2009 New York City Regional

[RoboTigers1796]

This past weekend at NYC Jacob Javitz Center was one of the most amazing experiences we have ever had! With a few bumps in the road we managed to do very well on Sunday. We won both of our qualification matches with some decent numbers. We finished overall as the #23 team. As the alliances were being chosen we were all pretty nervous. When teams 56(Robbe Xtreme) and 1807(Redbird Robotics) picked us as their 3rd alliance member, we could not have been any happier.

This was the 4th year that the school has competed in FIRST, but this is the first year we made it into Elimination Matches (and then we took it all the way!!). For the majority of the team, this is their first year being involved with FIRST. With no experience in this position we were extremely nervous and did not know what to expect. Overall we went 6-0 throughout the Elimination Matches which resulted in winning the NYC Regional. We could not have done this without our amazing aliance members (56 & 1807).

Team 56 Robbe Xtreme was an amazing team throughout the whole weekend. Ranked #4 at the end of the qualification matches, they were definitely a team to be reckoned with. The team as a whole was amazing. Their communication was impeccable and unparallel to any team we have ever worked with in the past.

Team 1807 Redbird Robotics was another amazing team. On a side note congratulations on your safety award, you guys really deserved it. They were a powerhouse during the competition. Every 2 seconds all I heard was "and 1807 scores" I would think to myself, thank god they are on our team. We considered them our silent assassin because they were efficient and scored when no one thought they had a chance.

Our hardest match had to have been when we went up against 375, 2753 and 555 in the semi-finals. They were a dominant alliance and it was an honor to have played you guys. We can't wait to compete again with 2753 in Atlanta! They had great sportsmanship and we wish them the best.

Overall we enjoyed playing with both teams and actually were a little saddened when we realized that we might have to go against these teams in Atlanta. We were the underdogs for the most part and we learned that you can never count a robot out.

1807, 56, we truly could not have done it without you. We are at a loss of words of how to describe how amazing you guys were out there. To all of the alliances we played, you made it incredibly fun and competitive.
You have no idea how psyched we are and we wish the best to all the teams.
See you in Atlanta! (Never thought we would be able to say that!)

By the way if anyone has a picture of our alliance when we all got in that picture after we received our awards we would appreciate if you could send it our way. Our team would like it to remember that day and the awesome people that helped get us there.