To all the volunteers at the 2013 Robot Challenge:

Thank you for doing a fantastic job despite the unusual balance of teams that came Saturday and Sunday. Typically we have twice the number of teams on Saturday as Sunday, but this year it was the reverse - 14 teams on Saturday and 35 teams on Sunday.

For judges and other volunteers who came on Saturday, there were barely enough teams to keep them busy.

For judges and other volunteers who came on Sunday, we had a very very busy day. Judges did a magnificent job treating all the teams well and fairly, and I’ve heard glowing reports of how much the students enjoyed the activity. Thank you all so very much!

I would particularly like to thank Dave Boyd, who managed the Track events, Brian Sequeira, who ran the Oral Presentations. Jay Gamerman on Saturday and John Dentler on Sunday, who handled the complex Administrative tasks, and Scott Goedeke who was able to miraculously keep up with feeding data to the computer that kept the monitor display alive and lively. Bill Semancik ran the PIT, and was also the creator of the complex software that kept the score in Real Time, to the delight of students and their parents. Finally, I’d like to thank my daughter Rachel, who with good humor in her announcements kept the teams organized, and handed out the trophies (with Ariella) during the Awards Ceremony.

It was a great day! On behalf of the IEEE, thank you all so very much!

Neville Jacobs
Director, Student Activities
IEEE Baltimore Section