2009 IRI THANK YOU
 

Thanks to everyone who came together to make the 2009 one of the best ever.

There are so many volunteers in key roles that just "step up and do it" that it makes it easy to pull of this event.

Referees, Judges, Field Crews, MC's, Announcers, Video, Photo, Cooks! - you all are awesome.

And without such great all-around teams, it just can't happen.

Thanks again to all - and now its time for some sleep.... :)

Re: 2009 IRI THANK YOU
 

Was glad to have helped! The matches were absolutely amazing! You guys run a great event. I hope to be there again next year (hopefully with a team).

Re: 2009 IRI THANK YOU
 

I had an amazing time! Thanks to all who made the event fun for themselves, because that is what makes IRI fun for all.

Re: 2009 IRI THANK YOU
 

setting up for the IRI event is one of my favorite things in the whole year. I always look forward to it. There are so many great people who play a roll in making IRI what it is. I am beyond happy that i can be a help with it. You can expect me around every year to be a part of IRI.

Re: 2009 IRI THANK YOU
 

On top of all the other teams I talked about in the other thread I wish to thank... I'd like to thank the IRI planning committee for putting together such a fine event. On top of that, letting me volunteer to scorekeep in the mentor matches. I got within 1 ball of accuracy every match except one where 1625 dumped on a trailer and the unit would literally not work fast enough for me to keep up. Congrats 1625, you built a robot that beat the GDC's wildest dreams :D

Re: 2009 IRI THANK YOU
 

Thanks to all the people and teams that helped make IRI what it was.
Big thanks to teams 68,649, and 16.

Re: 2009 IRI THANK YOU
 

Thanks to anonymous volunteer that helped me track down several CD regulars. I never even got around to watching a match, but had a great time just meeting people.

Re: 2009 IRI THANK YOU
 

Thanks so much to the folks putting on the IRI. From the facility, to the talent (or lack there of) show, the concert, awards, and competition.... What a wonderful event.

To the teams, thanks for putting on a great show. There were just a ton of great matches. I hung out with a few Rookies that came in just to see the IRI, and they were really impressed with how friendly and helpful everyone was.

Re: 2009 IRI THANK YOU
 

After my first experience at IRI, all I can say is WOW! A great event, wonderful experience, great people. The level of competition at this event was an order of magnitude above even championships.

Thanks to all the volunteers that made the event such a success, and thanks to 832, 2753, and 179 for inviting us to be part of this great alliance.

Re: 2009 IRI THANK YOU
 

First and foremost, thanks to all the IRI coordinators and volunteers for putting on the best event of my life. As usual, IRI shows us how good a regional (or district...lol) could (should) be. From the planning, the facilities, and the competition, it just can't get much better.

Thanks to our partners 1625, 68, and 16... At least in my history with 469 we have never had the pleasure of playing with you after lunch on Saturday and I'm so happy we could help on this one. 68...we've watched and admired your robot all season and have always wanted to be on your side of your massive scores... 1625...you were the one we were watching in Atlanta and we looked forward to playing with and against you... And 16...even though your robot didn't have to help us, your help during our strategy sessions and your human player (Katie) was great...I wish I could be as calm as she was...

And sorry again for stepping over the line giving us the 10 pt penalty to make the 1/4's go to 4...

To my team. Thanks for the best event ever. It was a pleasure to coach for you and I couldn't be prouder of you.

I just wish we could have played with/against everyone that was there...the competition was out of this world and any alliance could have taken home the all gold trophy that falls apart easily... I think we should make IRI a week long competition...

And, thanks a million to 217 for bringing our stuff to and from the competition. It's been a pleasure practicing with you all season and I hope our relationship will continue to grow. Hopefully we can play together next year...

Finally...a huge congrats to team 830...you guys have come soooo far since I was a part of your team and I'm proud of you for your award and your performance this weekend.

Now back to that thing called work... See you at Kettering...

Don

Re: 2009 IRI THANK YOU
 

I want to thank all the volunteers that made this event possible, most of them taking a fair chunk of time out of their summer, when they could be catching up on things such as life. (Wait, what? =P)

I also would like to thank 47, 254 and 45 for being such amazing alliance parters. We had a strong alliance, and we played really well together. We had amazing teamwork. Remember when we worked together to score a supercell? That was spontaneous, and well executed. I can't say I could have asked for better partners.

It was a fun experience, and arguably one of the best IRI's yet, with many upsets. So finally, I want to thank every student, mentor, parent and robot that was in attendance, for making my last event of the year one I'll never forget.

-Nick

Re: 2009 IRI THANK YOU
 

I'd like to take a moment to say thank you to everyone. There were many opportunities in the stands, the cafeteria, and the pits, to hear team stories and learn about the regions that volunteers and teams traveled from and what that's about. It was also a golden opportunity to see the host teams working their butts off with smiles on their faces - the entire time. I visited the concessions stands several times for coffee replenishment and no matter the time or the day, the volunteers were smiling, cheerful, and generous.

I also want to tip my hat to each and every team that I spoke with, visited with, observed, and enjoyed. You were - all - magnificent. On the field and off the field. Sometimes delightfully so - like when observing an upside-down styrofoam cup seemingly moving and spinning across the floor all by itself - surrounded by members of 116.

To those who participated in the Talent Show. Thank you. I enjoyed every moment either smiling, laughing, or sitting with tears in my eyes. Meredith's white board comments often expressed what I was thinking. Talent Show judges - you guys were so fun and funny. Thank you for adding the spice, the running commentary via white boards, and also, for those quiet moments.

Hope everyone is returning home safely.
Jane

P.S. oh yes, a highlight that inspired this post. Arm-waving to the song, Sweet Caroline, by Neil Diamond - sitting behind 234 and watching them 'teach' the visiting teams across the way - watching hands, touching hands reaching out - touching me - touching you. It was beautiful.

Re: 2009 IRI THANK YOU
 

"Let's steal from the play book of sports..." Dean Kamen

http://www.bostonspastime.com/sweetcaroline.html


Anyway, sounds like another great year at IRI for this fantastic off-season event!

Re: 2009 IRI THANK YOU
 

To echo everyone else, thank you to the teams who planned, hosted and worked the event, especially those who had jobs that kept them away from all of the action on the field! That's a lot of work to do to create such a wonderful event for the rest of us, not to mention the money you raised for charity!

And thanks for the organizers for letting me volunteer as one of their photographers, it was absolutely amazing, even if I'm going to be editing photos for 3 days!

Congrats to all the award and scholarship winners!

Heidi

Re: 2009 IRI THANK YOU
 

I agree with all of the previous posts. This was MOE's first trip to IRI and hopefully not the last. It was a very well run and organized tournament, and we thoroughly enjoyed it. (Maybe not the 12 hour bus ride, but that had a few good moments as well).

Thanks to 341 Miss Daisy for including us on their bus and transporting our robot - I'm glad I got the chance to get to know you all better.

Special thanks to those volunteers who helped me look through the garbage for our missing bag of team shirts (long story as to why we thought it was in the garbage). We did eventually find it; someone had put it in the hopper of our robot before it was loaded back on the trailer.

Thanks to the teams, especially Exploding Bacon and Frog Force, who helped us cheer on our team in the quarters. I hope you enjoyed learning how to use our wobblies! Our drivers commented on how nice it was to see the sea of green when they walked out on the field, much bigger than our small group of 15 people could do by ourselves.

Thanks to those who participated in the bidding war at the charity auction for our MOE shirt and assorted spirit gear (including MOE Stix), which ended up selling at the remarkable price of $90! (Did you hear us chanting GO FOR IT everytime someone stopped and look?)

And thanks to Exploding Bacon for allowing us to "taste" Indiana by giving us a box of White Castle Sliders. They are rare in the Delaware area.

Re: 2009 IRI THANK YOU
 

I am lucky enough to live within driving distance of Lawrence north high school, so i have the opportunity to help setup this wonderful event.

If anyone ever has the opportunity to help be a part of the IRI, do it. Being a part of IRI is one of the most awesome things ever. Meeting outstanding people like Steve Florance, Andy Baker, Mark Coors, Chris Fultz, and even Dave Lavery graced us with his presence.

Its an amazing event and it makes me smile knowing I help with it.

So if you have a chance to even just help set up the field, I would recommend you do it, its more fun that you would realize.

And thanks again to Chris Fultz and the the planning committee for putting together this amazing off season event.

Re: 2009 IRI THANK YOU
 

Big thank you to Chris Fultz, Andy Baker, and the rest of the IRI planning committee. Once again, you put on a fantastic event which left me with fantastic memories. Thank you to the volunteers as well. There is not enough I can say to truly express my appreciation for everyone who graced an orange or yellow IRI t-shirt this past weekend.

Lastly, thanks to team 1675 who graciously allowed me to tag along on their trip to Indiana. I had a fantastic time and I am glad to have met each and every one of you.

Re: 2009 IRI THANK YOU
 

Thank you Jane! Cyber Blue is glad you enjoyed our little jig.

And thank you to everyone who came out to the IRI. It's always so exciting to see so many people come together, whether they're with a team or not, and enjoy themselves and partake in a wonderful off season event.

So thank you all!

Re: 2009 IRI THANK YOU
 

I wanted to add my thanks also! Tonight our team met to unload the trailer and to discuss the weekend. We went around the room and asked for everyone's most memorable moments. It was quite a list that we came up with. :)

Re: 2009 IRI THANK YOU
 

As Carol had mentioned, this was MOE 365's first trip to IRI. What a terrific event. On behalf of all of MOE, thanks to all the volunteers who made the event run smoothly, especially those volunteers from teams 234, 45, and 1024.

Despite the field faults, I give credit to the field volunteers who moved as quickly as they could to move matches along to minimize the delays on Friday.

Thanks to CyberBlue 234 for selecting us at their back-up bot in elims. It was great being on the same alliance with your team and teams 71 and 503. We gave the event-winning alliance a run for their money. Congrats to 1625, 68, 469, and 16 for a very well-deserved win.

Thanks to all team members who kept the energy high the whole event. These were some of the best played Lunacy matches I have seen all year. IRI teams have demonstrated what Lunacy can be. Great job all!

And thanks to our bus-mates, Team 341. MOE greatly appreciates the opportunity to share a trip like this with your team. In today's economic climate, every little bit helps. We all should try to find ways to lessen our collective team expenses by collaborating. We thank you!

Great job by all. Apart from being flatter than we are used to in the East, the midwest is actually a pretty cool place. :D

Re: 2009 IRI THANK YOU
 

I would like to Thank everyone who worked so hard to make IRI 2009 happen. I definitely think this year was the best IRI year so far (well, out of the ones I attended). Also, the matches were very intense and really interesting to watch. I even enjoyed them more at IRI than at the Championships. Also thanks to all the teams who competed and made this event so awesome.

Also, I would like to thank Andy Baker and Chris Fultz for letting VizSeek and 80/20, Inc display their kiosks/gurney as well as for letting us promote the Contest INCITE. This Contest is really a great opportunity for teams to win great prizes that total up to $1500 with $500 of that being cash or a check to go toward the teams' robots for the 2010 season.

P.S. the contest is free for everyone to join, more info coming on CD soon

Re: 2009 IRI THANK YOU
 

IRI becomes a better event each year. Chris, Andy and the rest of the IRI organizing team have created the "gem" of FIRST robotics competitions.

Team 980 had an unimaginably successful event. Of course, much of our success was due to our fantastic alliance partners throughout the competition. The experience of working with WildStang, Penn Robotics and the Tigertrons in the elimination rounds was amazing and educational.

Thanks to everyone who made this IRI very special to Team 980. We look forward to seeing you all next season!

Re: 2009 IRI THANK YOU
 

Hats off, kudos, and THANKS to Chris, Sister Andy, 45, 234, and 1024. There are simply no teams in FIRST that make me say, "I wanna be that team" any more than Teams 45, 234, and 1024. I have never seen anyone from any of these groups act in a way that was not lovely and professional. It is no wonder that IRI is the stupendous, premier event that it is.

Thanks to 1625, 68, and 469 for allowing us to watch your back. Our youngsters had a thrilling time, but now we will have a real job convincing them that it usually takes a little more to win a Championship trophy than providing a human player and a couple of batteries. :rolleyes:

Re: 2009 IRI THANK YOU
 

In addition to all the usual thank you's given to those who work so hard to make IRI such a great time, I'd like to add a few specific thanks:

• Thank you for bringing back the adult drive team matches in such an awesome manner. In one hour +, the old geezers on our alliance got to play seven matches (should have been only six, but my next bullet point covers that), 4 more than I had played in 3 IRI mentor rounds from 2004-2006. The opportunity to help out local charities in the process was just icing on the cake. Thanks to our alliance partners 217 and 47 for picking us and putting on a good show together.

• Thank you to the Copiolis for their patience and understanding after I pressured Paul's poor wife into committing a penalty by illegally shooting a 2nd supercell at the end of our first match :o, resulting in a tie. A perfect storm of bad timing, adrenaline, and oversight combined together such that I did not realize she had already shot and scored a supercell (sno-coning it on top of the vision target, no less!).

• Thank you to all those who helped out the pre-rookies in attendance at the IRI. I know our sponsored team, Innovators Robotics out of Dayton, spent hours working with the Team 379 mentors who came with us on the trip and learned a lot driving 379's (and eventually, 234's) robot. I do have one suggestion though - next year, if there aren't enough pre-rookies to fill out a full match card, I do hope the IRI folks can add more structure to the event, inviting veteran teams to participate in matches during the times the practice field is reserved for the challenge, helping give the pre-rooks a more complete match experience. I believe volunteers started doing this on Saturday, which is great.

Re: 2009 IRI THANK YOU
 

Thanks for this. We actually planned to do this, and then (in a mr. obvious moment) learned that once you download the encription required to play on the main field, that you can no longer driver via remote control and your wireless router. Any IRI Teams on the practice field needed tethered...

We learned, and next time will have more "spare" robots on the field to make full matches.

It's always something, ain't it! :)

Re: 2009 IRI THANK YOU
 

If you use James Kiefer's radio programming utility next year, get a list of the security keys from him (it's easy - he keeps them in a text file sorted by team number) and have teams program their key into their routers. We went wireless on the practice field all weekend. :)

Re: 2009 IRI THANK YOU
 

I would just like to say thank you on the behalf of our team to everyone that made this great event possible. Only the greatest volunteers and organizers could have possibly made this event run so well. It was tons of fun and I am sure we will be seeing everyone next year.

I had a completely awesome time making new friends and playing with amazing teams.

Also, thank you to 832, 1771, and 179 for being great alliance partners and for making it such a cooperative alliance.

Re: 2009 IRI THANK YOU
 

On behalf of Team 341, I wanted to say what a great time we had at IRI.

We really enjoyed the incredible afternoon of playoff matches, the dinner on Friday, the talent show, and getting to meet the awesome teams that attend. All of the IRI volunteers were very friendly and ready to help.

You certainly don't need me to tell you that you run a great event, but as the organizer of an off-season competition myself, I recognize the tremendous work that goes into such an event. I salute everyone involved.

So we just wanted to thank you to Chris, Andy, Team 234, Team 45, and Team 1024 for inviting us. Our kids had a blast and hopefully we will see you again next year!

Al Ostrow
Team 341