It has been a week since the Cal Games at Pioneer High school and some of us are only beginning to wind down from the event. Putting on the Cal Games this year was a Herculean effort by a huge cadre of volunteers. The planning for the event started near the end of the past school year and continued through the summer. A significant amount of work went into building field elements, augmenting a field loaned to us by NASA and adding functionality to an electronic scoring system loaned to us by members of the SCRRF community. The electrical power of the building used for pits was enhanced to provide enough circuits. Volunteers worked on awards, on publicity, on registration, on the concession, on set up, and on clean up. Teams contributed their mentors, and a number of students, who stuck with us through the long planning period. Teams contributed work crews to support the event. These rotating work crews worked into the night on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and then Sunday morning to finally put all of the gear back away. Volunteers came from afar to contribute to the event. Members of non-participating teams worked as volunteers at the event. All of these things were huge contributions that were essential to the success of the Cal Games. Everyone involved contributed more broadly than at any prior Cal Games event and are to be congratulated.
I would particularly like to thank the members of the planning committee who worked tirelessly over a six month period to cause this event to take form, those who made a special effort to pitch in and help resolve problems, fill gaps, and supported our event through the day, and those who loaned us custom controller hardware that made the task of operating and scoring the game possible. An extended list of credits can be found at:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/at...achmentid=4720
One can never succeed in tracking the very significant efforts of so many people perfectly, and we have most likely left significant contributors out of the credits. I would like to encourage the members of the WRRF community to remedy any oversights on our part by issuing a public thank you note on the Chief Delphi thread below:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...highlight=wrrf
In addition to providing an important event for veteran FRC teams to galvanize around, the 2006 Cal Games provided a demonstration of what FIRST is all about to nine rookie teams in Northern California who have registered for the coming season. We warmly welcome these rookie teams: 2035 Carmel, 2063 Turlock, 2073 Pleasant Grove, 2035 Vacaville, 2141 DeLa Salle - Concord, 2135 Presentation High - San Jose, 2144 Sacred Heart - Atherton, 2156 Hirham Johnson - Sacramento, 2159 San Leandro High. I would like to encourage veteran teams to mentor these rookie teams, sharing what they know and offering their help where it is needed, as is the custom in our community.
The WRRF will host workshops on December 9, at Santa Clara University. These workshops will cover many important topics, in response to popular demand from those who register for them. I would like to encourage team members, and in particular members of our new rookie teams, to attend these workshops to learn about topics that they will find useful during their build season.
Again, I offer my thanks to everyone who has contributed to the success of the 2006 Cal Games, and thank in advance those who will lead at workshops in Santa Clara. I look forward to seeing you at the WRRF workshops, at the coming events in 2007, and in particular, at the WRRF Cal Games in 2007.
Eugene Brooks
President of the WRRF