Michigan State Championship 2009

[Chris Hibner]

In my 13 years in FIRST, I have never seen a competition as good as this one. That includes all of the nationals, Championships, and even IRIs. The quality of robots and teams in this event was absolutely amazing. I swear that you could have taken three teams that didn't even make it to the eliminations and they could have won a number of regionals this year.

A HUGE thanks to 217 and 67 for picking us. We had some unusual robot problems during quals, so we thank you for watching closely and believing in us.

Another big congratulations to all of the teams, because everyone made this the BEST competition in the HISTORY of FIRST.

[Herodotus]

Originally Posted by Chris Hibner

In my 13 years in FIRST, I have never seen a competition as good as this one. That includes all of the nationals, Championships, and even IRIs. The quality of robots and teams in this event was absolutely amazing. I swear that you could have taken three teams that didn't even make it to the eliminations and they could have won a number of regionals this year.

A HUGE thanks to 217 and 67 for picking us. We had some unusual robot problems during quals, so we thank you for watching closely and believing in us.

Another big congratulations to all of the teams, because everyone made this the BEST competition in the HISTORY of FIRST.

I said the same thing to my team. I know it might be hard to believe that this event was better than past Atlantas or IRIs, but it is true. However, I have a feeling that means IRI and Atlanta are going to be even more intense this year as all of the awesome teams from around the country will be there too.

Big congrats to 217, 67, and 65. That was the scariest alliance I think I've ever seen, and you definitely deserve the win. Congrats to 217, 33, and 27 as well. Before the Chairman's Award was announced a couple of us on 910 predicted you three would be the winners, as you all have such fantastic programs.

A huge thanks to 469, and 703. You were both so high on our pick list and we were ecstatic to be paired with such great teams. I only wish hadn't had the control problems we did, or else we could have gone a lot farther. You guys absolutely did your job perfectly, so you can lay the blame on us for those losses (and the number 5 alliance for such awesome teamwork.)

Big thanks to 27 as well, for cheering our alliance on in our matches. You guys are such an awesome team, so the cheering for the red alliance a big boost to morale. I was utterly dumbfounded that you guys didn't get picked(along with some twenty other teams that could easily have been picked as well.) I know you don't have the best offense this year but running empty cells and scoring super cells could have changed the results of a number of matches. I suppose that is just the way the wind blows though. With such a deep field of play some great teams were bound to be left out of the picking.

Huge thanks to all of the volunteers and staff who made the event possibly. I was only there Saturday but it was run pretty smoothly from what I saw, especially for a much larger event compared to the districts. A big thanks also to all of the FiM staff. This has been the best season we've had so far, and a huge part of that was the new district set up. Our team loves having so many matches and the ranking meant that the best of the best got the chance to play at States.

Unfortunately we had to decline our invitation to Atlanta due primarily to a lack of funding, but we'll definitely be cheering everyone from back home. Good luck to all of the Michigan teams attending the Championship, and we'll see you all in the off season and next year.