April 17-19th was the World Festival in Atlanta, Georgia for all the FIRST Programs.

Canadian excitement started on the Thursday morning during opening ceremonies when Mark Breadner, Vice Principal in the Toronto District School Board and the man behind FIRST Robotics in Canada, was awarded the prestigious Woodie Flowers Award.  The Woodie Flowers Award honours an outstanding engineer or teacher participating in the competition who best demonstrates teaching excellence in science, math and creative design.  This is a student-nominated award and the winner must have won a Woodie Flowers Regional Award to be considered for the International Award.  The International Award is decided by the former World Woodie Flowers Award Winners based on the essays written by students.  Mark is the 13th Woodie Flowers Award recipient.

GTR Regional, New World Records Set by Canadian Teams

Team 1114 GTR Champions: GTR Regional and GM Industrial Design Award WinnerAfter an impressive event at the 2008 Waterloo Regional, Canadian FRC teams converged at the Hershey center in the City of Mississauga for the 2008 Greater Toronto Regional. 66 teams from Ontario, Quebec, Alberta and the United States attended, making the 2008 Greater Toronto Regional the biggest First Robotics Regional in the FIRST community.

Waterloo Wrap-up, World Records and Seattle Success

Waterloo Champions: Teams 2056, 1114 and 1680A plethora of Canadian teams were in action at the first Canadian regional FRC competition of the season. The University of Waterloo played host to the 2008 FRC Waterloo Regional, and the level of competition was far more potent than predicted. The abundance of offense led to an FRC world scoring record during the qualification rounds. Teams 1114, 2200 and 1006 teamed up in match 53 to score 168, smashing the previous world record of 146. Not surprisingly, the offensive power at Waterloo was spearheaded by team 1114, however the small regional flourished from impressive offensive output from several teams including 2056, 68, 1565, 2200, 188, 1310, 1241, and 772. Hurdles were abundant, as the match scores can attest, and even with a shallow field of teams, Waterloo has proven year after year that this is an event where our elite come out to play, resulting in some of the best gameplay in all of FIRST.