2019 DEEP SPACE

Our team and robot performed extremely well based on a solid design and hugely effective scouting and match strategies. Team 1218 ended qualifications in 18th place and was selected to be the fourth member of the #2 Alliance along with Teams 3707- Brighton Techno Dogs, 217- ThunderChickens and 4481- Team Rembrandts. The Alliance made it to the Darwin Division finals, where we lost the first match. Using updated scouting data and novel tactics, we won the next two matches, winning the Darwin Division Championship and moving to the Einstein Finals along with the other Division winners.  ​
    This year, the six Division Winners first played a round robin tournament at the Cobo Center with the top two teams moving on to Finals. After four rounds in the round robin, our alliance sat in 3rd place, needing to both win our final match and for the alliance in 2nd place to lose. The stars aligned as we won our last match and the 2nd place alliance lost, moving us on to Ford Field for the Finals on Einstein!
    It's almost impossible to describe the change from the Cobo Center with six fields in a convention hall to Ford Field with a single field and 35,000 screaming fans in the stands. In a carefully choreographed program, each of the FRC final matches (best of 3) were widely interspersed with the rest of the awards. Once again, we dropped the first match 107-101. Again we adjusted our alliance strategy based on real-time scouting data and our superb tactics teams leading us to a victory in Match 2, 96-78.  It all came down to a hard fought and final match where we again modified our strategy slightly. 

No one could tell who had won. Were there any penalties? How did the last second points get scored? We waited with our hearts in our throats. When the score was finally displayed, we had won by a single point, 91-90!Confetti falling, deafening cheers, hugs and tears all around... photographs, interviews, high fives.
​     It was 11pm by the time we had finished packing up, returning to the Cobo to pack up the pit and the rest of our supplies. As the bus was driving out of Detroit, Mr. Randall again addressed the team stating "As I said two weeks ago, sometimes sh#t happens...sometimes it is very good sh#t."