On Monday, at our wrap-up meeting, my students starting making a list of people to thank for supporting us at BMR. They started adding a few that I thought would make for a great traditional Chief Delphi celebration post. Here are their thank yous. I’m just the messenger - these truly came from my students (though I may or may not have elaborated on a few of them):
1736, Team Casserole: it was a lot of fun cheering with you! We’re happy you saw our rearranged team numbers and that we started rooting for each other the rest of the event. We’re inspired by your enthusiasm and already have some of our own ideas to step up the spirit next year!
The young man who sang the National Anthem with our very own Ariana! Thank you for being an awesome singing friend. Ariana is interested in keeping in touch, if anyone on that team wants to PM me with how she can get in touch with him.
The Puerto Rican team and singer: We hope you had fun! It was awesome meeting a team from so far away. Some of the students on our team enjoyed talking with you. Great job singing your National Anthem. It was beautiful!
Brett from AndyMark and #FriendsWithRobots! It was fun seeing us in your vlogs! Perhaps we can do a #FriendsWithRobots Build Season edition next year where you go visit teams’ shops and see how they tackle challenges in different ways.
Cowboy Hat guy (they mean Jerry, the FTA): Thanks for all the hard work you did! We didn’t know what an FTA was (21 rookie students - YOLO), but we saw how hard you and the other Cowboy Hat Dude worked, and just wanted to point it out.
Our alliance partners: 3201 and 4545! It was exciting to be picked in the first round, and we were honored to put up a fight with you. That first-place alliance was beautiful, but at least we went in with a solid plan. We are proud of our alliance’s performance, and hopefully we all get to play again some other day.
359, the Hawaiian Kids: thanks for showing us how you scout. We used a similar system this year, provided to us by 33, the Killer Bees, and it was nice to see that it was a system that another amazing team uses! The tips that your scouts gave us in the stands was awesome. It was fun getting to know some of you this weekend. Thank you for coming all the way to BMR to play with us!
Isaac (Ike on CD!) and Tim from 33, the Killer Bees! Ike helped us with implementing a fantastic scouting system, and when we were stressed about it in the middle of the day on Friday, he called to help us sort it out. This is the first year that we’ve had an organized scouting system, and it was a lot of fun and helped us in our matches at the end of Friday and on Saturday. Perhaps you can come down to Indy in the Fall and teach a scouting workshop for our team? Tim helped us scout long-distance using all sorts of OPR and other data. He watched matches on Saturday and gave us some great tips. It was definitely key toward forming our strategies, and helped us improve throughout the weekend.
234, Cyberblue: Thanks for helping our Chairman’s presenters tie their ties! Ross and Hari wanted to reach out to another team for help, and you stepped up! They looked great, thanks to you! Perhaps someone on your team could teach an overall, “How do tie a tie workshop.”
The BMR planning committee: The laser light show was AMAZING! It was one of our favorite parts of the weekend! One of our students caught the entire thing on video, and after our Spring Break, we’ll post it online. It was AWESOME. Thanks for doing a great job planning this event. We had a fantastic time and can’t wait for next year.
My own thanks:
Thank you for the warm welcome! Though it was my first time as a mentor at BMR, I absolutely felt like I belonged there, thanks to your Indiana hospitality. It's a close-nit group of friends that run that event, and you all make it an awesome party. Thanks for your hardwork. Can't wait to come back next year!