Wow, what a fantastic FIRST Championship in Houston! And it was so wonderful to once again see great friends and watch terrific matches! With 30,000+ attendees across all programs, it was a heck of a party.
Congratulations to the FIRST Robotics Competition Chairman’s Award Winner, Team 1629, Garrett Coalition (GaCo), Accident, MD, USA! This amazing team has been around for 18 years and participated in 54 official events. They won their first Chairman’s award in 2010 and won a total of 13 Chairman’s Awards over the years on their journey to taking home FIRST’s biggest prize this season. Congratulations again, GaCo, we’re excited to meet your “STEM READY KIDS!”
Congratulations also to our Chairman’s Award Finalists, five other fantastic teams:
- Team 1511, Rolling Thunder, Penfield, NY, USA
- Team 2438, ‘Iobotics, Honolulu, HI, USA
- Team 2468, Team Appreciate, Austin, TX, USA,
- Team 6429, 4th Dimension, Bornova, Turkey, and
- Team 6652, Tigres, Monterrey, Mexico
And additional congratulations to the winning alliance:
- Team 254, The Cheesy Poofs, San Jose, CA, USA
- Team 1619, Up-A-Creek Robotics, Longmont, CO, USA
- Team 3175, Knight Vision, Grosse Pointe Woods, MI, USA, and
- Team 6672, Fusion Corps, Irving, TX, USA
Shout-out also to our Dean’s List winners:
- Christopher P, Team 871, Robotechs, West Islip, NY, USA
- Joyce Y, Team 1967, The Janksters, San Jose, CA, USA
- Nate K, Team 2129, Ultraviolet, Minneapolis, MN, USA
- Alicia R, Team 2383, Ninjineers, Fort Lauderdale, FL, USA
- Thomas G, Team 2834, Bionic Black Hawks, Bloomfield Township, MI, USA
- Nazlı E, Team 2905, Sultans of Türkiye, Istanbul, Turkey
- Leslie K, Team 3928, Team Neutrino, Ames, IA, USA
- Trevor L, Team 5188, Area 5188: Classified Robotics, Terre Haute, IN, USA
- Ethan B, Team 5338, RoboLoCo, Leesburg, VA, USA, and
- Arvind S, Team 8027, Not the Droids You Are Looking For, Sharon, PA, USA
And yet more congratulations to our FIRST Robotics Competition Woodie Flowers Award recipient Christine Sapio, mentor for Team 2486, CocoNuts, from Flagstaff, AZ and our Volunteer of the Year Award winner, Chuck Dickerson from MS, USA.
Finally, thanks to the approximately 700 (!) volunteers working to make this such a great FIRST Championship!
I hope everyone who attended has taken some time to recover from what was a rewarding (though exhausting) event! If you attended and have not shared your feedback yet, please take this survey by Friday, May 13th.
Frank