Like we said last year in our SBPLI Regional blog post, “what a regional!” Our team had an amazing time at the 2019 Finger Lakes Regional, both on and off the field. We began our journey Wednesday after school, where we spent part of the bus ride upstate watching “The Brave Little Toaster,” a favorite amongst the team members (it’s an inside joke, don’t ask...). The next day at the practice matches, we practiced driving the robot and fixed some major issues. We were having a few struggles with the climbing and cargo mechanisms of our robot, but after a day of hard work, we were able to fix most of these issues. We finished off the night at Dinosaur Barbecue, where we happened to meet Andy Baker, the co-founder of AndyMark! What a special surprise! After a quick scouting meeting, we (tried) to get some sleep before qualification matches.

The next day, the drive team started their day off strong dominating their first match. However, for the next few matches, we weren’t quite able to keep that up. We had a few issues with our robot, but we worked through them and were able to solve them. We finished off our matches for the day strong, scoring many hatches and cargo in match 50. The Chairman’s team, Miriam, Amal, and Sebby, also presented our Chairman’s award in front of the judges (more on that later), and we continued inspiring other teams with our safety leadership. We once again finished off the night with a delicious dinner, this time at Macaroni Grill. After another (longer) scouting and safety meeting, we fell fast asleep and prepared ourselves what would be a truly amazing next day.

And here is was. The day was here. Although we didn’t know it at the time, this day would become one that we would remember forever. We started the morning off with our last few matches, where we continued to excel in our cargo, hatch, and level 2 climb. After match 80, it was time for alliance selections, and we got picked by the #7 seed, team 378, during first round picks. Our alliance was completed with team 217 during the second round picks. Although we played really strong during our two quarterfinal matches, we lost by ONE point in our first match, and lost by a close margin in the second match as well. But that wasn’t the end for us...no, not at all...

During the Awards Ceremony, we erupted into cheer when we won the UL Safety Award! We as a team take huge pride in winning this award, as we work tremendously hard on teaching not only our team members but also members from other teams around the globe our safety techniques and principles. From day one we have been dedicated to safety, and we couldn’t be prouder to have won this award every year for the past 11 years. But that was only the beginning...and soon a little limerick-esque thing began to be read, belonging to a little something called the Chairman’s award...

“ Judges met with students who all talked and stood
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
Students all convinced us that their team is good
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
This team was inspired by their total reorg
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
[Wait a minute, this year we totally reorganized our team too]
Girls who can code is the new new norm
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
[Hold on, our team started a Girls who Code club this year too...hmm]

Now judges did you hear about this one
Their outreach is out of this world
China Costa Rica and Turkey
[Omg, wait, we literally hosted and/or helped teams from China, Costa Rica, and Turkey, wait, could this be us?]
Hey Gold Coast are you having fun
[Ok, ok, OK!!!! This is definitely us!!!! Gold Coast Alliance!!!!]

If you believed they put the man on the moon
If you believe they’ll do it safer than you
[That gave it away]
Then this team is cool

Congratulations, team 2638 ”

And there it was. We won the Chairman’s Award. Wow. It’s truly incredible. We work so tirelessly and so hard on the Chairman’s Award, and we are so incredibly happy and proud of ourselves to be worthy of this award. It was truly a team effort. After watching our Chairman’s Video, our mentor Motch handed us our medals, and we headed back home to Great Neck, singing the whole ride home.

This was an amazing regional.

It really was.