WMRI Set Up

This afternoon I volunteered to help set up the official FIRST Overdrive competition field at Grandville High School for this weekends West Michigan Regional Invitational. Grandville has a beautiful school and they have ample room for the competition and pits. It will be a grand time!

When I left, the field was almost completely assembled. They still needed to inflate the track-balls (this years game pieces), but most everything else was complete. I helped assemble various parts of the field; it is utterly amazing the things that can be done with Velcro!

This event is going to be a bit more tame than the West Michigan Regional, however I'm very excited; this is going to be a lot of fun. The West Michigan Regional is an official FIRST event that is held in March (during the regular FIRST season). That event completely fills the field house at Grand Valley State University and has an incredible amount of energy.

Anyhow, this will be the last time we'll do "Overdrive" and that makes me a little sad. I have many fond memories of this year that I will never forget. Watching my daughter as she was a part of our "drive team"; she ran the robotic arm/claw mechanism. My younger son played an integral part of our 3D animation team. It was a great year for me and my family. We're looking forward to 2009, and it starts in just 70 days!