to Champs hoping to win Newton. And thus... Thursday was a disaster. We only got the 3-tote auton to work once. It totally messed up our game plan and we looked like a total mess (we were). We got back to basics on Friday, but a couple of driver errors (dang humans ) and robot glitches held us back from our Davis performance. Still we, climbed from 49 to 25 in the ranking. But the impression had been made on teams who don't know us well. Based on our Champs performance we were not a reliable pick, and I got up Saturday morning fully expecting that our tournament was over.

At the risk of escalating the drama... my students have informed me that a couple of knuckleheads on Chief Delphi have implied that we sandbagged. Let me put that nasty little rumor to rest. We worked so so so hard to try to put the best robot with the best chance to win that we could on the field. We played every match the best that we could. Thursday night my team was depressed. And Friday night we were despondent.

I can only try to describe the overwhelming relief and joy we felt when 118 and 1678 entrusted us with the role we ended up playing. To win it all, to go from near despair in the morning to ultimate satisfaction in the evening, and to win it with friends like you after these last several years... well... it's like a corny after school special... only it really happened.

Anyone who had done some homework knew you were a serious robot capable of three - six stacks capped coming into the tournament. In our team discussion on Friday night, we discussed how you had indeed tried to add your auto and had taken a chance to show a new added feature. I admire your deciding to go for it. As JVN says, iterate iterate iterate. We felt we were in the exact same scenario as you - no auto and no burglars after our last regional. We did have the weight for burglars but we could not get them to work as we wanted on the practice field.

As selections went, I kept wondering when you were going to be picked. We were picked by FRC 3130 and the discussion on the field was that we needed a consistent can burglar. The discussion with 3130 was the need for cans before we needed more stacks. Teams that were looking for a consistent stacker missed out on picking 1671 that is for sure. I could not believe you stayed on the board for so long. I am sure that 118 and 1678 were ecstatic when you fell all the way to them.

Congrats to you, 118, 1678 and 5012 on rising to the challenge and bringing home the Championship to Newton.