First day of actual competition: Woohoo! We made a good showing but we won't be among the top 8 seeds. Darn. Doctor Wright, our mentor, said that this was the best we'd done in the history of our team & so we were happy anyway.

Second day of competition: Today was The Day. Can you feel tension building? If we were going to make it to the elimination rounds, our only hope was to get picked as someone's alliance partner. After the last few seeding matches, we asked one of the FIRST officials how much longer it would be until alliance selection began. He said we had from 30-45 minutes. More than enough time to snag lunch & play with the team mascot, Mao Tse, Doc's 3-legged dog, in the parking lot. So off to lunch we went.

No one had gotten more than a few bites of pizza down when we heard the news. Alliance selections had started! Thank God for us, Kate, the team captain & also, apparently, the responsible one, decided to hang around the stadium just in case. So we all dumped our lunches in the trash & filed into the stadium. We were just in time to catch the beginning of selections. Round 1 of alliance selections: We think somebody may have tried to say our number but flubbed it. Instead he asked a nonexistent team with a number quite similar to ours to join his alliance. Round 2: 525 & 16 wants us for their third alliance partner. What's the best word to describe this emotion? Ecstasy, relief, pure joy? Well whatever it was, we definitely felt it. Boy, oh boy, did we graciously accept. This marked our team’s first entry into the elimination rounds. Ever. Go, team, go!

We performed like a dream though quarter-finals & marched wedge held high into the semis. Semi-final 2.2: Collision! There goes 525, down on its back! Oh, no! What do we do?!? Through the awesome power of our mighty Wedge of Doom & supreme driving skill, we managed to right our fallen comrade. The crowd went wild! Especially ringside. Excitement all around. At the end of the match, despite our tremendous efforts, we lost the game & with it our chance at winning the finals.

Overall, definitely a great experience. We didn't win, but we didn't come to St. Louis expecting to. Maybe this was just the kind of morale boost we needed to propel our way up the ranks & into Nationals.

Will Team 356 get more than just a fleeting image of victory or will all their hopes be dashed upon the rocks of reality? Find out in the stunning conclusion to Season '03, Peachtree Regional!