Minnesota regional!

[BJT]

I would imagine a few 30 degree mornings doesn't bother someone who knows he's going home to Florida in a couple days.

[Ekaru]

Our team had a great start, first match of the day and...

Robot: *sits still*
Other robots: *moves about*
Me (in the stands): ...Why isn't our robot moving?
Mom (in a different spot): MOVE! MOVE! MOVE! (quietly)

Thankfully, our alliance still won (regardless of how the opposing team got lots of points on our bot). Our robot apparently ran the night before, and we fixed the issue easily.

Aside from that, we lost some, won some, had a tie, will hopefully do better tomorrow (*coughweneedtowinsomecough*).

I got to see pretty much every 10,000 Lakes design. There was a wide variety. I remember how some people at the beginning of the build season said they would all be the same, and I got to see with my own eyes how wrong they were. The annoying thing is how great lots of the bots are. >_>; Even the rookie teams mostly have good bots. I've only seen one box, and most of the robots have a pick-up mechanism and a way to shoot those, but they had lots of different ways of doing it. 'Course, our simple robot was 'EH!' in comparison, but we still cheered our heart out and had an embarra- I mean, cool dance.

Before I forgot, congrats to the teams who won awards so far, but I think the best hand-out were the bows from the Robettes (sp?). I still have mine on. ;P Sure, there were apples and balls, but nothing beats a bow! (This team also won the Judge's award; I blame the bows)

I hope tomorrow is just as good. I wonder why our only Freshman isn't here? (Yes, we only have one Freshman... kind of sad). I think I'll cross the street and meet the people who aren't used to this weather! Oh, and the current weather is short weather for us. Yes, we are mentally insane that way.

That said, it was fun, especially the lunch lines. Roughly 100 teams trying to get lunch at about the same time? Win!

[Kevin Kolodziej]

Can anyone explain why 10,000 Lakes, with 51 teams, has 77 qual matches and started today's competition at 8:30 whereas North Star, which also has 51 teams, has only 60 matches , which is far fewer than other regionals with a similar size (WI and IL both had 53 teams and ran 71 matches, even VCU with 60 teams ran 70 matches)?

[robotlover]

I was trying to watch the webcast for this regional, but it kept stopping and freezing up on both webcasts provided by the teams... was anyone else having this problem or is it just me?

[Vikesrock]

So we managed to finish about an hour ahead of schedule over at Northstar today so I just wanted go give a huge shout out to all our amazing volunteers!

Our robot had some issues that caused it to stop moving in two matches and based on the Driver's Station, dashboard and signal light I knew our robot was at fault. The volunteers still came over, and told us exactly what they were seeing on the control software to make sure that it wasn't a field problem. They were all doing an amazing job.

He believe we have located the issues and had no problem even after a collision in our last match (the trigger to failure in the previous matches).

I also wanted to congratulate Mark Lawrence on winning the Woodie Flowers award. I hope having Woodie there to present it to you himself was as awesome as it seemed.

EDIT: Kevin, I was actually just wondering the same thing myself

[laurenlacy]

I just want to give a quick congratulations to Mark Lawrence, the 2009 MN North Star WFA winner. For those of you who haven't yet had the chance to meet Mark, all I can say is try to! To be able to watch his face as he realized it was him who won and then to have the chance to see Woodie Flowers himself present the award was an honor in itself.

I've known Mark since our rookie year, when he was the only mentor we really had and we were building out of our team captain's kitchen. He has always believed in us and has always made me want to be the kind of person who would make him proud. When we won the Wisconsin regional with 111 and 1625 our rookie year, he was right there filling out the paperwork for us to go to Atlanta, never doubting for a second that we'd be able to find the funds.

As he saw what this program did, he got us really involved in trying to spread FIRST in Minnesota. Last year I saw a few questions about the sudden explosion of FIRST in Minnesota... and I can tell you that Mark Lawrence is a major factor in all of that. His passion and drive and sheer energy have really inspired so many other teams, and I know he has always been a rock for 1816.

Not only has he done all of this for Minnesota, he is always willing to make time for the students on the team. Our senior year of high school my friend and I did a final project using a hydrogen fuel cell to power a VEX bot, and Mark offered to be our project liason with the school. As I've gone on to college and have come back to the team as an alum he has always been excited to hear about what we're doing with our lives, never being too busy to have a quick chat.

He has shared his house with us, his life with us (thanks also to his wife for sharing him! ), and I truly don't think the award could have gone to a better candidate. If you happen to be at the regional tomorrow and you see Mark, give him a pat on the back and thank him. He is an inspiration and a model for all of us to follow.

[Vikesrock]

Originally Posted by robotlover

I was trying to watch the webcast for this regional, but it kept stopping and freezing up on both webcasts provided by the teams... was anyone else having this problem or is it just me?

I would be very interested to know if other people have been experiencing this problem. Other than some internet issues during the middle of the day (that weren't in our control, yay viruses!) we think we were up and running fine for most of the day. If this isn't the case we would like to know so we can try and fix it tomorrow.

[RMiller]

Originally Posted by Kevin Kolodziej

Can anyone explain why 10,000 Lakes, with 51 teams, has 77 qual matches and started today's competition at 8:30 whereas North Star, which also has 51 teams, has only 60 matches , which is far fewer than other regionals with a similar size (WI and IL both had 53 teams and ran 71 matches, even VCU with 60 teams ran 70 matches)?

My understanding is that North Star is only running 7 matches per team and 10K Lakes is running 9 matches per team. Why the difference? I do not know.

This results in 8 min/match scheduled at North Star and 6 min/match at 10K Lakes. Because of this, North Star ran ahead by a lot and 10K Lakes trailed. It worked out well for awards though from my understanding.

[RMiller]

I think this deserves another post than the one above.
I just want to echo Lauren's statements about Mark though from a different perspective. He is a great assist to Minnesota and FIRST. I could say a lot of things about Mark and my experiences with him. However, I think what might be the best thing I can say is that he is the type of mentor I hope one day to be. I wish I would have had more time to mentor with him over my last two years of college, because I know there is a whole lot more that I could have learned.

[Rachel2177]

Originally Posted by Vikesrock

I would be very interested to know if other people have been experiencing this problem. Other than some internet issues during the middle of the day (that weren't in our control, yay viruses!) we think we were up and running fine for most of the day. If this isn't the case we would like to know so we can try and fix it tomorrow.

I was having this problem as well. I was supposed to come home for the competition but a blizzard is keeping me here is Rapid City :'( . Either way, the web cast kept cutting in and out and sometimes it wouldn't even open. I was trying to watch the award ceremony to see if my old mentor Kurt won the Woodie Flowers Award (which he did!!!!) and the award ceremony finally came in on the web cast when the Robettes were going up for the Judges award so nice timing for me! I hope everything is running smoothly tomorrow because I plan on watching it the whole day.

[Chris is me]

One of my friends said it's been freezing up all day too. It's a pretty common problem.

So far the 10,000 Lakes regional is a blast. There are so many fun and cool teams to work with and we're getting a ton of games in, I love it. There are a fair number of strong alliances here from the strangest teams; Highest Rookie Seed at this event could be #1 (sup Wave).

Congratulations to the Robette's mentor on the Woodie Flower's Award!

Good luck to all teams today as we finish up the regional!

(I have a bit of a theory about the number of matches at each regional; I think that was done so that people could talk at one regional, walk across the street, and do the other?)

[AndyB]

The 10,000 lakes regional was able to have more matches due to Mark Koors. Both regionals have a lot of young volunteers (in terms of experience).

[robotlover]

I was able to watch it today with no problems! thanks for webcasting it! and congrats to all those who made it!

[BeckyHand]

Congratulations to our sister school, Team 1986- Team Titanium- for winning the Chairman's Award!!
We are so excited for you!

And great job to all the teams at the Minnesota Regional. We watched the webcast, and everything seemed to move so smoothly.

See yall in Atlanta!

[LLM]

Congratulations to Team Titanium! Looks like the Greater Kansas City area will be well represented "at Chairman's" in Atlanta. We look forward to seeing everyone there!