Bill Blogged - Wait, did he say pool?

5/11/11 Bill Blogged - Wait, did he say pool?

Good Afternoon Teams,

The GDC met for the first 2012 onsite meeting last weekend and to quote Dean, "we made great progress". We spent most of the day Saturday in the 4th floor Einstein conference room throwing around ideas for the 2012 game. Sunday we gathered on the FRC field set up on the 1st floor to throw around game elements (figuratively speaking) and some more ideas. The Engineering Department keeps a collection of items on hand for the GDC and we had some fun testing the behaviors of certain items under certain interesting conditions. (Sorry, I can’t be more specific than that.)

To meet our goal of finalizing the 2012 game early this year, we had to winnow the pool of game ideas down to just a few finalists last weekend and it looks like we have some real winners. We’re playing around with everything from field configuration to length of play (watch for a few questions in the FRC end of season survey coming soon). We plan to reconvene this weekend to further refine the finalists. I’ll let you know what transpires.

My thanks to the 300 teams who have completed the 2011 Championship survey. There is just one more day left before the survey closes then I’ll be reviewing the results, so if your team attended CMP, please make sure your main or alternate contact completes the survey before tomorrow.

There are just 6 days left to complete the Kit of Parts Survey. So far 720 teams have started the survey, which sounds like a lot, however, last year we heard from a total of 811 teams (and we had fewer total teams). Please make sure your team participates. We want to hear from you. Interesting note: although we invited both mentors and students to participate, ¾ of the respondents so far are mentors.

There are just 8 days left to purchase additional trophies, medallions and pins  if your team wants extras.

June 30th is the deadline to purchase additional game pieces  if your team is planning an off season event.  We have limited quantities left, so orders will be filled on a first come first served basis. I believe AndyMark  also has game pieces available. 

For those of you who are asking, no, we don’t have the dates for next year’s individual regional events yet. We do know we’re having a six week season starting with week one March 1-3, 2012 if that helps, but the Regional Planning Committees are only just starting to work on contracts with venues for the 2012 season. I’ll be sure to let you know when we have an official calendar.

Don’t forget, Dean has a fundraiser to help your team.

241 days until the 2012 kickoff
See you then!