[Andy Baker]

The Las Vegas Regional was great. It had a good mix of veteran teams and rookie teams, with many rookie teams looking like veterans.

This regional is fortunate to have great event sponsors, including UNLV. The Thomas & Mack arena is the nicest FIRST Regional site I have ever been to (with a close second being the Peterson Center in Pittsburgh). The field was set down on the floor level while the spectators seats started at about 10 feet above the arena floor. This was similar to a colesium setup where robots and drive teams took the place of gladiators.

On Thursday and Friday, the arena's seats were too comfortable and the teams seemed just happy to be there, as everyone was fairly reserved. Somehow, everything changed on Saturday and the excitement of a FIRST competition was pumping through the air. It was a combination of Morrella's scripted tunes (at one point they played Motley Crue and Abba back to back), Blair's energetic introductions, and a greatly heightened level of play by the competing teams. Veteran volunteers were scratching our heads on Friday but raising our eyebrows on Saturday, that is for sure.

It was neat to get to know all of the teams. That is the benefit of being a robot inspector. I definitely enjoyed getting to know Josh and "Garth" on 1110 along with the "High Rollers" of 987 with Marc Rogers and SteveO (pssst... they will make a splash in Atlanta), and many other people on great teams.

I was just one of many volunteers who had the pleasure of working with these teams. While many of the volunteers were FIRST veterans who flew in to help, other volunteers were new to FIRST but will be valuable to the growth in the Vegas area. It's pretty cool to see the director of engineering at UNLV as an inspector. That level of commitment is inspiring.

It was good to see team 60 win Chairman's Award and 64 qualify for the Championships with a win. Also, the GP of the attending Hawaiian teams was on display for all to see. While things didn't always go their way, they set an example in class and dignity.

This regional, even with many rookie teams attending, had a good number of strong robots that could compete at any regional across the nation. At the same time, some other teams didn't get their capping mechanisms to work. The most impressive thing to me was the determination of some teams to stick with their strategy and get their robot to work. There were a few inspriational teams who finally got their arms to operate on Saturday after de-bugging their robots all weekend.

The Las Vegas Regional has a great future. The site is great, the city is fun, the teams are gracious, and the competition level, while good now, will only get better.

Andy B.