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.

[rbgorbet]

I've added a thread for planning committee feedback on WR2009, including a poll on whether we should consider moving to week 3 (if possible...I think it interferes with basketball season). Please contribute.

Rob.

[TammyB]

On behalf of the students, mentors, & teachers of Team 2702 (Eastwood Collegiate Institute), I would like to thank all 25 teams for a great FIRST (literally) robotics regional competition. We were inspired by many teams at this event -- from the actual robots to the excitement & enthusiasm that everyone showed.

Karthik & Paul made this regional 100 times more exciting than what I expected it to be. The 9 to 10 hours passed by so quickly thanks to you two.

Lastly, we are sorry that we could not come around to every team on Saturday after the awards to talk to & thank each team, but we hope to see many of you again next year or in Atlanta.

[Founder]

I just want to make an apology here. On my behalf as well as my teams I'm sorry for the response i gave during the alliance selections on Saturday. When 1558 requested our assistance for the finals, the response i gave was not in the manor in which FIRST strives to promote. My team only had 6 members there all weekend so our scouting database was on the weaker side, so i was still reviewing our sheets during the first part of the alliance selection process. When we were asked by 1558 i had many things on my mind including my next steps, the adrenaline of the competition, the nervousness of me and my team never being in this position before etc. The way the decline was announced was a bad reflection of my team as well as me. Gracious professionalism is something FIRST lives and breathes and although it may have seem myself or my team would not have shown gracious professionalism at that specific point, we always strive to show acts of GP in all areas. So I apologize to especially team 1558, but to everyone who was there and or heard it.

Riley Found

[d.courtney]

Wow, what a weekend.

2609, 2056, and 2185: Congrats on the win, you had a truly dominating alliance and it was a treat playing against you in the finals. Best of luck in Atlanta. Also to 2056, good work on your 5th straight regional win, your team is an inspiration to me.
2200: Your team has reiterated for me the concept that there is beauty in simplicity. Early Thursday your robot was a mystery to me, but by the end of that same day you were already a favourite. In my opinion you had the second best robot there this weekend. It was a shock to us that you had not been picked by any other team. Thank you for your many contributions in the eliminations, without your team we would have been hard pressed to get past the quarter finals. See you at GTR.
1334: Congratulations on Engineering Inspiration, your team deserves that award! Also thank you for being a fantastic alliance partner, you brought your everything to the eliminations and our alliance being finalists is due in part to your efforts on the field. See you at GTR and best of luck at Atlanta!
Karthik and Paul: You guys are a ridiculous duo (and I mean that in the most positive sense). You brought a level of excitement you would expect from a regional twice the size to this event, thank you.
Volunteers, Referees, and FTA: This regional was run seamlessly and without your combined effort it wouldn’t have been near the event it was. Thank you for all your hard work.
Tristan: Congratulations on WFFA. Almost every FIRST event I attend you are there supporting in a big way, you are one of the significant reasons FIRST is so successful in Canada and to be recognized for that is great!

[Kate00]

Unfortunately I was unable to make this event for the first time in several years, but I would like to add another voice to those congratulating Tristan Lall on his WFFA.

I had the enormous privilege of working alongside Tristan at several events, and he never ceases to be an incredible fountain of knowledge, as well as a genuinely kind person.

His precise attention to detail and incredibly thorough knowledge of the rules has not only helped his team, 2505, but all teams in Canada, anyone who reads CD, and, dare I say it, the GDC - his carefully worded Q&A questions and thinking outside the box have been instrumental in clarifying many vague sections of the rules in the past. The help he always offers to teams is always incredibly detailed and accurate, and in my opinion he is one of the most inspirational people in this program.

[cpeister]

What a great regional event!

Congratulations again to 2056, 2609, and 2185 for the win.

Also, a big thank you to teams 2200 and 1334 for being amazing alliance partners. As David said, without your assistance, we likely wouldn't have gotten past the quarter finals. Although we didn't make the win, it was a very exciting tournament, and we hope to see you in GTR.

Congrats to Tristan for the Woodie Flowers Award, you definately deserved it.

We hope to see everybody back in GTR on thursday and best of luck to you all.

[J Flex 188]

First off, on behalf of Team 2505, I would like to express our sincere thanks to everyone who made the 2009 Waterloo Regional possible, from the Regional Committee to the enthusiastic volunteers, you made the event one of the most well-run and accessible that I have had the privilege of attending thus far this season.
As always, Waterloo was a small but well attended event and when those bleachers get full on Saturday it gets as raucous and inspiring to see as any other big time regional.

Team 2505 has an incredible list of individuals and teams to thank, if I left out anyone, please do not feel slighted, it is only because so many different people helped us in only our second regional of existence. Congratulations must go out first to Tristan Lall, our Head Engineering Mentor for the past two seasons and someone I have personally known since his and my own days as a high school student on Team 188. He has always been one of the most patient and responsible individuals I know in terms of explaining difficult concepts to non-engineering and non-scientific people like myself.
Congratulations to Teams 2609, 2056 and 2185 for a clearly well-deserved regional win. Ty, my heart is still beating after we had that last supercell thrown in during the tail end of our third Qualification, but thank goodness it ended up helping both of our RP’s.

Congratulations and many grateful thanks go out to the gracious and extremely professional finalist alliance of Teams 781, 2200 1334. The tenacious defence and no holds barred delivery of your strategy, even when the entire arena knew it was coming was nothing short of spectacular. Additionally, the time out that you called in our semi finalist match up was one of the most gracious things that I have ever witnessed or been a part of at a FIRST event. We cannot thank you enough.

To our extended support and 2505 family, we owe you a huge debt. Getting our robot working from no movement on Thursday to the level that it was on Friday was no small task and we couldn’t have done it without the help of the Willicks, Brandon, Beckett, Team 2702, 2200 again and 188 alum that were present. All of you know who you are and I hope you know the impact that you made on our team by helping us out.
Karthik, Paul, JNo and everyone else who kept the regional going and entertaining, its always a great job.

Finally, to Teams 2166 and 3040, thank you for being great alliance partners. You were professional and a pleasure to work with the whole way. We executed well and I feel if we hadn’t had our reliability issues on the Saturday afternoon, we could have given a run for the money for the eventual winners. Hopefully we can improve on it next week, but our thanks for your contributions.

Waterloo is always a blast to go to and I hope we can be back next year. Forgive my lack of brevity, but this was truly a great event to be a part of!

[Tristan Lall]

Thanks to all of you for making the Waterloo Regional a great event as always, and for your generous comments regarding the WFFA. I couldn't have earned it without the support of you, my friends, colleagues and teammates.

[kristen32]

On behalf of team 2185, I'd like to say thank you to a few people.

A huge thank you goes out to our alliance partners, 2056 & 2609. If you had asked us on Thursday or Friday that our team would go on to win the regional, we would have never believed you. Your positive attitude and gracious professionalism was amazing, and really helps make FIRST Robotics a success. Good luck at Atlanta, and we'll see you there!

To our favourite volunteer at the regional, James!(sorry, I don't know your last name!) James was our inspector for this year, and it turned out that he was actually our inspector at the GTR last year. Like every team, we've had our problems throughout the competition, and James was always there to lend a helpful hand. He's an amazing guy, and we'd just like to say thanks!

Thank you to all the organizers of the Waterloo regional. In previous years, we've only been able to attend the Toronto Regional, and it was a nice change to be at such a small regional, with such amazing people! Karthik & Paul, you truly make the weekend, popcorn jokes included!

[Pat Fairbank]

I just uploaded a couple hundred photos here. Some of them are even pretty decent, since they were taken up close from the scoring table.

[UberChar]

i just have to ask this question was there really a kid that passed out cause that's what my teacher said one of the teams near our pit area?