Morris Robotics Wins the FIRST Robotics New York City Regional 2006!

I'm just the messenger here, but today was a spectular win by Morris Robotics that I was honored to attend. I wanted to share with you, and anyone you wished to share with, some of the moments captured by my camera today.

For the second year in a row the Morris team won the NYC FIRST Robotics Competition by defeating the Stuyvesant team and their alliance partners. Over the past two years, Morris Robotics has won four straight regional competitions (two at Pittsburgh and two at NYC). Morris also received the 2006 Judges' Award which is given to a team whose unique efforts, performance, or dynamics merit recognition.

One of the most impressive scenes for me, aside from the technical feats achieved with their win, was the sportsmanship of the entire event. I saw Morris Robotics stand out from right from the awards tables to be the first ones to congratulate the other teams involved. It was a decidedly humanizing moment for me, oddly enough happening at a robotics competition. Who knew?

Congratulations to everyone involved, and I wanted to offer a special shout-out to Jon and Columbus, who were on the floor and in the driver's seat during the entire day.

Photo album of the entire day:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/howardyeh/sets/72057594090614942/

Video of the winning moments during the finals (not the best quality, but certainly the spirit was there):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XChSJwm65mE

Video of the intermission period (you'll get a sense of the magnitude of the event by viewing this video):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgCt3RZSx-8