I just now opened my laptop for the first time since Friday afternoon; I barely touched the internet on Saturday (which had me at Irmo High from 6:45 until after 10:00 PM). I barely moved this morning...but judging from my email today, I think SCRIW II was a great success.
First,
thank you to all the teams. To grow by nearly a third year-over-year is a challenge for any organization, and we ran into a few quirks (not the least of which was our late start for sync checks). I want to thank all of you for your patience and gracious professionalism throughout the day, both towards us and towards other teams.
And holy crap, what a set of elimination matches! Congrats to the champions, [b]FRC 587 (Hedgehogs), FRC 2640 (HOTBOTZ), and FRC 2059 (The Hitchhikers)[b]. Considering the latter two won Palmetto with us (and 587 won Peachtree with us around), I think we might have them hooked for coming down to South Carolina.
I want to thank
all of our volunteers, but singular praise is due to
Jacob Paikoff from 2059 (ha, I got it right this time!). He was there to help with setup, refereed the event, and then stayed for tear-down nearly as long as I did; where I had to be there, he sure as heck didn't.
Further thanks to
Greg and Brandon from AndyMark, who were immensely helpful in getting all 24 teams to shake off summer-induced
ring rust and get everyone running. Their grace under fire is just one of the many reasons SCRIW springs for their services each year.
On a somewhat personal level, thanks to the
FIRST Noble Team for picking 2815. It was a rough day for them, seeding dead last after a code issue made them miss matches, but it's still nice to see them not the last pick of the draft. (Further thanks to their mentor
Tina Drake for serving as head referee.)
Thanks to
WLTX and Carolina News for coming out to cover the event.
And finally, thanks to
all the students, parents, and mentors of Los Pollos Locos and D5 Robotics. The SCRIW planning committee is just three people, the budget a shoestring. We couldn't do it without the help of these great kids.
Now to shake off the last of these aches and start planning for SCRIW III! The date will be announced shortly after the release of USC's home football schedule.