Arizona Regional Feedback- The Good, The Bad, The Ugly
 

FIRST of all thanks to all 37 teams who attended the event. We worked hard to put on a FIRST class show for you all.

Congratulations to the Winning alliance of teams 968, 606, and 460.

And to team 234 Team Cyberblue on winning the Az Regional Chairmans Award.

Would you please post some feedback on what you enjoyed, liked and what to see return next year, also let us know what things you think we could do a better job at.

Getting to the event, lodging?

Did you like the set up at the Coliseum?
Pits, Field, Seating, Music, Food, Parking

Did you enjoy the team social?
Science Center, Food, Activities, Parking

Please give us your feedback both good and bad. We'd love to hear from you.

:)

i had a BLAST. the pits were set up very nicely, the announcers were great. the matches moved quickly. everything was awesome. if there could have been one thing changed, i would have had a place for the competing teams to stand. i was tough for everybody to see what was going on all the time. other than that, i was GREAT. everybody was SO great. congrats to all the teams. 234 had a great time and we look forward to seeing you all again.

I had a good time. A couple of things though...
Our hoitel was extremely unorganized and gave us 8 rooms instead of the 14.

Oh, yeah, thanks for the frisbee 234 (kept us entertained for hours lol)

Re: Arizona Regional Feedback- The Good, The Bad, The Ugly
 

It was a FIRST class show, and we had a great time.

Loved the event.
Lodging rooms were great once we were in them, the pool and jacuzzi great, but didn't seem like they handled large groups' reservations well at all.
Loved the coliseum, pits, field, seating, music, parking.
Got food elsewhere.
Loved the social.

The machine shop was great and so was the competition overall. I may even dare say it was better than LA last year. The social was a blast! The only things I would change would be the accessibility to the grandstands and the food both at the site and at the social.

Anywhoo, it was GREAT FUN!

The regional was outstanding, Don! Thanks for all of your hard work to put it on. There should have been one more volunteer award and it should have been yours!
I am so happy that our school administration and the families and friends of our local teams finally got to see us all compete and see firsthand what FIRST is all about. You and the planning comittee treated them to a top-notch event that couldn't have been better.
Congratulations!

I don't think we had ANY DQs right? That is amazing in itself, and just shows how well the refs REALLY told the teams what they expected, and how they would rule. :)

The AZ regional was amazing, I can't wait until next year. And Don... you are the best announcer ever :D

The whole thing rocked except for the whole "no outside food" bit. I think that the team social was second to none and I had a great time!

congrats to 234
 

Good job, Cyber Blue! And Colin...we are Full Metal Jackets, not "Morristown!"

See you in Houston!

Wonderful weekend!
 

Thank you for a fabulous experience! I don’t need to mention the food/venue thing ‘cause you already know about it. We coped and moved on. (Made McDonalds and Dominoes very happy too…) Everything else was “Gracious Professionalism” personified. The Social was SUCH fun. Our kids are still talking about it! Can’t wait ‘til next year. Thank you so much, you all did a great job!

Martha Calkins

Re: Wonderful weekend!
 

We went to McDonald's the first day and they were troopers who certainly came thru.

We went to Subway the 2nd day, and again they were troopers who came thru for us despite their HUGE lunch line already there. We got her card to write her a thank you.

Third day it occurred to me to find out ahead of time where Domino's was cuz they're a CA food sponsor of ours. We went at 10a, showed their name on our shirts, asked for donation or special price, got $6 a pizza, then when we were driving to pick up the pizzas at noon, we stopped at produce dept in the market, got empty boxes (I'd learned from the day before), dropped off the 2 kids with money and boxes at Sonic across the street from Dominos for 37 sodas, and I picked up the pizzas.

Re: congrats to 234
 

Thanks Libby!!! You are one of the reasons we won! :)

Arizona Regional... what can I say? It was awesome. The matches, the teams, the people, everyone and everything - awesome. Congrats to the winning teams 606, 460, and 968 - you guys put up a really good fight. And of course I have to thank the judges for The Chairmans Award, and all the people for the Website Award... Maybe I'll find more to say about this once the shock has worn off. :eek: :)

Oh yeah, and did anyone see our match again 980? (the 2nd one that is).. very good match, 2 arms going up against each other. Hopefully someone on our team taped it. ;) Good job guys.

The only problem was that someone needed to come out and vacum the carpet up. It was pretty dirt with debris. Other then that it was great.

I just HAVE to thank team 60 and Laron Engineering for the machine shop!!!

We would not have done as well as we did without their help... they bored and broached 2 sets of 4 sprockets for us in less than 20 min !!!

We frantically went out and bought new 25 and 30 tooth sprockets when we realized how slow our robot was on the field...

The turnaround with those guys was great!! THE BEST machine shop at any regional or national competition.

Thanks guys!!

As far as the regional went...very organzied, very professional, and one of the best regionals i have been to. The teams were extremeyl nice, and the entire event was very relaxed and enjoyable.

Only things i would change: Easier access to the pit from the stands, and for those teams stuck in the center row, slightly larger pit areas (we were lucky enough to have a corner)

Thanks to teams 460, and 606 for a great alliance, we couldnt have done it without you.

Travis - Advisor, Team Mentor

Great regional

~I liked being able to eat outside the venue in the grass. We couldn't do that at Richmond.

~This regional had a good mix of veteran teams as well as rookie teams.

~11 matches, talk about your moneys worth

~ Teams were friendly and approachable.

~ Unlike Richmond and St. Louis you didn't have the FIRST people yelling at you in the staging area.

~ I loved the Monday Night Football music during the finals

All in all one of the best

Re: Arizona Regional Feedback- The Good, The Bad, The Ugly
 

You folks did a fabulous job of creating a great event. It was really superior. Getting to the event was easy. We had good lodging at La Quinta a few minutes away.

The set up at the Colliseum was excellent. However our team didn't like the food available, so we had to send drivers for food. If there was one thing that would help, it would be some healthy food at reasonable prices. That would save us time.

The Science Center was very excellent all around.

Thanks again for a great job.

FIRST the bad news:

The food at the venue. Not only was it the usual poor selection of junk food, but even if you decided to pay the rediculous prices, they were out of almost everything. Very poor planning on the vendor's part. Some of our people went to Stuffy's across the parking lot on Saturday and enjoyed it. I don't think they were open the other days.

Moving back and forth from the stands to the pits.

Now the good news:

The machine shop was the best I've seen at any competition. That includes Disney. The turnaround was much better, probably because they had the same number of machines and machinists but 1/10 the teams. I actually caught machinists standing around waiting for work on Saturday!

The venue was the right size and a generally nice place in a decent neighborhood (unlike some I could mention)

The team party was good and in a very appropriate place. I liked the food, though it could have been a little spicier. Then again we wouldn't want to burn the tender mouths of your midwestern guests;)

Everything was very organized and seemed to flow smoothly. Cueing was arrainged nicely as well from what I could tell.

The rookies seemed to be well prepared. This is a tribute to thier mentor teams. Of course I didn't get there until Friday, so I might just have missed the worst of the panic.

Behavior off the field seemed to be very professional on the part of all teams. I know there is a controversy raging about some things that happened between teams, but even that was generally handled with great decorum.

The pluses far out weight the minuses. Phoenix is definitely on our list for next year.

O man I had a blast in Phoenix that was my 1st competition with the team and we took 1st wow I have lived my Dream there in Phoenix my Dream was to be apart or coach a championship team and now that has happened. I like to thank all the people who set up the site you guys are great:D I also like to thank all the other 36 teams you guys put up a good fight and I hope we can do it again but to all the teams going to Nationals Good Luck and we will see you there