2011 Waterloo Regional

[cpeister]

781 will be leaving for Waterloo in just a few hours. This is a good indication that I should already be asleep. Oh well, we are looking forward to playing Logomotion!

[basicxman]

Stream is up.

http://mmrambotics.ca/waterloo (Just Waterloo)

http://mmrambotics.ca/regionalfeed (Multiple regionals)

[basicxman]

I have word that another camera has been ordered for Waterloo and tomorrow will have two video sources and alternative between.

Later on in the event today we had the camera focusing on the action instead of an overview of the whole field - unfortunately we could not zoom out the entire way to see all scoring racks.

Tomorrow will be great

Water water loo!

[Bochek]

Heading back to waterloo for the day, SO PUMPED! Can't wait to have paul back announcing.

[Racer26]

Yeah... I LOVED 2008. Karthik/Paul made an awesome pair that year. Boom-shaka-laka!

[basicxman]

Feeds up.

http://mmrambotics.ca/regionalfeed

[Jonathan Norris]

Earliest Alliance Selection ever?? matches were done by 10:40... I guess thats what happens when you have a well run regional of only 29 teams.

[MagiChau]

Can't wait to see einstein. Amazing 147 points, congratulations to 1114 and their alliance.

[IKE]

QF1.2= x147

[Norman J]

The speed and efficiency of the 1 alliance is just amazing. 152 pre-penalty despite tube starving and heavy defense from 1334.

[basicxman]

Warning: This post is going to be super long.

I feel like since I was at the regional (with a good overview of operations at the FTA table) on Wednesday night and then 8AM to <closing time> every day I should do a write up on how much I really appreciate the Waterloo venue.

First of all, I've been to several FTC and FRC events in my lifetime and this was the most well operated regional I have ever been to. It was ahead of schedule the entire event with Karthik even doing an anti-lightning-round to slow things down. +1 to every single volunteer participating this week. Patrick Fairbank and the awesome FTA guys had issues debugged and killed on Wednesday night, even Thursday was quite smooth.

The whole community within the regional is very close, talking to several of the other students made me feel like I was in a highly professional environment. These are people that aren't entirely crazy about winning, but are just down-to-earth fun people who know what they are talking about.

Huge props to the programmer and mentor who I assisted at 1846, these were two highly motivated individuals who I know reflected their team in the utmost prestige. It was a joy to see people dedicated like this and requesting assistance getting their robot running, reaching out to the community and willing to return the favour.

The teams who seem to attend Waterloo are very close are dedicated to making the event fun. There were no such instances of disrespect to higher ranking teams, only curiosity to see how they did it and striving to be like them. Unlike previous years, there was no whispers of cheating and long boo's from the stands when 1114 and 2056 paired up to score a half dozen logos. BTW if anybody from 2056 is reading this, thanks a lot.

If you've ever seen Karthik and Paul Copioli MC and announce together, it's an experience to behold. Paul gets very involved in the webcast chat, if you were participating you already know it truly is a unique experience like no other - it brings even more of the real-life experience to the webcast. I was quite happy to be operating the webcast and chat room beside him. The DJ at Waterloo was amazing, with ustream viewers repeatedly thanking him and even requesting his playlist or muting other regionals just to hear his music.

I encourage anybody who wasn't watching the Waterloo webcast to definitely check it out, and I believe our team will be doing GTR as well. Besides some issues with ustream that are being worked out things went quite smoothly, and our audio/video quality was way above par.

Special thanks to Trevor Kearse for helping Karthik on the chat and moderating as I was helping Paul. Additional thanks to Mark Breadner to making the webcast setup at the FTA table quite comfortable and supplying as much as he could, even ordering a second camera for Friday and Saturday. Also for getting us up on http://canfirst.org quickly.

Now of course, some goodies:

Match Results: http://www2.usfirst.org/2011comp/eve...chresults.html

Awards: http://www2.usfirst.org/2011comp/events/WAT/awards.html

Recorded Video of the Event: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/first-robotics-waterloo

We're planning on splitting up these recorded videos and posting them on YouTube - our media guy (props to Sean Noseworthy) took hundreds of quality photos and those will be posted on our website.

I'm developing several improvements to the Regional Feeds page which many many people have been using who can't make it to regionals in person.

This event went so smoothly it's almost hard to believe. Now I'm going to get some seriously needed sleep.

* basicxman out

P.S. Thanks of course to the awesome FIRST Robotics Canada sponsors who make the event possible, and our sponsors who make us competing possible!

[Boca Bearing Company, Anixter, MG Chemicals and Canadian Host]

[Vince lau]

Congrats to 1114, 2056 (10 in a row) and 3756 for winning the Waterloo Regional, good luck at St. Louis

To 1310 and 610, thanks for allowing us to be part of your alliance sorry we did perform as well as we could have. Best of luck at GTR you are two amazing teams and you'll go far at GTR

1305 Congrats on the regional chairmans award, well deserved.

[Alex Cormier]

Originally Posted by basicxman

If you've ever seen Karthik and Paul Copioli MC and announce together, it's an experience to behold. Paul gets very involved in the webcast chat, if you were participating you already know it truly is a unique experience like no other - it brings even more of the real-life experience to the webcast. I was quite happy to be operating the webcast and chat room beside him. The DJ at Waterloo was amazing, with ustream viewers repeatedly thanking him and even requesting his playlist or muting other regionals just to hear his music.

I encourage anybody who wasn't watching the Waterloo webcast to definitely check it out, and I believe our team will be doing GTR as well. Besides some issues with ustream that are being worked out things went quite smoothly, and our audio/video quality was way above par.

Excellent. It was a joy to watch the event and thank you for making it happen.

It's always a blast to hear those two going at it.

I am also very excited to come up for GTR next week and volunteer.

See you guys next week!

[MagiChau]

Originally Posted by basicxman

If you've ever seen Karthik and Paul Copioli MC and announce together, it's an experience to behold. Paul gets very involved in the webcast chat, if you were participating you already know it truly is a unique experience like no other - it brings even more of the real-life experience to the webcast. I was quite happy to be operating the webcast and chat room beside him. The DJ at Waterloo was amazing, with ustream viewers repeatedly thanking him and even requesting his playlist or muting other regionals just to hear his music.

I encourage anybody who wasn't watching the Waterloo webcast to definitely check it out, and I believe our team will be doing GTR as well. Besides some issues with ustream that are being worked out things went quite smoothly, and our audio/video quality was way above par.

Special thanks to Trevor Kearse for helping Karthik on the chat and moderating as I was helping Paul. Additional thanks to Mark Breadner to making the webcast setup at the FTA table quite comfortable and supplying as much as he could, even ordering a second camera for Friday and Saturday. Also for getting us up on http://canfirst.org quickly.

The idea of the Announcer Game for suggesting things to say was pretty cool.

[TonyLam1310]

Please don't be sorry. You were excellent and doing the best you could was all we could have asked for.

Thank you for your assisstance and never be sorry about what you're robot is capable of doing. Remember that you are chosen for a reason. Every team had their strengths ad we saw that you're robot was the next best for us.