Tim Hunt and Evan Steiner of Foundation Games with Paul Mellerowicz of Word-Sport.

My brother, Dave Mellerowicz (in front of game clock) leads in game play.

Thirteen year old Alex Lane (left) poses in front of his fast win time with Alex Toupin and David Bernier.

David and Karol Boyle of Mesomorph Games at the convention.

Playing "Battletech" at the Foundation Convention.

Our new Word-Sport van

Another view of our van

Foundation Fall Convention
September 2004

This is the second time Word-Sport was featured at the Foundation Convention, located in the Holiday Inn Express Conference Center, Okemos, Michigan. The free, three day event started Friday at 3:00pm and went through Sunday afternoon. Foundation co-chairmen Evan Steiner and Tim Hunt were very accommodating and gave us a nice pre-event write up on their website.

There were a few major changes with Word-Sport since the last convention in March. Word-Sport was accepted by the Patent and Trademark Office as a registered trademark. I also bought a new 2004 GMC work van. Its white color was perfect to put on the Word-Sport logo design making it a riding billboard. This makes the van a perfect conversation starter. When I fill up at a gas station, many people now ask me about Word-Sport. I give them a brief overview, then give my business card and refer them to this website. I also had new signage made to go on the Zero Truss display. PDQ Signs of Commerce Township, Michigan did a fine job with the van graphics and signs. Their phone number is 1-248-669-8600.

Convention Overview
Another improvement is with our tournament timers. In addition to our count-up timer clock, we now have a one minute count-down timer clock. This speeds up the conclusion of the game after the count-up timer clock (which registers the win time) is stopped by the winner. Both clocks bright LED read-outs give excellent visibility, especially from a distance.

The event went as I thought it would as Word-Sport was well received by those interested in word games. The most notable rounds of play had a few young players at the table. We played the first round to instruct on how the game was played. The recorded time was around nine minutes... hardly looking like a speed game. However, the second round had a win time of under four minutes. The third round was under three minutes. The players enthusiasm was on the rise as the win times were on the way down.

Alex Lane wins big
In a later round, thirteen year old Alex Lane registered a win time of 1:39:36 ! I couldn’t believe the time when I saw it, neither did the players at the table. Alex won with short, simple words using multiple grids and individual words. The play wasn’t impressive by adult standards, but it illustrated someone who understood well the concept of the game. His word play was excellent at his age level. He scored ten points for his first place finish and had the best win time for the day. Alex demonstrated potential and a real knack for forming words quickly. We’ll watch out for him in the future as an adult competitor.

In all, the convention went as I expected. Next year, in March 2005, Foundation will move to bigger quarters, at the Lansing Center in Downtown Lansing. We look forward to being there. On November 19-21, 2004, we’ll be at University of Michigan’s annual U-Con. We’ll be in the dealers room on the second floor of the Student Union (in the ballroom).

See more details of this gaming event at ucon-gaming.org. Hope to see you there!