2008 IRI (Indiana Robotics Invitational)

[Nick Orlando]

IRI was amazing, lots of good teams and plenty of fierce competition, the event really lived up to it's reputation "where the egos come to play"

The qualification matches were all exciting, there must have been a powerhouse in each of those matches. We lost one, but was able to win the rest and make it to second seed, our first pick was Beach Bots, who we were world champs with in 05, and I was hoping to repeat that good teamwork here in 08 at IRI. 987 was our 2nd pick and truck was out 3rd, I was sure we had a great alliance, but couldn't wait to see it matched up against all the other amazing alliance for an epic eliminations!!!

Our quarterfinal match against the Killer Bees and Foley Freeze gave us a run for our money. The second match our battery wasn't plugged in all the way and when we hit the divider wall in autonomous we lost power. The third match gave us a run for our money and we came out on top by 4 points!!!

Our semi final match was a bit easier, I was confused when instead of hurdling Rush kinda just sat on our ball. Especially since they were hurdling like crazy on their last qualification matches, I figured they would be the main offensive bot of the alliance.

The Finals was quite epic, although we didn't face the fierce and powerful alliance of 16/1114, the three hurdler alliance led by 1625 put up some heavy points and made us sweat. I though for sure we were going to be gearing up for a 3rd finals match, but it was a close match and we came out with the win by only 2 points!!

I was disappointing to see Bomb Squad and Simbotics taken down in the semis, but relieved at the same time. Bad luck happens to everyone, and luck just didn't follow 1114 for this event.