The Kinetic Knights are going to St. Louis!
Team 781 competed in Mississauga at the the Greater Toronto Regional this past weekend. There were actually two regionals going on at the same time in the Hershey Centre. We were competing in the GTR West. The robot performed very well in practice on Thursday, and in qualification matches on Friday. As a result, we were presented with the Engineering Excellence Award for our robot design in addition to the Website Award. On Saturday morning we played our final two qualifying matches, finishing with 7 wins and 2 losses. This gave us the 7th seed out of 36 teams competing in the West Regional.
During alliance selections, we were delighted to be picked by top ranked Team 2056 (OP Robotics) to join their alliance. Together with Team 2056, we selected Team 1547 (Where's Waldo) to complete our alliance. With this newly formed alliance we were able to win the quarterfinals and semifinals, both in straight matches. In the finals, we were met with strong opposition from Teams 1334, 610, and 1325. Excellent tube hanging from teams 2056 and 781, strong defense from 1547, and consistent minibots allowed us to win the finals in two straight matches, and become the GTR West Champions!
This is the second regional we have won in our history, and our first since our rookie year in 2002.
Winning the regional qualifies us to attend the FIRST® World Championship in St. Louis, Missouri from April 27-30. We are all incredibly excited to be going to St. Louis, as none of the current team members have ever been to the FIRST® Championship. Team 781 last attended the World Championship in 2003 when it was held in Houston, Texas.
This coming weekend we will be attending the Buckeye Regional in Cleveland, Ohio. The webcast will be posted on the front page later in the week.
