Florida Off-season, Mayhem @ The Museum

[Arefin Bari]

::Gets on Stage::

Mayhem @ the Museum, a dream that became reality, an off-season competition that took place on July 8th and 9th at the Museum of Discovery and Science, downtown Ft. Lauderdale. First of all, I would like to thank all the sponsors, Skanska, Museum of Discovery and Science, Broward County Public Schools, and South Florida FIRST. Thank you to all the teams who came down and joined us at the Mayhem.

Team 108 – SigmaC@T
Team 179 – Swampthing
Team 180 – S.P.A.M.
Team 233 – Pink
Team 710 – Paw
Team 1029 – Wolvcats
Team 1251 – TechTigers
Team 1341 – Knights who say NEE
Team 1345 – Platinum Dragons
Team 1390 – Weletthedogsout
Team 1523 – M.A.R.S.
Team 1592 – Bionic Tigers

It was really a Mayhem. Friday we set up the field while teams were showing off their true spirit of FIRST. Once we had the field ready (around 12 p.m.) we started practice matches. Caught a lot of attention from public, they were very interested in FIRST. We also had a lot of local TV channels; newspapers come in and interview teams as well as mentors from FIRST. Then it was the social where (I assume) the teams had a good time. We had BBQ. Friday night few of us stayed at the Museum (since it was an open space) with the field.

4 a.m. Saturday morning, it started raining very badly with a lot of wind (Broward was smashed with the ban from Hurricane Dennis). The field carpet was wet (3/4 of it). Everything was flying around. About 6 in the morning, the storm calm down. We had few shop vacuums. The committee was probably up for calling this off. But I didn’t want to say “I quit.” Volunteers joined me to start cleaning up the field. We had the carpet dried by 9 a.m. We waited till 12 p.m. since we were supposed to get another ban from Hurricane Dennis. At 12 we put the field back together. We started at 1. The competition included 20 qualifying matches, Elimination round, Human triple play, Autonomous competition, Mentors obstacle course driving. It was fun. It was amazing to see how the crew pulled it off. The name of the competition totally merges with the way it went. I hope the teams enjoyed it.

I would like to thank a few here. I would like thank John Burke (magnet coordinator), who was up for all these work, David Ellich (1251 mentor), for being there all the time and help planning everything out, Rosemary Petrill (1251 mentor), for taking care of all the judging criteria. Comes down to College students… Andrew Rudolph, yup he did it again, he made 17 trophies, and they look very professional. Mike Walker, who came down from Orlando and took care of the field and scoring. Dan Richardson, who did DJ for both days, he kept it going. Thanks to Steve Shade, Anne Bergeron, Bill Brown, Peter Smeryage, James Martz, Abraham D. for being referees at the Mayhem. Thanks to the 1251 crew (Drew, Kevin, Sebs, Dave) for being there and helping me all the time, without you guys it would have been so hard to pull this off. Thanks to Tytus Gerrish, Tiffany Lee, Amanda Makintosh, Barry bonzack for staying with me and support me with whatever I needed help with. Thanks to Jaine perotti for coming up with that nice logo for the Mayhem. The shirt looked Awesome.

I would also like to thank Dan Richardson and Ryan Albright who tried to do the same thing 2 years ago. I was inspired by them and I told them that I would make it happen. Sorry that it too me 2 years but I pulled it off. And ofcourse I would like to thank FIRST because if there was no FIRST, I wouldn’t be the Arefin that I am now.

Ok… I am done. =)

::steps off the stage::