Rochester Thanks and congratz

[Shu Song]

Wow...

I'd like to thank our opponents in finals for playing the best matches at this regional. I'd like to quote 1507's driver, whom I met on the sideline waiting for the decision of a very close final match. He said: "Hey, if we lose this, this is the way we'd like to lose." They put up a real good fight there in the end. It was a pleasure playing you guys!

Secondly I'd like to thank and congratulate our alliance partners, 191 X-Cats and 494 Martians. First off, thanks to 191 for picking us. We mastered our strategy so well that by the finals, it had become almost second nature. A special thanks to your programmers for almost a 100% success rate on knocking down hanging tetras in autonomous. I talked to our programmers at the end and they were happy that our autonomous didn't get used, because yours were so reliable. Finally, to the gracious professionalism you showed both on the field and on the sidelines. Whenever we needed you to do something on the field that wasn't according to plan, you always pulled through. The cheering section for our alliance reved us up for every match, which personally helped a lot!

Lastly, and certainly not least, I'd like to thank our team.
Thanks to all our mentors who guided us through each engineering decision.
Thanks to my driver and controller, Yan and Alex. You two were amazing out there! There is no other drive team that I'd rather coach than yours.
Thanks to Nikki and her scouts, who provided our drive team with accurate and very useful intel before every match.
Thanks to Luke, our battery boy, who was always on the scene with a fresh new battery.
Thanks to the entire pit crew who kept this machine up and running for every match.

What a way to conclude my 4 years as a FIRST student. There is nothing I would rather do that would trump even a tenth of the excitement, energy, passion, teamwork, and perseverance shown at these regionals. So I'd really like to thank FIRST for opening my eyes to a world of science and technology and for fostering the best 4 years of my life!