2009 Waterloo Regional

[rbgorbet]

As always, Waterloo was a blast. For the third straight year all of you at the event made this American feel welcome. I blew off two Michigan district events to come to Waterloo, because it is that special to me. ... All of the folks responsible for Waterloo: it is a great event and I hope to be invited back next year.

Paul et. al,

Waterloo has many highlights for me, but the announcing and the fact that you take the time to travel to our small event are certainly one of them. We are glad that we are special to you. You have an open invitation for as long as I'm involved, at least!

2056/2609/2185: congrats to the winning alliance! I consider 2609 as one of our local teams, so it's great to see them continuing to build great 'bots and succeed with them. 2056, what can I say? I look forward to record-making this weekend in Toronto! Is it true that the only other team in history to win their first five regionals is 254? Wow. 2185, well done! Jigar told me to watch you, and he was right!

2702: a special congratulations to our newest local rookie. Team to watch: excellent mentor group and dedicated students. Congratulations on winning Innovation and RAS, and see you in Atlanta! Very proud.

1305, 1334, 781, ... the list goes on. Some of my favourite teams were there winning awards and I love that.

I should thank Maud, my wife and volunteer coordinator. I know she doesn't read CD and probably won't know I did this (and would be embarrassed if she did), but she deserves my thanks, so "thanks!"

Giving VOY to the Willicks was a no-brainer. They drive several hours every weekend of the season to mentor and participate in FRC and FLL, and we know that we can always count on them at our event and in Toronto to be there to fill key volunteer positions. We couldn't do it without them.

And again a very sincere thank you to the teams who came despite the holiday. When open registration started we had only 9 teams and we were getting real worried. The FIRST community came out, though, and the regional kept its reputation for being intimate and fun. Thank you.

Finally, on a more sober note. Some of you may know that a student from 1605 fell and hit his head in the pits during elimination rounds, sending him to the hospital on a stretcher. They were the first backup bot and instead of packing it in, he was hard at work fixing a bug in their software. I don't know the full story, but it seems he solved the problem, stood up too quickly, and fell over backwards, hitting his head a couple of times before hitting the ground. Latest news says he is going to be okay, though he'll be in hospital for several days for observation. My thoughts are with his family, and the students and mentors of team 1605.

Thank you everyone again for a great regional! I will see many of you at Toronto this weekend, and some of you in Atlanta where I hope to see at least 2056 on Einstein...

Rob.