[WRRF]: Thank You to our 2006 Cal Games Volunteers

[Ken Leung]

After spending a whole week of catching up to everything else, I finally had a chance tonight to sit down and have a relaxing meal tonight. Even though the steak was terrible, and stayed terrible despite all the A1 sauce I poured on it, I had a good time having a quiet meal without a whole bunch of craziness happening around me.

Needless to say, I am glad that the burden is finally off my shoulder and we've yet again enjoyed another successful year of Cal Games.

Even though I still haven't had the chance to really reflect on what happened the past 6 months, I was able to think a little bit about this whole experience, and the one thing that sticked out the most are the people whom I have the pleasure of working with for Cal Games.


I've tried my best to put include every name in the credits attached above, but even then I won't be able to list everyone I need to thank for contributing to this one day competition. So, I am going to rely on the rest of WRRF community to help remind us just who were there to help us out when we needed the help.

Still, there are some folks I need to thank, and I will do them right now without ruining the little notes I am going to send to each of them this week .

Ceal Craig of 1120 is the reason why all of us got together and started the whole planning process. Without her there wouldn't be Cal Games. Without her we wouldn't have come together to form the planning committee. We owe her the deepest gratitude for her determination and energy through out the past 6 months.

Tim Craig of 1120 is the other half of Ceal. Though Tim is not as visible as Ceal in the planning group, he is always there at every meeting, and worked tirelessly all Friday and Saturday of Cal Games on the field and other things. We need to remember that Ceal and Tim's partnership is what makes them so great to work with.

Eugene Brooks of 1280, President of WRRF, took care of field and pit area power and pretty much everything else that needs to be taken cared of during the past 6 months. You need to remember that I am a Mechanical Engineering student, which means I have no clue what so ever about power, voltage, amps, circuits. Eugene took care of that so well that all I had to do was nod and smile everytime he start going on and on about power .

Mike Schmit of 1351, another BOD of WRRF, took care of the floor protection/carpets, the match list, the pit area signs, the field, and countless other things. Believe it or not he has been thinking about all these since Cal Games 2004. And sure enough when we said we need help putting this together, he step up to the plate and ask What can I do to help? I learned a lot from Mike.

Phyllis Schmit of 1351 is the other half of Mike. She did an incredible job taking care of registration for us, and was there with us the entire time starting on the Thursday before Cal Games. Without her work, we won't have so many teams at the competition.

Dave Sheridan is an amazing person to work with. He is simply the nicest guy I've ever met. And the first thing he volunteered to help with was the field elements, which we all find out later just how much work it takes to finish. Dave worked all day Friday to make sure the goals, ramps, and everything else fit together with the NASA playing field, so we owe him a lot of thanks for that.


There are still many more names I need to mention in here, but it is now 2:04am in the West Coast, and I need to get some sleep so I can wake up early tomorrow morning. So, this is where I will stop for now. Those of you I haven't gotten to yet, don't worry, I will .

Stay tuned for more tomorrow!

[Ken Leung]

Ah! I was going to finish this the day after I posted the last thank you notes, but I forgot. So, let me just finish this really quickly...

I want to give a big thanks to Lonny Weissman and the rest of team 668 Apes of Wrath for being a wonderful host.

Mark Leon, Joe Hering, and Cory McBride from NASA Ames for providing us a playing field.

Michael Neary and Terry Wells from SCRRF for providing us the field controller system.


And I know it will be impossible to name all the names, so I am just going to tell everyone what I remember the most from Cal Games this year...

I remember tons and tons of people came to our planning meetings over the summer...
I remember Thursday night after two of the teams helped us loaded the truck up, team 668 and a small group of folks helped us get started on flooring at Pionieer High School until 9pm that night...
I remember the same small group of folks plus a few other willing volunteers came early Friday morning at 10pm to help us lay down and hot seam the carpets... There was Michael from 114, Laura and Marc from 100, Gary from former 972, Ceal, Alvin, Tim, Mike, Phyllis, Lonny, Dave, Cory, David, Tim, and others...
And I remember there were so many teams who came to help us setup all Friday...
I remember Team 114 stayed pretty much all day Friday until very late at night to help us with everything...
I remember team 1351 stayed until 11:30pm to help us test the playing field.
I remember Gary, Mauri, and Lonny stayed until past 1am to get the field system finished...

Then I remember Saturday morning when I got in so many teams were there ready to help us run the event...
I remember when the field system didn't work on the first match team 968 came rushing to us to help us figure out the radio problems...
I remember seeing the 60+ volunteers so willing to do the work to make sure the event was successful...
I remember when some of the core people like Ceal, Eugene, Mike, Lonny, Alvin, and others getting so tired because it was a long day and we had matches until 7pm...
I remember team 481 so willing to help us when we needed volunteers...
I remember team 100 helped us with so many volunteers too...
I remember Billfred and Sanddrag did an incredible job with Mark Leon being announcers...
And I remember everything get cleaned up so fast by 9pm with tons of people staying behind to help us...

And I remember team 192 helped us unload the truck the next morning with just the 7-8 of us, plus Billfred...


I remember all of that, except I don't remember exactly what happened anymore. So much energy, so much excitements, so much generosity... This is the best Cal Games yet since 2000!