[Richard Wallace]

I was preoccupied with volunteer duties, so I don't have event results. Surely those will appear soon on the FIRST site, and/or on our regional site.

Fifteen VEX robots participated. Performance in radio control mode was generally impressive and there were some very competitive, high-scoring radio matches. Autonomous match results were less impressive -- I think the high cumulative autonomous score was 19 points by team FVC 1.

One difficulty at STL was distance from the VEX pits to the field, and relatively short intervals between matches. Time constraints forced some teams to improvise repairs in lobbies, hallways, stands, etc.

From the inspectors point of view, the VEX robots at St. Louis presented no difficulties. Only one or two machines needed modification to fit within the sizing box. One team slipped past inspection with a non-VEX battery (same size and color, wrong markings) but that was caught by a field official fairly early on. It was nice to work at FIRST event where all the robots passed inspection before the first drivers meeting.

I am very interested in seeing, hearing, or reading how VEX events are perceived at other pilot venues during the next several weeks. Based on what I saw at STL today, FVC appears to be a very good thing for FIRST.

Dean and Dave were there. Dean gave a very nice talk during opening ceremonies, and predicted that FVC can be grown to include all high schools someday. Dave gave a very inspiring talk during award ceremonies, including some of the Mars images that he used during a similar talk at FRC-STL last March.