OK, OK...
Mark Koors and I made a road trip this past weekend. Our main goal was to visit the BattleBots competition in Rochester to seek new customers for our
AndyMark business. We demonstrated some products and made some great contacts. Also, we supported the Tetracide team as they competed.
Along the way, we stopped in at Toronto on Friday to see some friends and help setup for the Wonderland FIRST competition.
Along this trek, we discovered these things:
1. It's only an 8 hour drive from Kokomo to Toronto.
2. Crossing over to Canada and getting back is fairly easy, especially at the crossing points of Port Huron, MI and Niagra, Ont.-NY.
3. More teams need to attend the Wonderland off-season event. It is a great place to host a FIRST competition.
4. Hotel rates in Toronto are inexpensive.
5. Dinosaur BBQ in Rochester is excellent.
6. The X-Cats (team 191) have an awesome shop.
7. We have some new friends in the Rochester area.
8. FIRST is well-respected among Battlebots competitors.
9. Battlebots is an exciting, fun competition to watch.
10. A good spinner robot can do a massive amount of damage to its opposing robot.
As for the "FIRST Supplier Summit", it was a meeting among possible suppliers to FIRST which took place back in August. Essentially, it was a meeting where FIRST challenged, "what can you put in the Kit for free?"
Andy B.