Re: 2009 San Diego Regional
 

We are flying out in the morning. Can't wait to play in SD.

Re: 2009 San Diego Regional
 

I'm pumped... see you all around lunchtime on Thursday.

Andy
(head ref)

Re: 2009 San Diego Regional
 

Dang it, I knew we should've gone to San Diego.

Re: 2009 San Diego Regional
 

A small group of members from Team 399 will be there on Saturday to cheer teams on and scout :)

Re: 2009 San Diego Regional
 

Andy, you're our head ref? Oh now I'm VERY excited. I will be a scorekeeper.

George

Re: 2009 San Diego Regional
 

Awesome! I look forward to seeing you there Andy. :)

Re: 2009 San Diego Regional
 

...wow... What. A. Regional.

While the field was shallow, the regional saw some of the best (strategical) matches I've seen so far. I have a couple of thanks to give out.

1) Miss Daisy
You guys are awesome. It great getting to play with and against you guys. Dinner Friday night was great. I'm glad both our teams got together so well. In the finals, you guys kept out hopes alive by calling a much needed time out for our alliance partner (1388). While you guys weren't the most dominate team at the regional, you guys certainly proved that NO ONE is invincible and that a good strategy can carry you very far in this game.

2) 1388 - Eagle Robotics
Once again, it was a great pleasure to team up with you guys again. We certainly made a strong push, too bad we couldn't make it last a little longer.

3) Andy - Team 968
I told you this after the regional, but we would not have been finalists without your help on Friday. Your suggestions and work with our team made all the difference and was a perfect example of what makes FIRST so special.

Re: 2009 San Diego Regional
 

Of course Jon would tell y'all himself because he is too humble, but congrats to him for being the Regional Woodie Flowers Award recipient, and to the Holy Cows (1538) for winning the RCA.

And then there was Miss Daisy (341) who helped the rookie team from Brazil (3032) build a robot on Thursday because theirs was stuck in customs. They were on the field competing by Friday. GP in action!

And 968, wow, what an offensive power house. Very impressive play.... until Goliath met David in team 2543 whose defensive strategy in the Elimination rounds had the entire arena on their feet and cheering.

And then the six rookie teams; 2827, 2839, 2984, 3021, 3032, and 3041. Watch out for these up and coming teams, especially 2839, winner of Highest Rookie Seed and Rookie All Star!

The San Diego Regional is the best and it is because of the great volunteers, the awesome teams, mentors, and parents, and especially because TeamSanDiego rocks!

Re: 2009 San Diego Regional
 

wow, san diego was so fun. it was a great regional to be at. i want to thank our alliance partners teams 1538 and 1348 for a great finals rounds and i expecialy want to thank miss daisy so much for sacrificing their time card for us to try and fix our gyro. what happened was the match before, our shaft that connected our gyro to our window motor broke and unfortunatly, we didnt have a spare. we did our best to try and fix it, but we had no luck. i want to thank you guys again for your help and all of the teams. 1538, have fun at atlanta and same to miss daisy and their alliance. hopefully, 1388 will either win or get something at the LA regional that will get us to atlanta so that we can see eachother at atlanta

-David

Re: 2009 San Diego Regional
 

San Diego was definetely a fun and exciting regional. The upset of Ms.Daisy over Rawc was amzaing! Would have been even more exciting if my alliance were able to upset 1388 and 1538's alliance :( Two dead alliance partners in the 3rd match(812 & 2485) ruined the momentum lol. Congrats to all the teams who made it to the finals! We will be in Vegas with a faster and better robot!

Re: 2009 San Diego Regional
 

...wow... is right, Jon...

The daisies have made it safely back to Philadelphia, and I don't know that I've ever been so disappointed to come back home. We had one of the most memorable regionals in our 10 year history out in San Diego. Yeah, things went our way on the field (more on that later), but the thrills of victory will only last a moment. The friendships we formed with so many people from so many far away teams will last much longer, and ultimately be more rewarding. We now have new friends to look for in Atlanta, and you better believe that we will seek you out.

Thanks and congratulations to:

-Jim Beck and all of Team San Diego. Your tight knit family of local teams and their regional director is a model for all of FIRST. Some of you aren't known on these forums with the same acclaim as other older teams, but you should be. To a person each one of you was exceptional to us and made our stay an absolute pleasure. You guys get it.

-Team 1538 and especially WFFA recipient Jon Jack. You are truly a complete team. On the field you had an effective machine that fought well all the way through the finals. Off of it you not only won a (very well deserved) Chairman's Award, you reached out to our team by taking us out to Old Town San Diego on Friday night. To say that we had a blast would be an understatement. If you ever make it out to the Philadelphia area, we will return the favor in a second!

-Team 968 for putting on a dominant performance. To those teams that will face RAWC or the Cheesy Poofs this season or offseason - watch out! You better bring your A game (and a little luck) if you want to stand a chance!

-Team 1572. You guys started on Thursday with a shooter. It worked okay, but like the vast majority of shooters this season it wasn't particularly consistent and couldn't put up the volume of a dumper. Not content to rest on your laurels, you went out and completely redid your scoring mechanism in time for the playoffs. And boy did it work well. I love seeing teams that never stop making improvements to their machine, and who adapt well to a challenge!

-Team 1388. Your gyro-enhanced agility was one of the technical high points of the competition. In finals match 1, you managed to finally pin Daisy down and unload a huge score on us - you were the first and only team able to do it the entire regional!

-Andy Baker and Dan Greene. With 37 teams, the San Diego Regional is one of the smallest FIRST regionals this year. But we still managed to get two WFA winners to help lead the way!

-The FIRST staff and all of the volunteers. When we went on a scouting mission to the NJ regional, we were very worried by what we saw. Luckily, this competition was almost entirely issue-free and the field was working like it had been around for years. We are all quick to blame FIRST for some of the troubles the new game and control system have brought, but in this case we need to give credit where it is due. Everything worked like clockwork.

-And lastly, Teams 1332 and 2543 for teaming up with us to create the best alliance on the field that afternoon. Each one of us brought something different to the table.

East (341 - PA)
Middle (1332 - CO)
and West (2543 - CA)

Old (341)
Middle Aged (1332)
and Young (2543)

Steady scoring (341)
Daring dumps (1332)
and devastating defense (2543)

I truly believe that it was the union of all of these diverse elements that brought us success. We worked like clockwork as a team. 1332 - once you got your dump timing down, you were a true threat to every trailer on the crater. And 2543 - you found your true calling in playing your West Coast take on old school East Coast defense. I told your drive team about how regionals are won and lost in the northeast (with heart, suffocating defense, and some broken parts along the way). And boy, did they run with it. You absolutely shut down a robot that was previously unstoppable. Watching you drive the opposition sideways all the way across the field was a beautiful sight.

In all, I hope everyone else had half the time that we did. San Diego has carved out a place in our hearts.

-Jared

Re: 2009 San Diego Regional
 

As I watched online, there was some real excitement in San Diego.The 968 upset still has me scratching my head.

Congratulations to the winners and all participants.

Re: 2009 San Diego Regional
 

We are defiantly close here in SD, most of the teams here are all great friends, almost like family and we are always willing to extend anything and everything to each other as well as other out of state teams.

we also had 4 FTA's there, lol [only one was officially the FTA for the regional, but we had 3 other people who are or have been FTAs before]

I was the scorekeeper running the fields systems and we defiantly didn't have any huge errors, it was my first year doing the job and im honestly surprised it went so well, most of the actual issues we came across, me and our group back behind the table were able to fix them quickly and we were able to log them and we gave FIRST a bug sheet and they are currently working on the issues so later regionals this season wont encounter those errors.

I wanna thank every single team and person who was there. Because of the great work by the volunteers and teams it really made my job easy.

Did anyone have any problems/issues/recommendations with anything we did with running the event or anything really regarding the event that we could improve on for later years?

Re: 2009 San Diego Regional
 

Wow. This regional was amazing! Everyone did so well! The semi-finals and finals were intense matches. I want to thank our alliance partners 1348 and the holy cows! We were almost there. And Congrats to the holy cows for their RCA! Hope to join you in atlanta!

Re: 2009 San Diego Regional
 

If I had to name one person on our alliance as MVP, it'd be you Katrina. You're consistency in scoring last minute supercells made the difference in several matches.