Well, it's over. Our final day at the Georgia Dome unfortunately was not a successful one for our team, but it's certain to be one we won't ever forget.

The day started out looking pretty nice, although it was a bit chillier than it was before it rained. We got the surround sound hooked up in the pit and headed out for the first match of the day.

During our match we did awesome and we were certain that we won, but it was a pretty rough match so we weren't sure. As it turned out, our team received 40 points in penalties and we lost 16-5. We were pretty upset about that because it made us lose any chance of having a 50-50 win/loss record.

For our very last qualifying match we knew it was critical because if we lost our rank would drop into the 60s (out of 85). Which would give us a slim chance of being picked into the elimination rounds. As the match started we noticed something was wrong because the autonomous mode seemed to work... sort of. We did the usual start with a tetra, cap, and knock down program but the arm didn't seem to raise. Once the match started they capped the tetra no problem but once they went to go load a new tetra it was clear that there were problems with the arm's raising and lowering ability. As it turned out, before the match started a rope was already tangled around a piece of the manipulator. Over the course of the match a knot was even tied in the rope. The result was that our alliance lost our offensive power and we lost by a large margin (87-5).

So soon after our last match was the alliance selection. We had dropped to 68th place from our loss. We knew we had a slim chance of being chosen and it was so. The worst thing was not even our friends from 639 and 1511 were chosen. But we wouldn't stop cheering yet! As it turned out the #2 alliance from our division (330, 67, 503) went on to win the elimination rounds and moved on to the finals on the Einstein field. While we waited for other divisions to finish, we went around to check them out. We watched the finals on the Archimedes and Galileo fields and saw some very amazing matches. Curie wasn't done until we were already sitting in the stands to watch the Einstein field.

Afterwards we found out that the upper decks had been opened to watch the finals on Einstein. Some of us went up there and found none other than wwwWWWWaaaaaaallllllldddooooooooooooooooooo! They had already been planning to get as many Canadian teams (and Rolling Thunder) up there as possible so we helped save some seats and I (Andrew) personally had to go around the ENTIRE dome finding our team members to tell them where we were sitting.

Once we got comfortable the ceremonies started. We heard speeches from Dean Kamen (of course), and witnessed the birth of his latest invention: the patenting of the term, "Co-operitition". It actually hadn't been approved yet and the man in charge of signing the patents (his name eludes me) visited the championship to learn what co-operitition was all about. Afterwards we got to hear from Larry Page, co-founder of Google. Dean put even put him on the spot and asked if some of the 1% of their earnings (Around $500 Million) they use for sponsorships, charities, etc. could be used to support FIRST, and Larry accepted. Soon after that, it was "time to watch some robots."

See the video of the final hours of the Championship getting underway. (5.2MB *.mov format)

The 12 teams who were champions of their respective divisions marched up to the Einstein field behind the drum-line from a marching band. We were happy to see a familiar team, 217 (the Thunderchickens, who we actually beat in the semi-finals in Rochester.. haha) marching to the field as the champions of Archimedes (with 766 and 245). The matches got underway and the Galileo champions (56, 254, 64) defeated the Curie Champions (175, 33, 108) in two straight rounds. Our division, Newton, was against Archimedes, who had won the overall championship the past three years and was expected to win again. Archimedes won the first match as expected, but Newton came back the second match and tied it up. We had a mix of Archimedes (1547 and 1114) and Newton (772, 1511) teams sitting in our area so the cheering got competitive. The MC would say "Isaac!!" we'd say "NEWTON!" But then he said "Archi!" and the response was "MedNEWTesON!!!". Newton refused to give up, and the Archi-Newton division was born. In the final match, Newton took the win and entered the finals.

It was Newton vs Galileo, it was the finals of the world championships, and neither alliance had faced each other before. Both sides were extremely powerful and the matches were fierce. Newton took the first match in an amazingly close, incredibly high-scored win of 57-55. Before the final match, as per tradition, the drivers of both sides shook hands. Again the match was fierce but in the final seconds Frog Force of Newton made a critical move that captured at least one extra row and eliminated a red row by capping the red side's corner goal. This secured Newton's #2 alliance as the world champions... of the world!!!

See the video of the last seconds of the final match. (6.8MB *.mov format)

Well, it was over. Unfortunately we didn't reserve a spot at the Wrap-Up celebration so we were headed back to the hotel. However, Sarah, Matt and I wanted to say good bye to an old friend first. The Sad Walrus was all crated up and ready to go. Great job everyone, when we first saw "Atlanta, GA" on the list of possible destinations we had to fill out forms for back in November, did you honestly think we'd be going there??? Well, we have one thing that the champions don't have!! A finalist trophy!! Muahahahahaha!

And so we said good-bye to the Georgia Dome. It was part of our wildest dreams less than a month before and now it had already come and gone. Some of us won't be on the team (as students, anyways) next year and this was an amazing way to end our time as students. I (Andrew) personally want to thank everyone on the team for making this truly the most memorable year of my life. And don't worry, you'll have a hard time getting rid of me :).