NEWS RELEASE

THE KNIGHTS
OF THE ALLOY

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MILWAUKEE, WI - Saturday morning in Milwaukee and the venue of the U.S. Cellular Arena was buzzing with activity this morning.

A surprise guest in the opening ceremonies was Dean Kamen, founder of the league.

Once his speech was complete, the matches began, with the Knights of Alloy appearing in the second match of the morning.

Match #7 for the Knights was going to be tough, with two of the top five robots present in the opposing alliance.

The ADSB robot went out fast and aggressive but in an uncharacteristic blooper, their first dump of seven balls hit nothing but air, as the target robot scurried away as the ADSB Bot was dumping.

The Knights swung back around to score two balls on a final attempt but their efforts were also hampered when an alliance partners human player dumped a bonus ball in the wrong hopper.

The final 102-34 loss was our worst defeat yet and not the best way to enter the final round robin match.

The next one would be a must-win for the team.

Match #8 was destined to be a tough one when one of the team’s alliance partners declared that a programming flaw had killed their robot.

Sure enough, in the opening seconds their robot died and left The Knights with only one scoring partner and a sitting target to try to defend.

Holly the Wickett 'Bot charged hard and scored an opening salvo of seven balls, reloaded and dumped three more small sets of two or three balls each, scoring 42 of the alliance's 60 points but still going down to defeat by a score of 68 to 60 in the end.

This left the Knights with a three win – five loss record and the slipped down to 36th overall.

The final stage would decide the fate of the team, as alliance selections would allow the team to get chosen to form a playoff alliance but only if other team's scouts noticed that their team's performance outstripped their final rankings.

Alas, it was not to be, as the team was overlooked in the final selections and did not get chosen to continue to the playoffs.

So the team is packing their robot into the crate and preparing it to be shipped to Mississauga, where they will meet up with it in 11 days to run in the Greater Toronto Regional.

This next event, with 55 Canadian teams, will be the TKOA's final chance to qualify for the Atlanta championships.

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