On behalf of team 987 we want to first thank 39 for picking us and 597 , we were a great alliance and the finals were amazing!
thanks again !
To Natalia and all of Team #897,
I was sooo easy to select team #987. There were so many great teams at LV. Teams like 1492, 60, 842, and the list would go on and on. Team #39 has a history with 987. Whenever we get to team up with the “high rollers,” you just know that the “fun will begin!” If one of our wheels had not broken in the semi finals, we may have beaten them. “We’ll get em next year!”
Thank you for the great effort!
Ken
“Congrats to 1425, 254 and 1983 on win! well played, good job to all involved.”
Good job is not good enough…GREAT JOB!
Team 1425, I saw you play in Portland. We had four weeks to get ready for you. You have a truly awesome robot!
Team 254, I have been having nightmares about you since the EPCOT days! I have also had some great dreams such as two years ago with team 64 at Nationals. You folks are a CLASS ACT!
Team 1893, thank you most of all. You taught me something I had not thought of all season. Carring a stopper with you on defense was brillant!
To the winners I say “Mission Accomplished!” You were outstanding! I only hope we put a little fear into your hearts during the finals.
Ken
I agree, please do not discourage.
I have a medium-sized list of gripes with the regional, starting with the radios and the referees, but overall it was a young regional that felt like a mature one.
The pit admin staff as quick, well-informed, and courteous, as was the shipping staff. The team announcer was fantastic, great energy level. The queuing flowed well. The practice field was well organized and spacious (supporting 3 teams at once vice the 2 that we were used to). The IFI parts guy was top-notch, bending over backwards for teams repeatedly. They had a team-sponsored color laser printer for teams to use (man I wish /we/ has Xerox as a sponsor 
). There was free and open wireless internet access in the whole place. There were no restrictions on bringing in your own food and drinks (many of our mentors live on Starbucks). They provided brochures for local attractions on the strip (since it’s Vegas, after all). There were displays and information packets for the local engineering college.
I could go on, but my point is to look at the whole picture, and remember that there were bad things /and/ good things about this regional, and every regional. Yes, by all means document the problems and let the event organizers know, but don’t bash the whole thing because of a few issues, especially when those issues can easily be addressed in a year’s time.
D[/quote]
Team 1425 has robot POV video from all our matches in Las Vegas except the last 2 (the finals 
). We also have many of the matches we were in in Portland and San Diego. I would like to post them, but the files the camera makes are very large (100-150 MB each).
The actuall match footage is smaller, since the camera tends to be turned on well before the actual match start (esp. when we were the first match after lunch on Friday - ouch > 200MB), so editing out the waiting to start stuff would be a big help.
I am looking for suggestions for tools to edit and convert them down to more manageable sizes. I see that the regional webcasts seem to max out at about 25MB per match.
What I have are .AVI files, recorded at 640x480 resolution at 15 FPS (and audio).
The camera we used is an Oregon Scientific ACT1000, which records onto a 1GB SD card. We removed the battery tray and replaced it with a custom connector that provides 5v from the robot’s main power.
The camera does not provide any feedback to the robot, nor does it emit any signals (visible or otherwise) that could interfere with the operation of other robots.
Thanks,
Eric Anderson
Good afternoon!!!
Well I just have to add my wishes to everyone elses.
Team 1983 grew a lot at this regional… The students got to see some terrific teams… 39, 233, 597,60 1517, 1492, 8, 987… sheesh I could name probably EVERYONE… sorry if I forgot you…
I had told my students to expect to see some big action and we certainly saw it…from some fantastic teams both on the field and in the pits…
We made lots of new friend from all over the country!!!
We got to help another team (2069) and we couldn’t have been prouder of them making the elimination rounds as a substitute and actually getting to help them fix their robot ON the field… that was great fun and we will never forget it!!
Mark was absolutely the BEST announcer and we had great fun with the safety inspectors and judges and referees…
It just doesn’t get any more fun than that…
I have been around FIRST for a long time…I was originally in the Midwest… and worked with a few teams there… so I have seen a lot…
Everyone needs to learn to take things in stride and concentrate on all of the really cool things we get to do… sure we hit some bumps… sure some people may not treat us exactly as we would want to be treated… but in the end this is FIRST!!! and its all good… the good completely outweighs the bad… We all worked hard and had a great time with each other… and everyone there was touched by someone else or something that happened…
Thank you Las Vegas!!! You were terrific… and we would not only come back but we would love to bring some more Washington teams with us…so they can bask in that warm and DRY weather…
And thank you team 1425 (a fellow Pac Northwestern team) and 254 (what can I say about the Poofs… unbelievable machine… great drivers… great coach…) thank you for believing in a new rookie team… We had great fun defending for you… and sharing the championship with you…
thank you…
Thank you too, team 2069 and everyone else for helping us see what FIRST was all about… we love joining this team…
Now we are taking a big breath and trying to get to Nationals…
Hopefully we will see many of you there… and rekindle these friendships…
stay in touch…
thank you all for a great regional…
We love you guys
I think most people us Windows Movie Maker, which comes with Windows XP.