Team 342 was very successful again at the Palmetto Regional Competition. Throughout the build season, we mentored a local team from Berkeley County School District. When we arrived
at the competition on Thursday we began working on their robot more than on our own robot. At the end of the day we had both robots ready for competition.

On Friday the qualifying matches began and we kept climbing to the top. With each match we improved the robot's performance and our human players' experience. We were ranked as #2 seed for most of the afternoon. The judges were divided into safety judges and team judges. The safety judges focused on safety performance throughout the competition and the team judges focused on the teams' actions, behaviors, and accomplishments toward the goals of FIRST. Throughout Thursday and Friday our students began to form a professional relationship with the safety judges and the judges kept making more challenging safety excellence requests. With every request the team safety committee rose to the occasion. Then a request was made by the judges for the MSDS sheets for the face paint and color hair spray that the team used. With the request came a deadline and the agreement that if the team could provide the MSDS, the team could paint the judges hair. Oddly enough, there was a chemical engineering convention in town and many of the CEs were staying at our hotel. The safety committee introduced themselves to the engineers and explained the bet. Needless to say, we painted the safety judges' hair safety green! We were later awarded the Underwriters Laboratories Industrial Safety Award at the Grand Finale Awards Ceremony for our excellence in safety.

Our team supported the other teams as well as Team 803 with various types of materials, training, and programming. The students exhibited gracious professionalism for all three days during competition on and off of the field. For their efforts, our team won the Johnson and Johnson Best Sportsmanship Award .

On Saturday, our team slipped from the top ten seeding and we were no longer in the position to select team partners for our alliance. We were selected by the new #2 seeded team, Team 1319, and the quarter final began.We were key players in eliminating the competition in the quarter finals, the semi finals, and then in the finals. Our alliance eliminated the same team alliance that won the Florida Regional and had earlier dominated the Palmetto Regional seeding matches. We finished the day by winning the Palmetto Regional Championship! This is the first time we have ever won a regional championship! Because of our win, we also won a $5000 grant from South Carolina Department of Education to attend the Championship Event in Atlanta in April.

Another interesting note, our team was invited to speak at a later date to the
SC House of Representatives about FIRST Robotics and the impact that this experience has had on our State and the students. The students entertained (trapped) Representative Patsy Knight for two hours and shared their experiences about our team and FIRST.

We also learned that our team's animation and also the inventor entries for Autodesk were listed in the top five for the worldwide competition . It is unheard of that one team has both entries in the top five. The students were interviewed by a television news crew. The SC department of Education also toured approximately 400 students through our pit area for a student lead presentation and robot demonstration. With the Palmetto Regional now behind us, we look forward to the trip to Atlanta for the Championship Event!