Midwest Thank You List

[D.J. Fluck]

Here's my personal Midwest Regional thank you list.

Team's 269 & 930
You guys were awesome elimination partners. The team worked very well together and everyone pulled their weight. These two teams covered our butts when we broke our turett in the semis and these two hangers successfully defeated the team of Wildstang and Team Rush. You guys are awesome and keep up the good work. Good Luck.

Team 292
What can I say...our buddies across the county are awesome. Number 1 seed, semi finals trip...you guys are really making a wonderful name for yourself. Also the support you give us, (especially Austin :p) is awesome. Keep it up.

Team 461
Another elimination round apperance by this team. You guys are truely nuts. Keep up the good work and thanks for the supprt.

(Oh goody, we just hit a traffic jam on I-94 in chicago)

The Rest of the Indiana Teams
Thanks for the support and way to go in pretty much clearing house in the awards. Indiana had a champion, finalist, chairmans award, engineering inspiration, KPCB award, sportsmanship, and 461 took an award. Its a proud day for IndianaFIRST.

Paul "Copioil" Copioli & Team 217, Kyle Hughes & Team 27, & Ken Patton of Team 65
I can spell Paul's name unlike some people :p. The 6:30 am tailgate was great! Everyone pitched in and made this great. I think Baker's Egg Chicken Sandwich was the hit of the morning. Grilled Chicken + Scrambled Eggs + Bread = Breakfast for many people. Thanks to Team RUSH, Thunderchickens, and Ken Patton of Team 65 for helping to put this awesome event on.

Finally, a special thanks to our pit neighbors, Team RUSH for the support and the friendliness throughout the weekend, between swapping tools and whatnot. Special thanks to Mrs. Hughes for helping our young coach, Amy out and helping her feel more comfortable and prepared. Its rare to find female field coaches in FIRST and it was great having an expierenced female coach help ours out. Honestly, I think these two ladies are some of the most dangerous on the field. I wouldn't want to go up against the team of 45 and 27 with Amy and Mrs. Hughes coaching.


In conclusion, thanks to everyone for the support and cheering (that arena got really loud towards the finals and it was awesome seeing all these teams cheering not only for our alliance, but our opponents. That is what makes FIRST truely great. Finally thanks to the individuals/teams I missed (my brain is drained for the next 24 hrs or so :p). If I think of anyone in the next few days Ill add it.

I <3 Midwest Regional

-D.J.

Edit #1
Thank you to the Regional Committe, Motorola and DeVry University for putting on such an awesome event!

[mightywombat]

I'd like to thank anybody (and everybody) from soap108 and NASA (and anyone else...) for working on the webcast. IT WAS SWEET!!!!
Thanks alot.

[ebmonon36]

I would like to thank 525 and 554 for thier partnership in the quarterfinals. We had some great matches and it was sad to see it end so soon. Long live the Midwest Regional.
Eric

[Kevin Kolodziej]

Man, I just typed this and got an error....time to start over...

Team 135:
Thanks for the aluminum (I hope this was you guys...if not, my apologies to whoever it was!). Its a shame that we didn't get to use what we needed it for since we never got our autonomous mode running.

Team 93:
Thanks for the angle and the nuts and bolts we needed for the solenoids.

Team 71:
Thanks for the assistance and suggestions throughout the weekend and for lunch on Saturday!

Team 111:
Thanks for the help with our program when it was on the fritz with only 2 matches before our last match.

Team 45:
Thanks for the radio modem for our controller while ours was somehow misplaced.

And my personal thanks:

John from 461:
Never a dull moment with you around...enjoy the shirt!

Wildstang:
Thanks for a fun volleyball game on Friday night...maybe my serves will be better next time around.

There are many more, but everything is a big jumble right now! If I come up with more specifics, I'll add them to the list later on.

Kev

[Greg McCoy]

I'd also like to add 65, one of our opponents in the finals, to D.J.'s list: when we had our only field breakdown during the regional (broken turret), they graciously cheered for us to get our robot repaired and I believe even gave us a pin to fix it. You guys are awesome!!! :)

Thanks again to all those mentioned above as well...

[Ricky Q.]

Wooooo Woooo!

Thank you to teams 45 and 930: WOW! Thats all I can say about this alliance. We worked it together great and I couldn't have asked for a better showing. Thanks for being awesome partners and pulling through when we needed it the most. AWESOME!

Team 93: It was tough having to go up against you guys in our last qual and then in the semis. You played an awesome game and had an awesome weekend. Thanks for all the support!

All the WI Teams: We showed the Midwest what we are made of this weekend! Thanks for all the support and help this weekend. Cheeseheads forever!

There is proabably a bunch more people that need to be thanked, but this is all I can get out for now. I still don't believe that we won, we're going to ATLANTA!!!! :D Thanks again to everyone!

Edit #1: PS....If anyone has any extra money, let us know, we need some extra for this whole Atlanta trip, just about $6000, let me know :P

[D.J. Fluck]

John from 461:
Never a dull moment with you around...enjoy the shirt!

Can you say that again? Coming soon: Brazilian team embarass americans in soccer at team party with your hosts, John and D.J. :p

[mzitz2k]

I watched much of the MWR thru the webcast and it was excellent. Congrats to 45 also! I think your bot is incredible.

I have a question though - Does 45 hang? I see that they have a good and everything, but I never saw 45 hang. Some of the camera shots missed 45 for periods of time so I may be completely wrong. But did 45 hang often or at all at the Midwest Regional? Just wondering... thanks!

Good luck guys!

[Greg McCoy]

I have a question though - Does 45 hang?

Thanks for the kudos...we think that we can hang, but we haven't got a chance to really get it down in practice so we haven't done it in a match yet. The robot still has the capibility of hanging though.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/pictures.php?s=&action=single&picid=7215&direction=DESC&sort=date&perrow=4&trows=3&quiet=Verbose

[AmyPrib]

Hay All!

What an exciting Regional, Chicago...

There's a lot of people that I need and want to thank, and sorry if I miss anyone. I have yet to know and remember a lot of people's names...

* Thank you to Team 269 for choosing Teams 45 and 930 for elimination rounds. We made a great alliance together, wrapping it up with a victory after going up against so many excellent teams. Your match with 930 was especially exciting as DJ has mentioned. It was an awesome, awesome day.

* Thank you to our own Team 45, the parents, engineers, teachers, friends, family, teammates, spirit, scouts, and our awesome pit crew, consisting of many brand new team members, for consistently maintaining a robust, reliable robot that has taken us this far. There's no way to do it without you, everyone on the team.

* Thanks to our friendly neighbors Team Rush and Kyle Hughes. Kyle, it's great to share something that not many (none?) other teams have....... Thanks for the support and encouragement since the day I met you.

* Of course, Thanks to Andy Baker, for having the trust and strong encouragement to put me in the position you love. I couldn't do it without your support... really...

*..... and... thanks to Austin, Greg, and Devon. You guys rock (yeah, you know :). Today you've showed what you can and will do in the future. I'm extremely proud of you guys..... and thank you for supporting me.

* Thanks to all the teams that we were fortunate enough to play with and against. The level of competition was..... simply unbelievable.

Thanks again,
Amy

[Ryan F.]

Hi, I'd like to thank 461 and 554 for being our alliance partners, and our short yet exciting run in the finals. We definetly had some great matches there, showing then what the underdog robots were almost capable of :yikes:

-Ryan

[Andy Baker]

* Of course, Thanks to Andy Baker, for having the trust and strong encouragement to put me in the position you love. I couldn't do it without your support... really...


Amy, you are great. You are doing a better job than I could've done. It is not a hard job to give up when we all see that you are awesome at coaching the drive team.

Hey FIRSTers (especially you gals), here is a mentor you can look up to. She's cool, she's smart, she's even a mechanical engineer! Does she take crap off of the pit crew? No! Does she keep the drive team in line? Yeah! She's Amy - the new TechnoKat field coach.

-----

As for thank-yous...

Thanks to team 269 for picking us in the finals. You are awesome partners with an incredible ability to hang from afar. Special thanks go out to Ricky - an awesome driver, communicator, and alliance captain. It's great that 269 gets to go to Championships now.

Thanks to team 930, who always have a great team and awesome robot. They simply showed dominance on the bar in the finals.

(by the way, get these hometowns of this alliance: Oconomowoc, Kokomo, Mukwonago. Say that 3 times fast and it sounds like you're speaking Klingon!)

Thanks to teams 217, 27, and 111 for having a great breakfast tailgate. Thanks to Jennifer Copioli for letting Paul bring the fryer. Someone MUST post the picture of the Thunderchicken, in a chicken suit, frying the chicken wings... hilarious.

Thanks to team 65 for being very gracious and tough competitors. These guys should win the Phoenix Award for recovering so well after GLR.

Great job to team 234, Cyberblue for winning the Midwest Regional Chairman's Award. These guys and gals are an awesome team, and could be the favorites to win it all at Atlanta. Not only do they host a great competition in the summer (bigger and better this summer, by the way), but they have an awesome mentoring program and outreach effort. This team is turning into the model for FIRST teams to follow.

Excellent job to team 447, Team Roboto from Anderson, Indiana. These guys fought through adversity to make it to the finals and played hard to the end - even bending their arm and blowing out a knee in the process. 447 is always there to lend a hand and is another great Indiana team.

There are soo many more that need attention, but this is it for now. It was great to see a great FIRST game entertain so many people in Chicago. Congrats to all who made it work.

Andy B.

[Chris Fultz]

Thanks to everyone who made Chicago great.

I think it is cool that we were able to use some of our tools and spare parts to help other teams, and at the same time others came thru for us with some much needed hardware (thanks Hammond for the solenoid use and others for WD40, tiewraps and other parts).

Thanks to Mr. "Will Fix Robots for Food" (447 I believe) for some awesome welding work!

And, thanks to the fantastic Cyber Blue team! Engineers that don't let up, students in the pits - doing scouting, talking to judges and presenting our Chairman's story, great teachers, and what a parent crew - cheering in the stands and getting us lunch every day. This is a great group of people to be a part of.

Our programmer / electroincs mentor was not able to make it to Chicago and others stepped up to work out issues as they came up and even added new features - this group really came thru when they needed to.

[rufu5]

I would just like to give all the thanks in my left AND right pocket to team 217 for lending the skills of the great Mike Copila (I really hope I spelled that right :yikes: He helped me so much in fixing my optical joysticks, which had a bad Digital to Analog Converter and problems in a custom circuit I made. Thanks a ton Mike!!
Also thanks to a great alliance (Team 65 and Team 648) who fought with us all the way to the finals (great job to 269, 45, and 930 for a well deserved regional victory).
I say it every year but the midwest regional is, in my opinion, the thoughest regional in the country and the most fun too! :D

[Allison K]

Thanks to whoever planned the team social (Sorry forgot the name), it was awesome. I didn't even break anything (last time I was playing on one of those inflatable things I broke my thumb).

[shawny963]

I must say thanks to team 269 for picking us in the 2nd round and allowing us to show what we can do on the bar. But without 45 and 269 we would have gone nowhere. The technokats have an awesome ball handling robot that was complimentary to either wisconsin robot in the alliance. Cooney was an all around great team and really took on the strategy of the game and put together a winning alliance. See you all in atlanta.

[JeffO]

Team 107 would like to thank team 217 for picking us, and our other alliance partner team 93. We would also like to thank 383 for coming; we had a great time competing with you.
Thank you to team 930 who we became good friends with at our hotel. And also thank you to our neighboring teams 74 and 85.

[Tim Anderson]

Special THANKS to our allience partners 45 & 930 we couldnt have done it without you guys... I hope nationals goes the same way.

Thanks to everyone who put the midwest regional together..keep up the good work.

and THANK YOU to any teams that were cheering us on. :) \

see you all at nationals!!!!!

Tim

[RobG]

I'd like to give a big thank you to team 27 and team 74 for making the alliance what it was. It was great to be with you guys.

I would also like to give a huge thanks to tem 469. Thanks for lending the helping hand when our joystick broke just 2 matches before our last match on friday.

[Tyler Olds]

Wow where do I begin...........

First off I would like to thank 217 for picking us, just an unfortinute turn of events that your shaft broke. 107: We came so close to beating 45,269 and 930 you guys did what you needed to do, it just came down to their being 2:00 in a match compared to 1:55.

45: You guys had a wonderful bot, talk about "Air Jordan" reaching over us. Also make sure DJ doesn't put on too much face paint next time, I heard he was scaring the little ones *_* .

269: Stay at our hotel at Nats. You guys got a coupel of great drivers (Ricky and Tim), your ability to effectively corral as well as hang made you guys a winner.

930: All I can say is incrediable. This bot was designed to primarely cap and be able to hang. When capping became a top heavy problem, you guys solved it by not only hanging, but preventing others from doing so.

234: congrats on chairmens award, your animation was sweet as well (wink, wink Ryan)

I believe that this regional has been the best one yet. There was non-stop excitement and action. Watch out at Nats or other regionals.

[Collin Fultz]

i'd like to thank all the engineers there. you all help put the I in FIRST.
i'd like to thank teams 469 and 247. who could've imagined a better 8 seed alliance?
thanks to bill, bryan, and daryll from team 71. when we needed a nut for a pneumatic cyllender, they looked for 10 minutes, then offered to head back to the shop and have one for us in the morning. turns out we didn't need it...but it was nice to see people willing to go the extra mile.
i'd like to thank andy baker. he never fails to be honest but caring, plus he introduced me to brandon martus! :D
i'd like to thank all the people from 461 for cheering for us.
i'd like to thank our chairman's team for working so hard to put our chairman's together.
i'd like to thank David Kelly for keeping me excited about FIRST and showing me that it doesn't have to end with graduation.

[OP65]

I'd also like to add 65, one of our opponents in the finals, to D.J.'s list: when we had our only field breakdown during the regional (broken turret), they graciously cheered for us to get our robot repaired and I believe even gave us a pin to fix it. You guys are awesome!!! :)

Thanks again to all those mentioned above as well...

Man, now im thinking that we should of just kept to ourselves and hoped you didnt work! :D just playing! You guys had a huge, powerhouse alliance. 210 points is incredible! I am glad that we were able to be in the elimination rounds this regional compared to Great Lakes! Thanks to 648 and 447 for the alliance! What a great run it was. Technokats just have our number (losing to you two times in a row) Those were some of the best elilm rounds I have seen! Good luck and I hope to see you guys in Atlanta so I can see another 200+ point round from you guys again!

[Kyle Hughes]

Here's my personal Midwest Regional thank you list.
Paul "Copioil" Copioli & Team 217, Kyle Hughes & Team 27, & Ken Patton of Team 65
I can spell Paul's name unlike some people :p. The 6:30 am tailgate was great! Everyone pitched in and made this great. I think Baker's Egg Chicken Sandwich was the hit of the morning. Grilled Chicken + Scrambled Eggs + Bread = Breakfast for many people. Thanks to Team RUSH, Thunderchickens, and Ken Patton of Team 65 for helping to put this awesome event on.

Finally, a special thanks to our pit neighbors, Team RUSH for the support and the friendliness throughout the weekend, between swapping tools and whatnot. Special thanks to Mrs. Hughes for helping our young coach, Amy out and helping her feel more comfortable and prepared. Its rare to find female field coaches in FIRST and it was great having an expierenced female coach help ours out. Honestly, I think these two ladies are some of the most dangerous on the field. I wouldn't want to go up against the team of 45 and 27 with Amy and Mrs. Hughes coaching.


-D.J.


Hey - 27 doesn't get any credit for the party! We just came to eat! Thanks to those other funny guys for feeding us! :D I was worried though when nobody was in the parking lot at 6:20!

And as for Amy ... I told Andy last year at Nationals that she should be coaching and I am soooo excited that she is! We need more women on the field!

I would like to set the challenge ... Amy and I would love to take any of you on! ;)

[R2K2D2]

Well, if all the teams are contributing to the thank you list, on behalf of 461 I should too.

Thanks first off to Flo, the other faculty and the drive team who did a phenomenal job at the regional.

-Thanks team 525 and 554 for selecting us as an alliance partner, we proved that we make a deadly combination together.
-Thanks team 81 for letting us borrow that soldering iron and all of the other programming and electronics help Mr. Dale and the rest of the team has offered over the past years.
-Thanks team 469 for letting us borrow/have random tid-bits here and there and just for the in between round reminiscing of the good 'ol high school days.
-Thanks team 447 our across the street pit buddies who were always there to lend a helping hand.
-Thanks team 45 for always being supportive, we know you are there if we need you.
-Thanks team 71 for always being a supporter of this team since the very beginning, we greatly appreciate it.
-Thanks team 27, 111, and 74 for coming out to play, you guys are always great teams with great machines. That first round of our eliminations was intense!
-Thanks to all the judges and the midwest organizational committee that made this regional possible.
-Thanks to all the great FIRST Teams that participated in the Midwest Regional, it's because of all of you that this regional was so competitive and exciting to be at.

[JP_1163]

Team 1163 would like to thank the great teams that assisted us during our crash, burn and rise from the ashes phase on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning. Without your assistance, spare parts, programming savvy, sound advice and a shoulder to lean on our robot would have been toast. It goes without saying that gracious professionalism lives in teams 1259, 554, 27, 229, Wildstang (sorry forgot your team number right now Al) and others that stopped by and offered to help.
Good luck in future comps and thanks again from team 1163.

:)

[Joel J]

...It goes without saying that gracious professionalism lives in teams 1259, 554, 27, 229, Wildstang (sorry forgot your team number right now Al) and others that stopped by and offered to help...

:)Yes, 229. We were with you.. in spirit ;)

[JP_1163]

Sorry, 292. We appreciated everyone's help whether physical or temporal. If the spirit moved you I hope you got up and danced!

:)

[Matt_Kaplan1902]

As everyone that was at the regional knows, team 108 had major problems all weekend and I would like to thank every team for all your help. Whether we were asking for sprockets or anything else everyone helped out. Extra special thanks goes out to team 107, for without your help who knows what shape our bot would be in.

[MattS]

I would like to put out a major thanks to team 469 for the use of a joystick when ours broke. (even if we had a rough match with you guys earlier ;) :D )

Also a big thanks to team 27 for picking us, and team 74 for being a great alliance partner. :D

[Ricky Q.]

I would also like to thank teams 461 and 135 for their team awards they gave us. 135 for Best Ally and 461 for Team Spirit. Thank you!

PS...It is confirmed, we ARE going to Atlanta!

[ellenchisa]

Let's see...lots of Thank yous in order...

234, Cyber Blue, for picking us for your alliance and having a great pre-elim strategy meeting :) great organization

247, Da Bears, for being a great alliance, and managing to hang! :)

All the helpful people in hte pits who put up wiht me wandering around going "Do you have a 4-40 bolt about <------------------> long?"

Team 71 for all their helpful information about the Chicago Area

Team 537 for being so fun to sit behind because they were always excited about the competition.

The Wildstang human player...because he was wearing a FEDS shirt Thursday...and wow did that make me feel more at home.

The entire 469 scouting team because you were so great to work with :)

I'm sure there's a ton of people I forgot... but there's some! :) THANK YOU!!! to everyone, it was a great regional.
And congrats, 45,269, and 930!

[Greg McCoy]

PS...It is confirmed, we ARE going to Atlanta!

Sweet! Good luck and I hope to see you there! :)

[Tinsky]

I would like to send a Gracious Thanks to Team RUSH (#27) for picking us (Team 74) in the Finals and also a big Thanks to both Team Rush and Wildstang (#111) for the excellent games in the finals! Good luck at the Championship event!

[David Kelly]

i'd like to thank all the engineers there. you all help put the I in FIRST.
i'd like to thank teams 469 and 247. who could've imagined a better 8 seed alliance?
thanks to bill, bryan, and daryll from team 71. when we needed a nut for a pneumatic cyllender, they looked for 10 minutes, then offered to head back to the shop and have one for us in the morning. turns out we didn't need it...but it was nice to see people willing to go the extra mile.
i'd like to thank andy baker. he never fails to be honest but caring, plus he introduced me to brandon martus! :D
i'd like to thank all the people from 461 for cheering for us.
i'd like to thank our chairman's team for working so hard to put our chairman's together.
i'd like to thank David Kelly for keeping me excited about FIRST and showing me that it doesn't have to end with graduation.
Well, thank you Collin. I am so proud to say that I was/ still am a part of Cyber Blue 234. There are only 3 of us on the team now that have been there since the beginning. Our team has come a long way and it's amazing to see how far we have grown together. I have made many friends and met some really awesome kids and people from this program. There's nothing that can really be said to thank everyone who has inspired me. Not only the older mentors, but also the current students.

FIRST doesn't end after high school, for some of us, it is only beginning.

I WILL be a FIRST employee one day... :]

[Arefin Bari]

i would like to thank every team @ midwest for helping us out... if it wasnt because of you all we would not be able to move... special thanks to Andy Baker, mannit (wildstang), Jim (107), Bob (107), and The B.E.A.S.T... (thanks so much for giving us those "Stuff")...

[Al Skierkiewicz]

The Midwest Regional this year was the best I have seen.
Congrats to Cyber Blue on Chairman's, I'm pulling for you at Nationals.
Thanks to all the teams we played with and especially to 27 and 74. You are great competitors and we are always happy to play with you. Congrats to 45, 269, 930 & 65, 447, 648, those last few matches were intense. You had the house jumping during those matches.
It is always great to see old friends and to make some new ones. I am sorry I didn't get a chance to say Hi to everyone. The Brazilian team, 383, was very happy to be here and I was very happy to see them travel so far. I was very impressed that they did well and got into the finals. I was cheering for you guys. Congrats to St. Pat's, 101, for a really great showing this year. You guys continue to amaze me each year and this year you were the most competitive I have seen thus far. Keep up the good work from a alumnus who is always watching.
Hope to see most if not all of you at Nationals in a few weeks. Good luck to everyone!