2006 Canada's Wonderland Thanks and Congrats

I’d like to thank everyone who came together to make the 2006 Canada’s Wonderland Invitational event a success. I apologize in advance if I miss anyone.

Tristan Lall and Honson Lam. Anyone who worked an event this year knows how painful the scoring system can be. Honson and Tristan ran the system for the whole day without a single field failure. Kudos.

Our visiting American Volunteers, Koko Ed, Greg Needel, Frank Bosak and Travis Hoffman. These tour made long drives to come up and support out event. I can’t thank them enough for making that sacrifice for our event.

Steve Warren and Bill Leeder. These two made sure field setup and tear down were quick and painless. Most of the other volunteers had never done this before, but Steve and Bill made sure the crew functioned like seasoned veterans. During the event, Bill kept the field running on schedule, and Steve provided his trademark announcing that everyone loves.

Kate Mosley and Michelle Moore. The honorary Simbot girls who scrambled to find tape, and were always looking to help. You two are amazing.

Lindsay Davies, The current Team 1114 student president who made sure every detail of this competition was attended to, and went out of her way to make sure the event was up to her high standards.

Geoff Allan and Amanda Cortese. Geoff was pulling double duty judging and training as an announcer. His work in the skills competition was top-notch, but what else do you expect from a member of chill-town. Amanda continued her great emceeing which began at GTR, much to the delight of the crowd.

The Pruniak Family, the Davies Family, Ian Mackenzie, Don Mason, Derek Bessette, Esther Kind, Kate McNamara, Mike Diramio, Tyler Holtzman and Ben (I should really learn his last name). This crew of volunteers was just awesome. There’s a reason this event went off without a hitch, and it’s these people. Also the sanity checks from Kate were much appreciated. Oh yeah, Ben, welcome to the family.

Todd Willick. Not much to say here, other than thanks for indirectly providing some of the most entertaining moments of the weekend. I’m sure Roberto would thank you as well.

FIRST Robotics Canada, specifically Mark Breadner, Vance Scott and Karen Rosenthal, who gave Team 1114 the opportunity to take on the challenge of running this event, and provided support where ever and whenever it was needed.

Most of all Greg Phillips. For those of you who don’t know Greg, he’s the glue that holds Team 1114 together. This weekend he was the glue that held this event together. Greg’s favourite saying is “What Mr. P. wants is what Mr. P. gets” well this weekend Greg wanted a top notch off-season event, and he made sure he got it.

The event was a fabulous success, I hope all the teams who attended enjoyed it and will be back again next year. I know I had a simply awesome day. Especially because of the bird calls. :stuck_out_tongue:

Cheers,

I would like to thank the teams that participated. You are the ones that make it all worth while. I believe that a big thanks should go to Karthik. He was the one leading the charge. He was the one that we sent special volunteers to for direction and he was a good sport about it. :smiley:

Thank you to anyone involved in the Wonderland Off-Season. It was an amazing day and I know for a fact that everyone on 1547 that went had an amazing time. It was so much fun and I HAVE to go back again next year!!!

First of all, I’d like to thank Karthik for the amazing job he did, not only as the emcee for some of the time, but also for running the event, and even steppingin as drive coach for our team a few times. All those rumours you hear about Karthik being an incredible drive coach, they’re all true. If anyone ever has a chance to have him coach you, jump for it. Thanks for everything.

Thanks to all the people from 1114, especially Mr. Phillips, Geoff Allan (for the long discussion of team strategy), Lindsay Davies (for the t-shirt, generally keeping us upbeat, and letting me steal your job sometimes), Jeff Beckett (I really do hate robots), Stu (piece of advice: you know why :wink: ), Ben (You really should move to Oakville), Roberto (I hear you’re joining 1114), Derek (for not letting me beat you), and everyone else I missed. Thanks for an amazing event. We love you guys, thank you.

I’d like to thank Amanda and Steve, for their job emceeing and announcing, as well as all the volunteers who made the event run so well.

Apologies to teams 820 and 1564. Wonderland seems to be a curse on our chains, so sorry we had to bow out like that. We blew three chains in our first match of the elimination rounds. No idea how that happened.

Thanks to 1503 for being so good-natured about playing us so much.

Congratulations to 610, 1503 and 1547, as well as 1114, 1680 and 2000. Seeing 1114 on fire was one of the scariest things ever, and it would have been amazing to watch the finals with fully functional robots.

Finally, thanks to my team. Michelle, I don’t know what to say. You’re awesome, you keep me sane, and you’re an amazing drive coach. I wouldnt be able to drive like I do without you. Without you, I just stole it. Kate Mathers, we would have fallen apart in the first match without your chain expertise. Thanks to Kay, our do-it-all girl, who did everything while Michelle and I were away at matches, Alicia, our safety girl, and everyone else for coming out to support us. Joanne, Mr. Pollock, Mr Nashed, Mrs. Byers and all our other mentors. You’re all amazing.

Congratulations to everyone who participated, and hope to see you next year!

Congratulations to everyone who participated and made this event happen. Until recently, I have never really appreciated how much work actually goes into making off season events happen. It is a tremendous amount of work to get this up and running and to continue to put on an event like this (like 1114 has) is inspirational to all of us. Once again, thank you and congratulations for putting on such a great show. All hail to our neighbors up north! :wink: