It was wonderful to meet so many of you at the webhug. I now have so many more people I can wave to in my travels. I wish we had just one more day to meet and greet. A chance to talk with some of you that I only was able to say “hi” would be great. I met almost as many people in the hotel food court as those I saw on the pit floor. Hope everyone had a safe trip home.
Wow I met so many ppl in person finally…including…
Al Skierkiewicz
SteveW
Big Mike
BillFred
Woodie Flowers
Dean Kamen
John Abele
Dave Verbrugge
Blair WhatshislastnameIforgot AKA Voice of FIRST
Koko Ed
RoboMom
Heidi Foster
And of course the group of people I’ve met at other regionals as well…
GWRoss
ChrisH
Courtneyteam330
Mark Leon
Sorry if I forgot anyone…hope you all had fun!
Edit:
Oh also met Ryan Albright really quickly at lunch break, and Rev. Jesse Jackson on the last night at the hotel. He was there for the Trumpet Awards. I think he was a little shocked, if not disturbed, by the large masses of teenagers running around in brightly colored plumage.
Hmm…lets see, my list is fairly short cause I was always in the stands doing scouting stuff and running between the pits and the stands. I did get to meet Andy Baker, which was really cool. I also got to talk to some other people from 45 cause we were sitting in the stands next to them and they were all really cool. I also met Ryan from cyber blue, we had a scouting talk, trading scout forms and stuff, which was cool too. Also met Al Skierkiewicz for a moment when I stopped by Wildstang’s pit (electrical rocks->electrical never messes up, its the programming lol). If some of you met me and dont know it (lol) I was the guy from 364 with the black sombrero with all the buttons hanging around it.
Please try to spell his name correctly, it is Woodie not Woody.
Of this list, I finally got to meet…
Rich Kressly - Although his namebadge was wrong 
Koko Ed - Whom I managed to find at the webhug
Bill Gold - Whom we HAVE to get to IRI, because he was just too awesome and we didn’t get to hang out enough
Heidi Foster - Whom I hunted down on Thursday, and who was a total pleasure to meet (thank you for the ltd edition button!)
Gary Dillard - Whom I teased about the short shorts picture
Bharat Nain - Who freaked us out with his ‘I Am JVN’ backpack
Jeff & Tyler Wetzel - Although I had met Jeff before, they’re still cool
Dorienne Plait - Who was just as sweet as I had imagined her to be!
Kim O’Toole - Who shook her milkshake with me, and sang backups
Jenny Beatty - No relation, very nice and a great NEMO
Kathy Kentfield - Another outstanding NEMO
Jay Trzaskos - Whom I cheered for in the stands, and did a great job driving
and last, but certainly not least:
Greg Needel - My dance partner who helped me bust a move
What a great weekend. I’d say my meet & greet ‘report card’ was pretty good; Rich Wong and Travis Covington weren’t in attendance, I tried to meet the elusive Joe Ross like three times, and for the UFH’s I didn’t meet (Wayne Cokeley, Joe Ross, Ian Mackenzie) I did get to meet several other people who were great (like UFH’s Warren Boudreaux and Mark Breadner, the guys from 65, etc.). Thanks to all those who took me up on my ‘Meet Amanda In Atlanta’ offer, and I hope you enjoyed your sweet treat! I couldn’t even BEGIN to list everyone, as I went through about a bag and a half of candy (around 75)… so for everyone that came to say hi, it was great to meet you!
WEll i met alot of people on my list
Met Amanda and got a prize
Brandon Martus
Mike Martus
David Kelly
Dorienne (she caught me off guard)
Billfred( Already Knew)
Big Mike
Karthik
Steve W
Courtney from 111
Kyle from 45
Cory the ref
Road in the elevator with Al, dont know if he knew it or not
Met Ashley, the one with the post about safety glasses for her birthday (only way i knew who she was) AND I GAVE HER MOR SAFETY GLASSES SO I SHOULD BE AS SPECIAL TO!
Wanted to meet dj fluck and it turns out he passed me a few times and didnt put two and two together and why i was wearing a toronto maple leafs jersey. Its ok tho we are all a little slow…
TOTALLY FORGOT
I met koko ed and we talked about fanastyFIRST for awhile…o wow sorry
sorry if i forgot anyone
lol true. My name is on the back of my shirt, but Andy said ‘Coco the Monkey’ not just ‘Coco’.
Although I didnt meet many people this year, when I did it was a lot of fun. I’m going to have to make it a point to meet more people next year! 
Actually, I was not near Atlanta this weekend and I don’t recall any visitors up in these parts. You must be mistaken.
I didn’t meet as many people as I would’ve liked to :(, I was scouting too much of the time, but some people I met were RoboMom, KathieK, The Lucas and Barry Bonzack1604.
Heh… yes, it was cool talking to you at breakfast.
The Coco name on the back of your shirt helped, but I recognized your face by your “who-am-I” pic also.
The introduction went something like this:
me: are you Coco the Monkey?
Coco: yes
me: I am Andy the Baker.
Take care and stay in touch,
Andy
Ok, so I started making a list of everyone I met at Championships in Word and ended up realizing by the time I had continued on to a third page and still had tons more to add that I had met far too many people to list in this thread. I had a simply fantastic time. I was given the opportunity to talk and hang out with so many fantastic people and made some great friendships along the way. The fact that I had the chance to converse with so uncountable members, mentors, advisors, volunteers, judges, ambassadors, company heads, heads of FIRST, and so many others was truly amazing. Being able to meet some of you who I talk to practically everyday over AIM and phone for the first time and who I consider to be family was such a significant experience. It was great finally getting to be with my “Indian children” (love you all!) and having our “family” together for the first time with a few new additions as well. Of course, it was also awesome getting the chance to talk with my soon-to-be classmates at Carnegie Mellon from a number of teams. I loved being able to get together with all of my FIRST sisters and brothers, some of my closest friends. I miss you all terribly and truly hope that I will get to see you all again sometime, hopefully soon.
To all those I met (you know who you are), thank you all for making Championships such an awesome event for me, perhaps one of the best ever! Please make sure to keep in touch with me!
lol right, except I had no idea who you were. :yikes: :o
Yeah that was weird, I was going over to talk to some team mates and the three of you like appeared in front of me…(o_O)
358! not 365!
503 flew to and from ATL on the same plane as team Rush (27), i met the drivers from every team that 503 had a match with for those all important strategy sessions, and saw too many teams to even remember on the subway and in the airport. We caught up with 330 at some MARTA station after the party, and the next day while we were going through security at the airport. And i met andy baker while we were leaving centennial park. it was pretty cool to meet the guy behind the transmissions we used.
I spent a long portion of Thursday talking to 1577, the Lion of Judeah. It was very interesting, talking to the Isreali team and learned a lot. Some of them were a bit looney but all were still fun to talk to them.
This year I was sad to not be traveling to nats with a team, and then I realized I was traveling with many teams. A special thanks to MOE 365 for adopting me at the comp this year!
! ! !!! !!! GO MOE!
For reference, I was doing field re-set on Galileo Friday and Saturday, then was the crazy girl dancing on the Galileo side of Einstein during the finals/awards. Yeah the one who was on the big screen like 5 times :ahh: And no, I am not a cheerleader and will never be one, I’m just a geek like the rest of you. I definitely would have loved being in the pit working on a robot instead, but hey, getting people to be spirited was fun too.
I really wanted to meet all the people in the stands who got up and danced (too bad they didn’t come down and join me! but I guess it’s a bit scary dancing in front of thousands of people). I’m still trying to figure out how I did it… I had a triple mocha Saturday morning, then after that started to wear off I was running on pure adrenaline. I especially want to meet the people who were video taping me… :yikes: can I have a copy please?
The new people I met (because listing everyone I saw again that I knew would take too long) were:
- All the drivers of teams on Galileo, especially Titian robotics from WA (with their “killer” autonomous mode) and St. Joe’s from NJ
- My stepbrother’s teacher from BG in NH (he was wondering why I was cheering for their team lol although I was cheering for everyone)
- The refs and other volunteers on Galileo
- A bunch of random people I said “hhhheeeeeyyyyy” to, but I don’t think I caught their names
- A few guys from 1038 in Ohio
- And of course, the few people with the guts to come down and join me dancing! You guys rocked!
If I met you and/or you want to say hi, please feel free to IM me.
Congrats to everyone! And I’ll just leave it with “GALI—”
Yes, one of the best things at competitions is actually getting to know more of you folks face to face.
I was able to chit chat with just a few with the little free time I had:
Andy Baker and Mark Koors
Joe Johnson
Dave Lavery
Dave Verbrugge (at Embassy Suites)
Dean Kamen (at Embassy Suites)
Paul Copioli
John Neun
John V.Neun
It was great talking to them. I truly wish them the best in their future FIRST endevors.
It’s funny, but the people who came by our pit area looking for me impressed some of my teammates (most of our team does not post on CD) and made me seem much more important than I am… hee hee… And of course, everyone who was there highly enjoyed it when Big Mike sneaked up behind me and bear hugged me… But that’s okay… Big Mike is just the kind of guy that you don’t mind being an arm rest for. From the rest of my list I also met:
Amanda Morrison, and if the picture is any indication, her legs are as nice as Dave’s…
Billfred, who I forgot to swat, darn it!
Gary Dillard, who should also worry since I now have a picture of him…
Andy Baker, a person everyone should try to meet!
Koko Ed, got his picture too…
Brandon, and I forgot to thank him in person because he showed up with Amanda and Big Mike and I got distracted by all of the excitement!
JVN, DCA Fan, gwross, Barry, Kevin Watson, ChrisH and KarenH, Matt Leese, and I’m forgetting some names here, especially the names of the people I met at the party on Saturday.
Oh, and I met Woodie Flowers at the Vex semi-finals where I gave him one of the Dave buttons, and Dean Kamen was in the bar at the Embassy Suites after the party on Saturday night, and I wouldn’t really so much as say I met him as I just approached him and said “I know you’re busy, and probably don’t want to be mobbed, but I thought you may want one of these” and handed him a Dave button.
Heidi
Special thanks to Courtney, I managed to meet Kyle (from 45) and Arefin (from 108). Both guys were awsome and I’m hoping to see more CD people in the future.
Funny thing is that I was known as “the guy who made 'The Person Above Me ’ thread”
YEAH I WAS TOO BUSY DRIVING AND ALL TO MEET ALOT OF PEOPLE but i met alot of drivers and that was cool but i lost my fork pin so everyone could have recognized but noo, but its ok next year and i will get a picture of me in my profile soon so you guys probably saw or met me