[Avarik]

Well we went to the canadian regional...and all I gotta say is we had a blast! Team 188 hosted us, making it more cost effective, and a lot more fun too. Yeah, we had to pay a good deal for shipping and airplane tickets, but it was well worth it.

We started off heading over to team 188's member's houses. They were hosting us, so 2 southern californian kids per canadian family that was willing to host (11 students and the teacher came alltogether). They took us sight seeing on wednesday. We went to Niagra falls, where a few of us saw snow for the first or second time in our lives (no joke!). After that, we went to the top of the CN tower, where one of our members conquered his fear of heights. We had dinner in the revolving tower, and then headed to the raptor vs. golden state game.

The next 3 days were the competitions. Our teams were very friendly with eachother, and we constantly went back and forth to see how the other was doing. We would help where we could, loan tools, and just hang out in the bit of spare time we had. Saturday, 188 ended up being 8th seed, and alliance 6. They turned down an invite from a higher seed, and ended up picking us as their first alliance partner! We went on to the quarter-finals with our alliance, and sadly lost to the winning regional alliance in the tiebreaker. Unfortunatly, our robot's arm broke, as did 188's hanging mechanism. However, 188 won a few awards! They won the sportsmanship award, well deserved! They also won the website award for the second time this year, and I hope they can take it home at nationals. Their mentor, Mr. Anderson, won the Woodie Flowers award as well, and from what I saw, nobody would be more deserving.

We headed out to dinner with 188 that night and had a pretty good time there. Sunday they took us shopping at the Eaton Center, and we hung around with a few of their team members. Monday they took us to school with them, and beside the below freezing weather, it was fun. Our school systems are actually different in a lot of ways, so it was interesting to see how.

All in all, we had a blast! We could not have come up there without 188's support and help. They opened up their homes to us, and made sure we had a good time. We ended up in talks of a rotational system, where they would come the next year, then we would go to Canada the year after, etc. I cannot thank 188 enough for all of their help. As you can see, we stuck together and actually became good friends with their members.

I hope other teams take this lead and begin the hosting process, because it takes the cost of hotels out of the factor, enables some sightseeing, and makes the experience better alltogether.