Thu
Mar 8 Sunny
83°/58°
Fri
Mar 9 Mostly Sunny
84°/59°
Sat
Mar 10 Mostly Sunny
87°/58°
Teams don’t forget to attend the Team Social at the Arizona Science Center Friday Evening.
Also there is a good chance that the Arizona Regional will be webcast thanks to NASA
Looking forward to hosting a great competition.
That sounds so much better than lows below zero in West Michigan! Although I’ll be there without my team, I’m looking forward to cheering on 1164 and all the other teams. It will be good to see some of my family and explore Arizona also.
Hey Don,
You forgot to tell our out of state visitors to pack a sweater. It might get chilly at night (like mid 50’s.) Team #39 is looking forward to seeing everyone. If there is anything we can do to help you or your team, please stop by our pit.
To those of you who have not heard Don’s announcing, he is one of the best in FIRST! Ian Lao, the head referee, is outstanding. Everyone involved with the Arizona Regional are top notch, which is why the Arizona Regional is one of the top FIRST Regionals. Three days and holding our breaths.
Ken
I look forward to Arizona being awesome, as always. I don’t think we’ll have Mark at MC again this year (I’m guessing he’ll be at LA), but we always seem to get a good MC regardless.
And we’ve got Don Knight at announcer. That in itself makes the regional good.
A reminder to all teams attending; team 498 will be making DVDs again this year of all matches at the regional, as well as most (or all) of the opening/closing ceremonies and the awards presentations. We have been giving these out to teams for the past 2 years now, and I hope we can get it to even more of the teams attending this year (I think we managed to get them to about 2/3 of all teams attending last year, I want to beat that this time!). We’ll likely be having a list go around with our team for people to sign up for them at the Regional.
“Also there is a good chance that the Arizona Regional will be webcast thanks to NASA”
Don,
Is this a dream or a possibility? I think we deserve our place in the sun (sorry for the pun.)
Ken
Ken,
This is a “very” definite possibility. Jeff Seaton from NASA and our Emcee this year is bringing the computer needed to webcast. If the venue has the needed lines to get it out and the AV guys are cooperative the Arizona Regional will be webcast.
Still working out all the little details.
Thanks for asking!
hey Don, if Mark isnt the MC do you know who is
Yeah, Our Emcee this year is Jeff Seaton, he’s awesome. He did the VCU regional last week, he’s doing ours and I think one other regional, and of course he’ll be at the Championships again this year.
I had the pleasure of being a play-by-play announcer for him the last couple of years at the Championships as we all rotated fields, Arizona is in for another treat.
Jeff is OUTSTANDING! I am pretty sure he has been the “gala…layo” guy for years at the championships. There are none better!
Ken
Sounds like AZ will be great again this year! Alot of surprises robot wise, I’ve seen virtually no pictures from Arizona teams of their robots, so I really don’t know what to expect when I get there Thursday.
I think the venue must have the cables to get the feed out, NASA webcasted the regional last year (the feed got messed up on Saturday from the weather, but it still happened).
The AZ teams who are on CD: do any of you have (or plan to have) autonomous modes for the Regional? It seems like every year auto is really boring at the regional with relatively few teams ever attempting it.
1726 has parts of autonomous working…but not the whole thing…hopefully Kevin will get it sorted out by Saturday!
by the time it went in the crate, it could drive forward and stop, all by itself.
Team #39 was very close to having the camera programed for the middle spider legs when we shipped the robot. We hope to finish the process at the Arizona Regional. It should be working by Las Vegas.
Ken
NASA only lists Regionals they know are being webcasted. New Jersey wasn’t up there until they got the stream working on Thursday, for example.
I hope you guys can get autonomous working! If you need help (especially with the camera), stop by our pit and ask for me (Andrew). So far we’ve gotten autonomous turning to and driving a distance from the light, and we’ve got our arm moving automatically with pots. We would like to use the encoder and gyro for additional turns/drives, but if not we can at least get the arms facing our side of the field.
Regional is tommorow, I can’t think about anything else.
Can’t wait to see it!
I can get out of my thursday and friday classes this week, so I will be attending the whole regional (yes!). It looks to be awesome, I can’t wait!
I was in Catalina Island with the Marine Science Students getting them SCUBA Certified. I think that almost always occurs at the same time
We will be in San Diego, our first time
Double check now, Arizona Regional Webcast is now listed on the NASA webcast page.
Special thanks goes out to Jeff Seaton and the entire NASA team that made this possible.
By the way the high temperature today was 89. :eek: Glad they got the air conditioning working at the venue. 
So teams remember next year if you looking for a great place to that get your team out of the cold put “Arizona” on your regional selection list! 
Nice to meet you today, Donut!
I took pics of almost all the robots today…enjoy…(yeah, I need to get some better pics tomorrow)
It’s so nice to meet people from ChiefDelphi in person, not something I’m used to.
Hope today turns out well, there were alot of teams missing practice matches yesterday but I think everything should be good for today!