2012 Connect A Million Minds Invitational

[mathking]

The 3rd Annual Connect A Million Minds invitational is filling up fast. Currently 3324, 3264, 1317, 3496, 68, 3262, 4085, 1038, 1014, 291, 4279 and 3138 are registered. It will be held on June 23, 2012 at a new venue, Dublin Coffman High School on the northwest side of Columbus. (Still air conditioned.) There are hotels less than a mile from the venue and numerous nearby restaurants. The school is less than two minutes from I-270 and about 10 minutes from I-71 and I-70.

You can find the registration link on the web at the Central Ohio Robotics Initiative (http://www.growrobotics.org) web site. I think we will be hosting a First Round Up FRC training event there as well.

[Kautz]

Add Team 2614 to the list. (13of 24 teams)

[mathking]

We are now up to 14 (out of 24) with the addition of 128. It is only $50!

[Kautz]

add 3492 to the list
15of 24

[IndySam]

Wow we would love to come but that weekend is the start of our biggest fundraiser. Good luck to all the teams attending.

[Chris Fultz]

+1, Cyber Blue

This was a great event in 2011 and we are looking forward to returning.

[mathking]

Chris we are very happy you are coming back!

[Chris Fultz]

+1 more.

Cyber Blue Too, Team 9234 will be there also.

[mathking]

447 and 1008 are signed up now, so we are at 19 and filling up fast.

[mathking]

I think we are at 23 or 24 now.

[M. Mellott]

3193 signed up...I have not heard whether 48 will be joining us or not.

[$wimmer3138]

According to the website the event is full! Im a little bumbed out because the Innovators, team 3138 were looking forward to sending two teams but only got one registerd before it filled. :(

[mathking]

We are thinking of adding some teams to the event, so please if you want to come, use the email link to let us know. The new venue is larger so we may be able to accommodate an increase.

[Travis Hoffman]

3193 signed up...I have not heard whether 48 will be joining us or not.

One robot is sufficient. Divide and conquer?

MARC is trying to snag us this year - I have always wanted to attend that event and continue to lament that the competitions are on the same weekend.

We have not yet had time as a team to decide what our June plans will be.

[mathking]

One robot is sufficient. Divide and conquer?

MARC is trying to snag us this year - I have always wanted to attend that event and continue to lament that the competitions are on the same weekend.

We have not yet had time as a team to decide what our June plans will be.

We'd love to have you, but if you go to MARC we understand. Hopefully we can work on avoiding that weekend next year. It is hard for us to schedule the schools in the summer, because they tend to be busy with sports camps. For those attending, we have info available for hotels and restaurants in the area. There are lots of choices close by. (There are a couple hotels a mile or less from the school, and quite a few local eateries.)

[mathking]

If you would like to volunteer for CAMM, click on this link (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dHVFeFZRbkhuZDdYMEdtdjNTelZuTEE6M Q) to sign up.

[Kautz]

We have (2) slots left.

Team list

Team Name Team Number
Truck Town Thunder 68
The Botcats 128
Cyber Blue 234
Madcows 276
CIA - Creativity In Action 291
Team Roboto 447
Murphy's Outlaws 677
The Lugnuts 1008
Dublin Robotics / Bad Robots 1014
Lakota Robotics 1038
Digital Fusion 1317
MARS 2614
MARS 2615
Innovators Robotics 3138
Falco Tech 3193
FIRST Ross Rambotics 3201
Luggernauts 3262
N.E.R.D. Nation 3264
The Metrobots 3324
Short Circuit 3484
P.A.R.T.s 3492
The Robo Tech Collection 3496
Technical Difficulties 4085
Wolf Pack 4145
CardinalBots 4269
Holy Family Catholic RoboRevolution 4279
Granville Robo Aces 4283
Cyber Blue Too 9234

[Alex2614]

Should be a fun event! Had lots of fun last year, and we are looking forward to a great event this year. See you all there!

[mathking]

Should be a fun event! Had lots of fun last year, and we are looking forward to a great event this year. See you all there!

We are looking forward to having you back. We have some cool video of your two robots scoring in unison autonomously last year.

[Kautz]

List of teams as of 5/18/2012

Team Name Team Number
The Botcats 128
Cyber Blue 234
CIA - Creativity In Action 291
Robocats 379
Team Roboto 447
Murphy's Outlaws 677
The Lugnuts 1008
Dublin Robotics / Bad Robots 1014
Dublin Robotics / Bad Robots 1015
Lakota Robotics 1038
Digital Fusion 1317
Lighting Bots 2010
Highland Robotics 2603
MARS 2614
MARS 2615
Innovators Robotics 3138
Falco Tech 3193
FIRST Ross Rambotics 3201
Luggernauts 3262
N.E.R.D. Nation 3264
Robot R US 3266
The Metrobots 3324
The Metrobots 3325
Short Circuit 3484
P.A.R.T.s 3492
The Robo Tech Collection 3496
Technical Difficulties 4085
Wolf Pack 4145
CardinalBots 4269
Holy Family Catholic RoboRevolution 4279
Granville Robo Aces 4283
Cyber Blue Too 9234
Total number of team 32

[mathking]

The video stream for the 2012 Connect A Million Minds FIRST Robotics Invitational (Saturday June 23, 2012) will be housed at: http://www.vid.etechohio.net/

It is our understanding that they will keep the link up for a while afterward. As usual, we will burn a DVD for each of the participating teams (and we are going with a different crew than last year, with one result being that the DVDs should be available much more quickly).

[mathking]

Thanks to all of the teams who participated. A big thank you to 1038 and 234 for all of the help in setting up and breaking down the field. Thanks JonDarr Bradshaw (Announcer), Matt Murray (MC) and Paul George (FTA) for hours of hard work helping us pull off the event.

Congratulations to 3138, 3193 and 4269 for being 2012 CAMM Champions! And congrats to Bill Springer of 677 for winning the Mentor of the Year Award. You are a very deserving candidate. Thank you to 2614 and 4115 for being great alliance partners and battling with us through to the finals.

A very big thank you to Time Warner for being our sponsors.

Thanks for Bill Kautz, Ann Ralston, Wolf Lant, Andy Bruenig, CORI and all the the volunteers who helped pull this thing off.

Thanks for eTech and Columbus City Schools for hosting the webcast. (See the post above for the link.)

Thanks to Dublin City Schools for hosting the event.

On a personal note, 1014 would like the thank all of our central Ohio partner teams! We were happy to host this year but CAMM is not a one or even a two or three team event. It is a collaboration of the central Ohio teams. 4085, 1014, 677, 3324, 3262, 4269, 128 and all of the others (with the aforementioned help from 234 and 1038) worked together to make this event.

More thanks when I am better rested.

[mathking]

A few more thank yous:

To our referees, thank you for volunteering. Particularly those of you who were drafted at the last second to replace a couple of no-shows.

Thanks Lou Cherobee for the photography.

Thank you head custodian Scott Loy, for coming in on your own time Friday evening to make sure that everything we needed was there.

Thanks to 447 for showing class in calling a time out for your opponents to get a chain repaired. Thank you 234 for helping 3324 get their robot operational during eliminations. (The second year in a row you guys have supplied a key part to get an opponent operational during autonomous.)

A general thank you to all of the teams for coming this year. A local reporter commented to me on how impressed (it was his first time at a FIRST event) he was with the behavior and competence of all of the students. Gracious professionalism in practice.

[M. Mellott]

First off, many thanks to the Organizing Committee and all of the great volunteers for putting on a great event. It didn’t go off flawlessly, but after those practice-round bugs, I thought everything ran smoothly.

Always a pleasure to be entertained by the Buckeye Regional duo of Matt and JonDarr—awesome as always!

3138, our alliance captain – It was great to compete with your team again, always friendly and easy to work with! Here’s hoping your collector gets beefed up for IRI!

4269 – Though you might have looked at yourselves as the last pick on the playground, you did a great job on the defensive front for the team--couldn't have done it without you! It was a treat meeting some of your enthusiastic students. Good luck next season!

Finally, to all of our opponents – I know alliances have come back from losing the first match and win the next two to advance in eliminations, but I can't recall having to do it in the quarters, semis, AND finals. It was all because of the tough competition, so congrats to all teams that competed for a terrific event!