The home stretch

Congratulations! 

Every FTC season is part sprint and part marathon.  Milestones like the game announcement, Kickoff weekend, and of course World Championship, are mainly sprints with hundreds of moving parts.  String enough sprints together, with some chances to catch our breath in between, and the season feels like a marathon.  Regardless of the analogy that works for you, we're reaching the end of another successful year.

I hope your year has been a good one.  The 2013/2014 season has been filled with great things.  Teams have continued to grow.  We now have about 4,000 FTC teams worldwide, over 3,300 in North America alone.  That represents over 35% annual growth this year.  The implementation of FTC Super-Regional Championship events gave teams more opportunities to compete and improve.  FTC continued to expand options for teams with the MATRIX kit and additional allowed materials.  The results of these changes can be seen in the amazing robots you've developed.

For those of you who competed this year - thanks!  The community you've created is strong, and continues to attract some of the smartest and most committed coaches and volunteers in the world.  For those of you who are also going on to the FTC World Championship, congratulations!  You represent a small percentage of the total number of FTC teams and each one of you earned their way to St. Louis.  FTC is a 100% merit based competition and those representing FTC at the World Championship have distinguished themselves by demonstrating the values of FIRST as recognized through awards and on the field with their robots.

The finish line is in sight and we're happy to be completing the season with you.  Safe travels to those making the trek to St. Louis, we'll see you there!

Ken
Location: 200 Bedford Street, Manchester, NH 03101, USA

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