KC's FIRST OFF SEASON REGIONAL..NOV 1st

[BeckyHand]

Yesterday concluded the practice matches for 25 Missouri/Kansas area teams and Team 16 from Arkansas (Thank you Bomb Squad for joining us!)

CERNER CORPORATION and TEAM DRIVEN (1730) are holding the first every off season event in the Missouri/Kansas/Kansas City area, the COWTOWN THROWDOWN in Cerner Headquarters in North Kansas City Missouri.

This morning, November 1st, start the actual competition matches, and then after lunch are the finals along with participating teams voted awards.

Here is the CowTown ThrowDown website for more information: http://cttd-robotics.com/

We are very lucky to have Paul Borchardt and Andy and Mark from AndyMark with us at the CTTD (Cowtown Throwdown)

Here are some pictures from practice yesterday...

[Tom Hand]

This first offseason KC, MO event went off virtually flawlessly. With the magnificent help of Andy and Mark, all of the local volunteers, and the great backing of Cerner and the Lee's Summit High School planning team, we can report that the CowTown event was sure a lot of fun.

Here is one shot of Ben Brown, host of the Blue Alliance side of the field.

[Tom Hand]

John Carboneau, voice of the Red Alliance, Ben Brown voice of the Blue Alliance, Lisa Keel, KC's new FIRST Regional Director, and Jeff, the Voice of CERNER, introduce the event.

[Meredith Novak]

Thanks to everyone at CTTD. We had such a wonderful time! Our beta test team got to show off the 2009 control system. Thanks to all the teams for your interest and attention. It is great to know there is such a thriving new community of FIRST in Kansas City. Keep up the good work and we certainly hope you let us come and play next year

[Andy Baker]

The 1st annual CowTown Throwdown was an amazing experience. Mark Koors and I hauled out a FIRST Overdrive field from Indiana to help these Kansas City FIRSTers with their event.

I've been to many off-season events, and this one is very impressive. The Throwdown took place on the campus of the Cerner Corporation, who is impressively stepping up to support FIRST in the Kansas City area. Although this was the first year for the Throwdown, these guys and gals had everything planned and organized very well.

It seemed like these folks were seasoned veterans at putting on an off-season competition. They had videos playing, between matches, of interviews with students and volunteers (much like BattleCry). They had a wonderful bbq lunch for all of the attending teams (much like IRI in the past). They had a few mentor matches, and gave teams a chance to run practice matches on Friday night.

The event location was in Cerner's "Associate Center", which is an activity center for Cerner employees. I've worked at a couple of big companies (GE and Delphi), and this place was more impressive than any activity center I have seen. They had locker rooms, a pool, raquetball courts, and we played with our robots in their 1,000-seat gym.

I STRONGLY encourage any team to look forward to attending this event next year.

The coolest thing about this trip was experiencing the passion, hospitality, and friendship demonstrated by the organizers and participants. Team Driven (FRC 1730) was the lead team, and many mentors and students played significant roles in leading and running this event. Also, other area teams pitched in to help. These teams worked very well together... so much that I had a hard time telling who was on which team.

Also, it was very nice to see Bomb Squad (FRC 16) crew from Arkansas, as they demonstrated the 2009 Control System.

Mark and I are very happy that we attended and made many new friends. The FIRST community is going to see this area grow, and this event is not only a great asset to the Kansas City FRC community, but also a great event to attend for any team.

Sincerely,
Andy Baker

[pts211]

Andy- I just wanted to thank you for the above post and I am glad to hear that you had a good time attending the Throwdown.

On behalf of Team Driven: It took a lot to make this happen and it could not have been done without the help of Cerner, mentors, nearby teams, and the volunteers; Thank you to all of those who helped with setup or anything to get the Throwdown put together and rolling. I know that there was also some last minute help needed to keep everything going smoothly, thanks to those who jumped in to help, that was awesome! Also, thanks to the teams that participated, it was a lot of fun to watch come together see everyone having a good time at the event! I hope to see all the teams return and some new ones next year too!

Sincerely,
-Paul Sites-

[Ivan Helmrich]

I finally had to register here on CD just to say what an excellent event this was. Team Driven and Cerner Corp. did a superb job of organizing the event. It had all the flavor of an official regional; video on a big screen, music, official FIRST field, screaming fans, flying robot parts, all the things we've come to love about playing this game. The food was better though.

Thanks Team Driven for your tireless effort to put this on.
Thanks to the large group of volunteers who made things run smoothly.
Thanks Bomb Squad for showing off the new controller and showing some inspiring performance on the field.
Thanks Andy and Mark for bringing the field and your expertise.
Thanks especially to Cerner Corp. who turned their beautiful activity center over to a bunch of high school kids and their robots for a couple of days. We couldn't ask for better hosts.

I'll look forward to this event next year and beyond.

Ivan Helmrich

[Denman625]

These positive reviews from everyone are awesome. It was so rewarding to see everyone having such a great time at our event. This was one of the coolest things I've been to, getting to meet and hang out with other teams, our past team members who I haven't seen since last year (the emcees Ben Brown and Jon Carbenou), and witnessing the first ever champions of the Cow Town Throw Down.

Again, thank everyone for all of their support for Team Driven, we are so happy to be able to entertain everyone in the off season ;-) and thank you SO MUCH FOR COMING! And again, thank you to AndyMark for coming by and showing off some of your cool toys/transmissions/wheels/gearboxes, I personally loved looking at them all, and seeing the improvements made since last year even!

On behalf of Team Driven: Thank you everyone, and we hope to see you next year at the 2nd annual Cow Town Throw Down!