WOW! So much good news, where do I even begin? Let’s see….
First off, thank you for every student, parent, mentor, teacher, sponsor, and team supporter for making this possible. Whether we won any awards or not, it was a fantastic experience that I hope the team will treasure for the rest of their lives!
If you missed the event (or any part of the event), the archives from the live webcast can be found here: http://firstwa.net/stream/Viewer/Viewer.html; Team 1899 was on the Olympic field. The must-sees are the QF3m1, QF3m2, SF2m1, SF2m2, Finals1m1, Finals1m2, and the SaturdayAwards links!
On Friday, we were awarded the Best Website Award! Thank you to our great web team for designing our excellent site. We will go on to compete with the best websites from the 58 other regional competitions around the world at the Championship level!
On Saturday, we wrapped up the competition with the strongest robot performance we’ve ever had. We were selected by the #2 seeded robot to round out a brilliant alliance. After a 6-4-0 record in the qualification matches due to a few accidents and misfortunes, we finished strong, breezing through the playoffs undefeated and setting the high scores for both highest winning score, highest defeated score, and highest combined scores on the Seattle Olympic field. With our alliance partners 3393 (Horns of Havoc) and 2990 (Hotwire), we became the Tournament Champions, the highest honor for a robot at a competition.
During the awards ceremony, Saints Robotics team captain Kevin Kimura was awarded the FIRST Dean’s List Finalist Award, awarded for outstanding leadership, great communication skills, and being the most inspirational student. This is the highest honor that can be given to a student at a regional FRC event. Kevin will compete with other Dean’s List Finalists from other regionals at the Championship event!
Shortly afterwards, Saints Robotics won the Regional Chairman’s Award! This is the highest honor that can be granted to a team. It is about emphasis on the FIRST message: it’s not about the robot, it’s about building the scientific foundation for the future. Team 1899 has exemplified humanity and dedication in their community outreach. Our Chairman’s video, essay, and presentation will be competing with other Chairman’s winners from other regionals.
At the end of the day, we were the most decorated team at the competition of 100 teams across the two regionals (Seattle Olympic and Seattle Cascade regionals). We’ve qualified twofold for the Championships at one event, a feat that no more than 10 teams of over a thousand total teams have achieved!
In other news, one of the rookie teams we mentored, Team 3574 the High Tekkers from Highline High School, not only was the Highest Rookie Seed, but were also an alliance captain on the Seattle Cascade field and the winner of the Rookie All-Star Award! They qualified for the Championships at St. Louis as well!
Our website, in competition with websites from around the world (Australia, Canada, and the US), placed 3rd internationally for VEX Robotics! What a feat!
Attention Saints Robotics members: On Monday Mar. 21, we will be having an emergency meeting in Mr. Cooney’s room at 3:00 (after tutorial). We will be discussing the logistics of attending the Championships at St. Louis.
A great week! See you all at the next meeting! :)
