Re: West Michigan Regional Invitational 2008
 

Well, I know I can speak for myself and my family; we had a blast! Our team used this event to get a lot of different drivers at the controls and it proved very beneficial.

I wrote a blog post; if interested you can read it here.

I know my daughter got some video, mainly for use in our President's Circle video. I don't think she recorded full matches though.

Re: West Michigan Regional Invitational 2008
 

Congrats to the champs , 494 ,397 ,74 great matches!!!!!! Thanks to our partners ,1243,904,great working with you guys ,and hope to play with you again!! To the crew ,great job for your first offseason event ,and what a awsome venue to have it at . We will be looking forward to playing in this event again next year,and hopefully we can get more partisipation to turn this into a event like Grandvally but for only 300 bucks ,what a deal!!!!!

Re: West Michigan Regional Invitational 2008
 

Team 74 would like to thank Team 494 and Team 397 for selecting us for their alliance. It was great playing with both of you!!

Re: West Michigan Regional Invitational 2008
 

First off, congrats to 494, 397 and 74 - you guys all played great! In the finals 397 had a problem so our partner 904 keyed on 494 and wouldn't you know it, in the next match 494 had a problem and 397 scored like crazy! That's the nature of the game. You all played super, and I have to take my hat off to 74 for playing such great defense. You trapped that ball against the wall and we had to drive between you and the wall to pop it into our bot - a time-consuming activity that definitely slowed us down - nice job!

To our partners, 1243 and 904 - it was a blast! Everyone was really fun to play with and we were one hurdle from taking it all in the second game of the finals. No matter, it was a great learning experience for our big group of rookie members and they all had a lot of fun. We'd love to play with you both any time!

To the judges, especially Dan, the head ref, thanks for such a well run event. You really did everything in your power to make it fair and give everyone every chance you could to get their bots running and on the floor. Thanks so much for your patience with all of us and your fantastic up-beat attitude!

Finally, thanks so much to the hosting teams. The venue was just wonderful! Lots of room, easy traffic flow, and a great job on the video and audio systems. You could easily host a district or regional. Hard to believe it was the first time there.

Hope to come again next year. It was great!

Re: West Michigan Regional Invitational 2008
 

The WMRI committee and volunteers want to thank you for attending our event on Saturday. We had a great time and hope that you did too. We saw a lot of smiles, excited "newbies", and (of course) gracious students were to be found everywhere. Our intention was to provide a relaxed event that allowed teams an additional chance to play with last season's robots and to give your rookie students an opportunity to see for themselves how 'cool' being on a FIRST team can be.
We heard so many positive comments about your students from our volunteers, which is not surprising to you.

Our committee will be meeting in about a week to go over the event and would appreciate feed-back from you. Areas which you feel we can improve or what you think went well.

We are excited for the new season to begin and look forward to seeing many of you again in the spring at the West Michigan District event.

Re: West Michigan Regional Invitational 2008
 

Congrats to 494, 397, and 74. You guys were an incredible alliance that made the finals really exciting to watch. You could score like crazy and 74 played some of the best and most tenacious defense I've seen all year.

Thank you to 1243 and 904. You guys were great alliance partners, and I'm glad we had the chance to play with you guys. I hope we get that chance again in the future.

Thank you to the host teams, refs, and other volunteers. I was surprised by the high quality of the whole event. The pits, field, and robot flow were all set up superbly. John is right, you guys could easily host a district in the future, and at the very least I really hope more teams come to compete next year to make the event even better.

I'd like to specifically thank the 494, 70, and 397. All three of your teams show what it means to be a FIRST team. I never get tired of competing with the Martians, as your professional, helpful, and optimistic attitude always increase the quality of every event you attend. As an added benefit, naming the alliances you guys are part of is quite fun, simply add "... in SPACE!":D

I only this just year started to see how high a quality team 397 is, and I don't know why it has only now become apparent to me. While talking to a few of your members throughout the day I could see you are another one of those teams that will always raise the quality of the events you attend.

Again, thank you all for such a good time, and for the chance to truly test our rookies (they passed with flying colors, by the way.) It was a great event, and I'm sure it will only get better next year.

Re: West Michigan Regional Invitational 2008
 

As I said to you there, I am so sick of seeing you guys against us in the finals. :p I wish one of these times you would be with us. Simply stunning machine you have

I would like to compliment 1243, 910, and 904 on some amazing matches, these were some of the intense matches Ive ever seen in 5 yrs in FRC. My hat is off to you. Now, I want to thank 494 for picking us, it was a joy working with a team that I have watched since I stared FRC. 74 played some incredibly tenacious defense. Those were some really touch matches and I definitely consider that the highlight of my year. Not because we won but because we got a chance to really show what kids could do.