New Central Illinois Regional Looking Good! [Archive]

Hallry

30-09-2013, 23:37

I...was not expecting that. Interesting.

Wait...whaaat! That certainly is...interesting...:yikes:. Is it heated/air conditioned? What is the floor space? And max ceiling height?

EDIT: Well, got most of my answers from their site (http://www.avantisdome.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=72&Itemid=464): The Dome itself sits on a 33 acre complex that includes the 76,000 square foot “Dome” that is climate controlled.

Also, are their food options nearby? I found this from the site too:
On the event side, the Avanti’s Dome can handle weddings from small intimate affairs up to 2,000+ guests. This includes ceremonies, receptions, and catering not only inside the “Dome” itself but also our beautiful “Zeller Banquet Center” with our highly regarded catering that can feature Avanti’s Pasta or a personalized menu from pork loin, to vegetarian and even vegan options. The Avanti’s Dome & Zeller Banquet Center are also available for numerous types of banquets, meetings, expositions, car shows, trade shows, etc…

But other than that...?

gurellia53

30-09-2013, 23:42

bah, ninja'd

Pekin is a decent sized town. There will be food.
Here's some nearby restaurants (http://www.zvents.com/pekin_il/venues/show/4935945-avantis-dome)

Tartan47

01-10-2013, 00:11

I hear the judges are going to be extra stringent on R09: Protrusions from the ROBOT and exposed surfaces on the ROBOT shall not pose hazards to the ARENA elements or people. ;)

Edit: Regarding actual questions about the event location. Our team is located approximately 6 miles from the venue. The choice is intriguing to say the least and I'll be interested in hearing more from the powers at be regarding the event!

Blackphantom91

01-10-2013, 00:44

They have steak n shake so this is already off to a great start. JK, I think the depth of this tournament is going to be awesome way to kick off in central Illinois.

Michael Hill

01-10-2013, 07:28

There certainly looks to be some logistic issues with the place. I don't really see how they can hang anything like speakers or screens. It also doesn't look like they have permanent seating either (meaning some rather uncomfortable bleachers). Pack your seat cushions!

Also, the lack of a hard floor scares me.

DarrinMunter

01-10-2013, 08:28

My dauaghter had a cheerleading competition a few years back in there. There is a air lock that a few people can fit into when leaveing or entering, you MUST have one of those doors closed at all times. If someone has both open everyone in the food court area gets a nice blast of air! It will also blow all the pictures off the wall!! (didn't do it, just was there when it happened) So yes, moving stuff in and out is going to be a pain. But there maybe some larger airlocks on the side of the place, that we can use. - from what I can remember.
ALSO, this place, since its air pressure that is keeping the dome up, it will affect your ears. chew gum.

Sparky3D

01-10-2013, 09:18

There is a much larger airlock on the other side of the building. However, you still have to go through the process of loading the airlock full of stuff, closing the outer door, waiting for the airlock to pressurize, and then opening the inner door into the dome. Should make for an interesting load-in. :eek:

MechEng83

01-10-2013, 09:31

I wonder, depending on what the game is, whether the higher pressure inside the facility will affect robot performance. I suppose pneumatic systems work on gage pressure, rather than absolute, and should be ok. If the game object is lightweight, the increased air resistance could be significant. I'm sure someone has done studies on the effect!

-Nevermind- Just found a resource that says typical inflation pressure of domes is 1 inch of water, or about 0.037 psi. That still would be over 200 lbs across a 6' x 7' door, though!

Taylor

01-10-2013, 09:32

-Nevermind- Just found a resource that says typical inflation pressure of domes is 1 inch of water, or about 0.037 psi. That still would be over 200 lbs across a 6' x 7' door, though!(emphasis mine)

You all know what this means ...

Ryan Dognaux

01-10-2013, 10:03

We're hoping to be able to get in when the second event registration opens up. This regional will have 1) a bunch of great veteran teams that our team can learn a lot from during that first week and 2) is less than 3 hours away from St. Charles. A straight shot up 55 and we're there. Plus this gives us some nice preparation for the St. Louis regional occurring a few weeks later.

Found this video on the facility: http://youtu.be/2HPtrp1_qa0 They'll figure something out, kind of reminds me of the old huge tents that Epcot had.

Hallry

01-10-2013, 10:08

Also, the lack of a hard floor scares me.

Agreed. I saw some photos on their site of a wedding there (http://www.avantisdome.com/index.php?option=com_phocagallery&view=category&id=2&Itemid=477), and even then the field wasn't covered, though I guess it will have to be for the regional. But the fact that it will be a temporary hard surface on top of soft AstroTurf will be interesting...

Tartan47

01-10-2013, 10:29

Agreed. I saw some photos on their site of a wedding there (http://www.avantisdome.com/index.php?option=com_phocagallery&view=category&id=2&Itemid=477), and even then the field wasn't covered, though I guess it will have to be for the regional. But the fact that it will be a temporary hard surface on top of soft AstroTurf will be interesting...

I've never seen a hardtop on the Dome's surface but I assume that option has to be available somehow. Unless the game is going to be a version of football/soccer/lacrosse played on a grass surface and they are going to add astroturf to all the other regionals

Michael Hill

01-10-2013, 19:12

All signs are pointing toward a football game

It all. Makes. Sense.

;-)

KelliV

01-10-2013, 19:47

I wouldn't worry about food/things to do in Pekin. It's a fairly large town. I'm super excited for another regional in Illinois!!!

gurellia53

03-10-2013, 01:12

We had a great mentor meeting tonight and had a lot of questions asked and answered. Here's a few points that came up about the regional:

-The Avanti's Dome is very big inside
-There's a big airlock in addition to the revolving door that will hold many robots
-There's concessions for food
-Will need a hard floor for the field and probably pits
-Volunteers needed!

Nothing mindblowing. There were a few comparisons drawn with the nearby Boilermaker Regional. Also, there's talk of an Illinois + Indiana district in 2015.

Carol A

03-10-2013, 02:02

I signed up to volunteer tonight and will encourage others from Rockford Robotics to sign up also.

Ernst

03-10-2013, 14:11

Also, there's talk of an Illinois + Indiana district in 2015.

As a member of a Milwaukee team: darn.
But hey, good for you.

Alpha Beta

11-10-2013, 15:46

You'll have to pardon us stepping out of Central Illinois for the time being. Our home regional (Greater Kansas City) was running out of open slots and we are aware of several unaccounted for veterans and rookies which could push the event to wait list status long before October 24th rolls around. We have every intention of finding our way back into the Central Illinois event when 2nd event registrations open up (should spots remain available).

Alpha Beta

24-10-2013, 14:30

We have every intention of finding our way back into the Central Illinois event when 2nd event registrations open up (should spots remain available).

And we're back in.

Central Illinois Regional was full to initial capacity at 12:02 EST. It started with 12 open spots. We're lucky I was in at 12:01. Honestly, this process should be looked at so that it's not quite so dependent on who has the luckier internet connection.

Had a feeling this would prove to be a popular location (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1298180&postcount=146). It'll be great to meet up with some old friends and make some new ones. Many teams shy away from a week 1 regional, but with the addition of the Week 0 events last year we found the experience to be pretty smooth. This will be our second year in a row attending a brand new regional in week 1.

What we realized is that once you do a "switch," the switch of the dropped event still shows in TIMS, and DOES NOT allow you to add it back later, even if you drop all of your other events.

My guess is that we would have to contact FIRST in order to remove it from our TIMS account.

Fortunatly we saw the above quote (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1191582&postcount=24) a year ago and had the opportunity to work with FIRST HQ directly on the registration procedure. I see we were not the only ones in that situation. The regional has already moved 3 teams off the waitlist, presumably due to this complication.

Nemo

24-10-2013, 14:50

This should be a pretty sweet regional. With a smaller number of total teams including a bunch of really good teams, we should get to see some great qualification matches. Definitely looking forward to this event.

Ryan Dognaux

25-10-2013, 12:56

Michael Hill

20-11-2013, 16:12

I was a bit worried the Avanti's Dome was destroyed by the tornado that went through Peoria/Pekin, but it looks like the dome's fine and they're now using it as a shelter for displaced families. Not sure how much, if at all, this will impact a week 1 regional.

Alpha Beta

20-11-2013, 21:32

We're on the wait list. Hopefully they open a few more spots and we can squeeze in, this regional would really be ideal for us to attend being that we're only 2.5 hours away and we would have a weekend to rest before the St. Louis regional.

They let a team in from China today. Not sure what the plan is for clearing the wait list. Registration closes December 5th (although I've seen teams register later for an additional tournament when there is room.) You'd think wait lists would be cleared atleast by then.

I was a bit worried the Avanti's Dome was destroyed by the tornado that went through Peoria/Pekin, but it looks like the dome's fine and they're now using it as a shelter for displaced families. Not sure how much, if at all, this will impact a week 1 regional.

It looks like an F2 on the edge of Pekin, but a couple F4's not too far away.
http://www.weather.com/news/tornado-central/tornado-outbreak-midwest-november17-interactive-map-20131118
Our prayers are with everyone in the area.

Ryan Dognaux

17-12-2013, 14:56

We are officially attending the inaugural Central Illinois Regional! There are a lot of recognizable numbers on the team list that should make for some great week 1 matches at this rookie event.

Michael Hill

17-12-2013, 15:09

We are officially attending the inaugural Central Illinois Regional! There are a lot of recognizable numbers on the team list that should make for some great week 1 matches at this rookie event.

Congrats! We look forward to seeing you there!

gurellia53

03-01-2014, 15:57

Alpha Beta

03-01-2014, 16:14

Robot Casserole would like to present our unofficial Guide to the Central Illinois Regional (http://robotcasserole.org/docs/FRC_CIR_Guide_Team_1736_120613.pdf).

Its loaded with information about the surrounding area and can hopefully answer some questions!

Thanks for the guide. We're looking forward to visiting the area.

FYI, the regional planning committee sent out an e-mail today to all TIMS contacts about the regional. There were two attachements which can be found here (http://www.ilfirst.org/frc/events/central-illinois-regional/email-blasts.html).

Welcome to the FIRST Robotics Competition Central Illinois Regional (CIR)!

We are thrilled that your team has registered for the inaugural Central Illinois Regional. The Regional Planning Committee has been working hard since September to launch this Regional, and we are firming up many details in the next few weeks. It will be important for you to visit the Central Illinois Website http://www.ilfirst.org/frc/events/central-illinois-regional/ at least weekly, for updates and watch for email blasts, so we can keep you informed. The following information will help your team start planning for the CIR:

Hotels: We have several events in the Pekin / Peoria area during the same weekend as the CIR that will drive demand for hotel rooms, so we recommend that you secure rooms as soon as possible. There are several hotels available through Steele Meetings that are listed on the Illinois First website: http://www.ilfirst.org/frc/events/central-illinois-regional/central-local-lodging-resources.html More hotel details will be forthcoming.

Box Lunch: We are planning to have a box lunch option for teams on Friday and Saturday. As soon as the contracts with the vendor are confirmed, you will be getting a notice via email and the forms will also be available on the Central Illinois Regional Website.

Team Social: We are planning a Team Social for Friday night that we are hoping many will be able to participate in and yet be over in time to allow you all to do your team scouting meetings as well!

Unique to this Event:

We are hoping to make this Week One Regional special for all the teams that are participating.

We need your help and enthusiasm to make this possible. The Regional Planning Committee has developed several unique ideas that will promote creativity and friendly competition among the teams throughout the weekend, even off the field!

Poster Contest: The Poster Contest is outlined in the attached PDF. Since this is the first time that a Regional has been held in Central Illinois, we are anticipating a huge interest in the event, but we need your help in creating the posters that will be used to publicize your Regional! We hope to attract students and their families, but also future supporters and VIPS’s.

FIRST Lamps: We know you all have a lot of bright ideas! So this is your chance to prove it. We are planning a VIP event to publicize FIRST robotics to a select group of individuals that will be providing support for the CIR in the future. We want to make this VIP event special as well, so we are asking each team to consider participating in the Central Illinois VIP Lamp project outlined in the attached PDF. These lamps will be used to decorate the VIP breakfast tables.

Get to Know the Teams: Since this is a new mix of teams that normally might not attend the same regional, we want to get to know each other! We are asking each team (at their option) to develop a one minute (or less) video that introduces your team, so we can play these between matches. The video formatting instructions will be sent to you in a future email. You can be thinking about how you want to introduce yourselves and planning your video in the mean time. At a minimum, we will need: Team Number, Name, Rookie Year, how many students are on your team, a team picture including your mentors, a picture or video of where you build your robot, something unique about your town, or school or team, something about your sponsors, and something you are especially proud of that you did this past year as a team. Remember, this is going to play in front of thousands of students, families, judges and sponsors during the weekend. Make it something you can be proud of.

TIMS Contacts / Main mentors: We are counting on you to disseminate the information contained in the email blasts to your team. Also, if you have any constructive ideas, comments, or questions regarding the Central Illinois Regional, we would love to hear from you.

Please contact us at FRCCIR2014@gmail.com

Thanks!

The Central Illinois Regional Planning Committee

Tim Koch, Central Illinois Regional Chair

Dan Green, Illinois FIRST Executive Director

CIRegional

15-02-2014, 01:34

Hello and welcome Teams to the Central Illinois Regional.

A few tips about the Dome:

- Be sure to bring some warm clothes in case the weather outside gets cold to frigid. The temp in the Dome can get to 55 degrees or so when the temp outside is less than 10 or 15 degrees.

The average temps in Pekin at the end of February are: highs of lower 40's and lows of mid to upper 20's.

- The Dome's air pressure is hardly noticeable except as you go in and out of the rotating doors and airlocks. Consider it good practice for the 2095 Regionals on the Space Platform.

- See the Dome from the air... inside! My son Andrew Barth from Metamora's Team 4143 Mars Wars made this vid with his tricopter (with a real closeup of the turf at the beginning to answer a lot of questions on that subject) lol http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPUAbzKSVkQ . You can see that lights and sound will have to be self supporting as there are no trusses in the entire Dome, except for one about 5 feet tall and about 25 feet long in the middle.........

- There are plenty of restaurants within a few blocks of the Dome... just google map Avantis Dome in Pekin IL and go to street view for a walk around...just head south from the Dome.

- Also within a few blocks of the Dome is a huge Menards Home Improvement for many of your nuts and bolts needs.

- Check out the posters that were submitted for our contest... about 45 of them, on http://RobotPosterContest.org/posterpage and see who won at http://RobotPosterContest.org/winner

- Streaming of the event should be on ILFIRST.org we hear. Tune in and enjoy!

- We'll bring you the results of the Lamp Contest on Friday of the competition.

- I hear the Dome food kitchen on location there is concocting a new soft drink they are calling "Battery Acid" or something like that. Be sure to try it out. They also have unlimited pizza, "gondolas" and Italian cuisine at the kitchen and inside the dome proper, and also available from their restaurant down the block... of course it's called Avanti's.

- There's also a rumor that Regional tshirts might be available while supply lasts and when those run out, on an order basis. It will list all teams on the back and have the Aerial Assist logo on the front.

- All of us from the area within 20 - 30 miles of the Dome wholeheatedly welcome all the teams to this really exciting Regional! It will be quite the time here we are sure!

- I've also heard the mayor is going to present the "Joystick Controller To The City" at the Opening Ceremonies on Friday. The City of Pekin Council is very enthusiastic, and I can just about guarantee within a year or so Pekin High School will miraculously have a new Robotics team there!

Doede Barth
CIR Planning Committee

Jaxom

22-02-2014, 18:57

- Also within a few blocks of the Dome is a huge Menards Home Improvement for many of your nuts and bolts needs.

Or you can stop by 1986's pit; we've had a free bolt shop for several years.

nicholsjj

26-02-2014, 11:23

Will there be a webcast for the Central Illinois Regional this year?

popnbrown

26-02-2014, 11:28

- Streaming of the event should be on ILFIRST.org we hear. Tune in and enjoy!

Doede Barth
CIR Planning Committee

Sounds like there will be streaming.

nicholsjj

26-02-2014, 11:34

Sounds like there will be streaming.

Yep looks like I should read better :o . Here is the web link for anyone interested http://www.ilfirst.org/frc/events/central-illinois-regional/central-webstream.html

audietron

26-02-2014, 11:35

I am wondering what they are doing about stands for all the crowd? Will it be metal bleachers or something else?

barn34

26-02-2014, 11:46

I am wondering what they are doing about stands for all the crowd? Will it be metal bleachers or something else?

yep, metal bleachers. I believe there should be seating for around 3000, but I'll try to get clarification on that.

audietron

26-02-2014, 12:06

yep, metal bleachers. I believe there should be seating for around 3000, but I'll try to get clarification on that.

Great! That should be more than enough.

Michael Hill

26-02-2014, 12:15

Any electrical outlets accessible from the stands?

XaulZan11

26-02-2014, 12:19

neshera

26-02-2014, 13:14

We used to have an inflatable dome, 60'X30' with an airlock door.
We didn't need chewing gum, we never noticed much of a pressure change in the doorway. If both doors of an airlock are open, however, the dome will attempt to deflate via the doorway, hence the gust of wind.
It is true however - you can't hang stuff from the ceiling. I suspect they have trusses, just like Aerial Assist's truss, for AV equipment. Seating will be on bleachers.

Pekin is a suburb of Peoria, so you'll have plenty of dining choices for dinner Friday night.

Fun tip: If you meet anyone who is from Pekin itself, ask them the old nickname of their high school sports teams. Hint: they are now the Pekin Dragons.

barn34

26-02-2014, 13:18

barn34

26-02-2014, 13:26

I'm really looking forward to making the trip down for Friday and Saturday. Myself and another strategy mentor will be testing out our new 2 person scouting data collection system and we will glady share any data with anyone (especially those 18 teams going to Wisconsin or Midwest so they can open up a wildcard :cool: ). If all goes well, we'll try to post the data after Friday's matches.

Thanks, man. Hope you enjoy the trip to Pekin. Feel free to stop by our pit anytime. As always, we are looking forward to seeing you guys in Milwaukee. With any luck, we can have a rematch of last year's finals...only this time with an inverted outcome ;) lol. Best of luck to you guys this year!

wesbass23

26-02-2014, 13:33

Thanks, man. Hope you enjoy the trip to Pekin. Feel free to stop by our pit anytime. As always, we are looking forward to seeing you guys in Milwaukee. With any luck, we can have a rematch of last year's finals...only this time with an inverted outcome ;) lol. Best of luck to you guys this year!

Honestly I'd rather have you guys on our alliance xD

barn34

26-02-2014, 13:48

Honestly I'd rather have you guys on our alliance xD

Lol. That works too. We are just so used to playing against you guys. I think we've only had one qualifier match on the same alliance over the past several years...and that was 3 years ago, if I remember right. We just always seem to be matched up opposite each other. Quirks of the sheduling gods, I guess. Lol.

Donut

26-02-2014, 21:18

Looking forward to the regional tomorrow! Our robot and tools should already be there, most of the team will be making the trek down early tomorrow morning. Here's to hoping it's not too cold in the dome over the next few days.

Jaxom

26-02-2014, 22:31

yep, metal bleachers. I believe there should be seating for around 3000, but I'll try to get clarification on that.

Looking at one of the pictures I took there are 15 or so rows of seats. The bleachers (both sides) extend well beyond the end of the field on both ends. The seats are COLD; I suspect the people who are most comfortable will be the ones who bring something to sit upon.

Tim Koch

27-02-2014, 00:10

Here is a picture of the playing field taken from the top of the bleachers, when we left the Central Illinois Regional tonight after a long day of set up

RyanShoff

27-02-2014, 00:16

Thanks for all the hard work, Tim. Looking forward to an great rookie regional.

Remember, don't open both doors to an air lock everybody.

kgargiulo

27-02-2014, 01:05

Tim, Vera, and everyone else on the organizing crew - thank you for all the hard work you've done leading up to the regional.

neshera

27-02-2014, 10:24

Here is a picture of the playing field taken from the top of the bleachers, when we left the Central Illinois Regional tonight after a long day of set up
Looking good!
See you this weekend (a bunch of folks from Winnovation are coming down observe/volunteer)!

indubitably

27-02-2014, 14:56

Thanks for streaming on the practice day, gave me something to do haha

Mastonevich

27-02-2014, 15:34

The practice day live stream is really nice, YES!

smart1

27-02-2014, 16:16

It's nice seeing full alliances for practice matches. That's impressive.

pwnageNick

27-02-2014, 20:37

Where are the pits located? How is that setup looking? Can't wait to see the matches.

-Nick

pwnageNick

28-02-2014, 00:31

Here is a little teaser of our robot during a practice match at Central Illinois today. It's the blue robot that starts in the top right of the screen

http://i.imgur.com/G6nrfPg.gif

Thanks to Ryan Guinn from 2338 Gear It Forward for making the gif. Good luck to everyone this weekend!

-Nick

XaulZan11

28-02-2014, 19:24

Attached are the stats from today's matches. A couple notes: these stats are to supplement our qualitative data from our Scouting Team, so it is not expected to be a complete picture of teams. We scouting every alliance for every match. I do not think there are any errors is compiling the data but I'm sure there are a couple mistakes in the raw data (especially in matches were there were multiple missed autonomous balls). We did not re-scout the two replay matches.

16419

BoilerMentor

01-03-2014, 17:10

Not sure if FIRST regional or battlebots competition...

vhcook

01-03-2014, 17:20

Can anyone tell me what happened in the last match/Finals-3? Ustream went belly-up toward the end of the timeout and all I know is the score.

avanboekel

01-03-2014, 17:29

Can anyone tell me what happened in the last match/Finals-3? Ustream went belly-up toward the end of the timeout and all I know is the score.

Alliance 1 won by 20. I think it was 112-92. 3 or 4 flipped bots in the last 2 matches.

BoilerMentor

01-03-2014, 17:31

Red won.

Ryan Dognaux

01-03-2014, 17:37

From the stands it looked like one of the referees called intentional tipping on 4296, but it must have been reversed after the match.

Incredibley rough finals matches, I haven't seen so much defense since 2007.

BoilerMentor

01-03-2014, 18:07

I'd mirror Ryan's comments. The play in the elimination matches was the roughest I've ever seen allowed by a head referee in my 9 years of FIRST. Some calls were definitely not being made correctly. The whole event contact inside the frame perimeter wasn't being called even with several instances of obvious damage to our bot. CIR was otherwise a strong event with great teams. I'll be curious to see how things change as we move into district play.

1975Flyers

01-03-2014, 18:46

So, was it rough or dirty? There is a difference.

avanboekel

01-03-2014, 19:40

So, was it rough or dirty? There is a difference.

IMO, it was rough. But if you were the one getting tipped, you may not see it that way.

Sparky3D

01-03-2014, 19:44

So, was it rough or dirty? There is a difference.

Depends on your definition of dirty. In our last elimination match, both of our lift cylinders were bent and one of the pneumatic fittings on our shooter was sheared off. None of these parts extend outside our frame perimeter, but no fouls were called. However, I don't think the bots that hit us were trying to damage us, it was just the way things at CIR were being played.

The lack of fouls for damaging opposing robots, coupled with the fact that the finals matches basically turned into a bot flipping contest, has left me worried about how the rest of the season is going to play out. I saw a number of fairly well built robots take pretty significant damage, and having your robot destroyed on the field is pretty disheartening for any team.

gurellia53

01-03-2014, 19:52

Some calls were definitely not being made correctly. The whole event contact inside the frame perimeter wasn't being called even with several instances of obvious damage to our bot.

For reference:
G28
Deliberate or damaging contact with an opponent ROBOT on or inside its FRAME PERIMETER is not allowed.

Violation: TECHNICAL FOUL

The cylinders below are inside our frame perimeter at all times. More than once, another robot's pickup mechanism entered our frame perimeter and bent these rods. The pictures are from the quarterfinals. We also received damage to our catapult, causing us to miss our next autonomous shot.

G28 was never called.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-P7eosQPGTgk/UxJ9zwpCMEI/AAAAAAAAAIY/tO_MDl40A60/w791-h593-no/0301141516.jpg

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-EafjDFfIwCU/UxJ9zdpx7FI/AAAAAAAAAIU/BZ51rNtv3iY/w791-h593-no/0301141418.jpg

tStano

01-03-2014, 20:06

For reference:

The cylinders below are inside our frame perimeter at all times. More than once, another robot's pickup mechanism entered our frame perimeter and bent these rods. The pictures are from the quarterfinals. We also received damage to our catapult, causing us to miss our next autonomous shot.

Ouch. That looks pretty darn bad. That looks at least like grounds for the question box. Damaging a robot inside the frame perimeter is a technical, even if it was consequential.

If a TEAM needs clarification on a ruling or score, one (1) pre-college student from that TEAM should address the Head Referee after the ARENA reset signal (i.e. PLAYER STATION LED strings turn green). A TEAM member signals their desire to speak with the Head Referee by standing in a Red or Blue Question Box, which are located on the floor near each end of the scoring table. Depending on timing, the Head Referee may postpone any requested discussion until the end of the subsequent MATCH.

From the blue box
Regardless of intent, a ROBOT with an element outside its FRAME PERIMETER that causes damage to another ROBOT inside of its FRAME PERIMETER will be penalized.

gurellia53

01-03-2014, 20:16

Ouch. That looks pretty darn bad. That looks at least like grounds for the question box. Damaging a robot inside the frame perimeter is a technical, even if it was consequential.

By the time we got off the field, the final match score had already been determined and shown on the big screen.

We immediately took the robot to the question box and showed the damage. The refs said that they did not see the damage happen so they couldn't call it.

orangemoore

01-03-2014, 20:21

By the time we got off the field, the final match score had already been determined and shown on the big screen.

We immediately took the robot to the question box and showed the damage. The refs said that they did not see the damage happen so they couldn't call it.

That to me is a poor response to easily visible damage to a robot. There were matches that scores were reversed on last year after they had been posted. It seems like a bad excuse to do nothing on.

I think that the teams in the Finals should be held to highest standards of penalties because they have already played 8-12 matches.

kylelanman

01-03-2014, 21:27

So, was it rough or dirty? There is a difference.

For the most part those elims were very rough...I wouldn't say that they were 100% clean either.

There was a technical given in the final match for intentional tipping when 4143 was tipped over. This technical had no affect on the outcome of the match so it wasn't announced.

In general contact inside the frame perimeter was not being called because the damage was not obvious at the time the contact occurred. Given the other threads on CD discussing the refs being overwhelmed it is also likely the refs were watching the human players ensuring they remained safe and didn't cross the plane of the field. They were also often interacting with there referee panel to keep track of assists and scored balls so there eyes weren't on the robot the entire time.

jeremylee

01-03-2014, 22:56

It was a tough loss. I would like to thank our alliance members 2481 and 4213 for not giving up and forcing a great 3rd match. Props to 2081, 2022, and 292 for the hard fought win. Congrats also to teams 525, 1986, and 4296 on the win and surviving the finals carnage.

I do want to thank everyone involved for putting on a great regional despite all the challenges and thank all the teams that participated. I was expecting some great competition coming into the regional, and wasn't disappointed. I hope to see CIR continue to grow in Central IL and look forward to competing against many of the same teams again the future. I hope all the teams that traveled enjoyed the regional as well and make it safely home.

Get ready Wisconsin!

orangemoore

01-03-2014, 23:18

wesbass23

02-03-2014, 01:22

Get ready Wisconsin!

I look forward to playing with you guys as well. I was really hoping you guys would go all the way, see you in Wisconsin.

evand4567

02-03-2014, 02:06

For reference:

The cylinders below are inside our frame perimeter at all times. More than once, another robot's pickup mechanism entered our frame perimeter and bent these rods. The pictures are from the quarterfinals. We also received damage to our catapult, causing us to miss our next autonomous shot.

G28 was never called.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-P7eosQPGTgk/UxJ9zwpCMEI/AAAAAAAAAIY/tO_MDl40A60/w791-h593-no/0301141516.jpg

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-EafjDFfIwCU/UxJ9zdpx7FI/AAAAAAAAAIU/BZ51rNtv3iY/w791-h593-no/0301141418.jpg

2022 drive team here. I just showed this to my fellow drive team members, and we're sincerely sorry about what we did to your robot. We had no idea that we had damaged it like that until now. Our pickup mechanism had broke mid-match and was stuck in an awkward position that caused it to hit your pistons like that while attempting to play defense on you. We really hope this doesn't impact our relationship between our two teams, because before this match I felt we had a really good relationship. 1736 and 2481 were two of our favorite teams to work with during qualification rounds and we hope we get to work with you again in the future. Also thank you to 2081 and 292 for giving me what was probably my best competition experience to date.

jeremylee

02-03-2014, 02:49

2022 drive team here. I just showed this to my fellow drive team members, and we're sincerely sorry about what we did to your robot. We had no idea that we had damaged it like that until now. Our pickup mechanism had broke mid-match and was stuck in an awkward position that caused it to hit your pistons like that while attempting to play defense on you. We really hope this doesn't impact our relationship between our two teams, because before this match I felt we had a really good relationship. 1736 and 2481 were two of our favorite teams to work with during qualification rounds and we hope we get to work with you again in the future. Also thank you to 2081 and 292 for giving me what was probably my best competition experience to date.

Dont worry, easily fixed. We should have foresaw it and protected them better. I hope we didnt cause too much damage to other robots ourselves. We never really intended to play that much defense going into the regional, but after seeing how effective we were at it, we decided to keep doing it. Im sure others could post damage we caused too. It was cool seeing your team cheering for us, we'd definitely not hold a grudge. I thought they were some great matches, hope to see you back at CIR in the future, good luck at midwest!

Tom Ore

02-03-2014, 03:09

There was a technical given in the final match for intentional tipping when 4143 was tipped over.

Apparently the refs discussed this after the match and decided not to call it because they didn't call it when 4296 was flipped twice and 1986 was flipped once. Definitely a very rough elimination round.

kgargiulo

02-03-2014, 03:14

Thanks to all the teams who participated in the inaugural Central Illinois Regional. We trust everyone made it home safely, are glad you came, and hope that you left with fond memories of the "coolest" regional and the snow globe.

To the students of 4143, i am very proud of what you have all accomplished already this year. Each of you has made a great contribution to the overall picture of what it means to be on a FIRST team. Well done, now let's take what we've learned even farther.

Thanks to all of our alliance partners, in particular our finals partners 2039/Rockford Robotics and 171/Cheese Curd Herd, we look forward to seeing you both in Wisconsin.

Congratulations to 525, 1986, and 4296 on your win and for a hard fought three matches in the finals.

Huge thanks to the Tim, Vera, and the organizing committee, all of the sponsors, and all the volunteers. I also want to give Big Al a shout for all the help to me as a rookie Robot Inspector.

It is on to Wisconsin for 4143. Although we do have a few minor (sarcasm) rebuilds to work out after the finals matches. And some design, scouting, and training improvements to incorporate lessons learned.

On the game itself:

Matches will be hard fought. Build a tough robot. Everything from common sense to the reveal animation made that point, and the game play has borne that out.

The refs have a huge workload and there is no reasonable expectation they could see everything in a game this hectic. Sometimes those breaks are going to hurt, sometimes they'll help. It won't seem fair. In plenty of cases it will not actually be fair. That's life, and not an unimportant lesson in and of itself.

If you barely clear a high goal then there's a good chance the ball is coming back out. Use game strategy or plan for this in your shooting design to minimize the risk.

It is very hard for the HPs to avoid reaching into the field and taking the big penalty. Train. Practice. Have discipline. Be alert if you are a HP and know how much you can help or hurt your alliance by how quickly and precisely you react.

I'll be spending more time using these observations to help the students learn how to respond than on lobbying FIRST for any particular change. No disparagement of anyone pursuing that course, I like sincere efforts to improve the game for everyone. Some of the changes being debated on line (and i'm sure in week 1 bus rides home) would improve the competition. I'm just not going to focus there myself and instead try to use the time to work on the things that are within our team's control. Whatever FIRST does we will deal with when (if) it happens.

bduddy

02-03-2014, 04:25

That to me is a poor response to easily visible damage to a robot. There were matches that scores were reversed on last year after they had been posted. It seems like a bad excuse to do nothing on.

I think that the teams in the Finals should be held to highest standards of penalties because they have already played 8-12 matches.I very much disagree - how can the referees know if the damage existed before the match, or if it was accidentally caused by a robot on the same alliance? Both may be unlikely, but to overturn the results of any match, let alone a regional-deciding match, should require an extremely high standard of evidence.

While I sympathize with teams that have competed, I understand how some fouls can be missed when it seems to be a common situation that 5-6 robots are all piled in the same quadrant of the field, and the one referee there has to watch not only for any fouls, but to keep track of possessions and potential pins...

RyanShoff

02-03-2014, 11:30

There was a technical given in the final match for intentional tipping when 4143 was tipped over. This technical had no affect on the outcome of the match so it wasn't announced.

I couldn't see the screen from where I was watching.
The twitter feed does show 50 blue foul points, so I believe this is true.

We did tip over pretty much right after autonomous ended, so while the scoring outcome was not affected, the gameplay certainly was.

For anyone interested, we went dead in F-2 due to our driver's gamepad going bad halfway through the match. The operator's gamepad was fine, which was why our pickups were functioning. That was a failure I never expected to see.

We switched driver's gamepads during the timeout and everything was fine for F-3. We just couldn't drive very well on our side.

Tom Ore

02-03-2014, 11:52

The twitter feed does show 50 blue foul points, so I believe this is true.

That may have been a G26-1. It occurs at about 1:58 into the match. 2039 reached into the red low goal while trying to get a blue ball from the corner. I am surprised they ruled it a technical, rather than just a foul.

Cataclysmatic

02-03-2014, 12:05

First of all, I would like to thank everyone for this amazing "rookie" CIR.

As the driver for 4296, I would really like to thank our team for construction of such a robust robot, able to handle the beatings of the field(If your robot cannot handle defense, believe me when I say, MAKE IT SO IT CAN) I feel a lot of the defense in this game is due to the 1 game piece, when a robot does not have a ball all it really can do is defend/set picks for team mates and as a result there are often 4 robots playing defense at a time.

This was our first time ever getting out of qualifications and moving onto eliminations and I have to say, it was a lot of fun. Interacting and working alongside 525 and 1986 was extremely enlightening, as a newer team still, we still have a massive amount to learn.

Thank you to the drivers for both 525 and 1986 for keeping everyone calmed through our first loss of eliminations and for all of us working together and adapting extremely quickly after the loss of one of our two able to shoot robots(525) resulting in the last two matches being conducted with one robot able to shoot.

I would also like to thank 4143, 2039, and 171 for the absolutely amazing (and brutal) finals matches, which resulted in an extremely close final deciding match that no one really had any clue of the outcome until it was displayed. These final matches were extremely well played by both alliances and it was a lot of fun to participate in them.

I look forward to seeing anyone who will also be at the Milwaukee regional.

In addition, I would like to apologize about any damage that we caused during the entire regional from defense, I know our robot took a lot of damage through out the weekend and has caused us to prepare to make a lot of fixes at our next regional, thankfully these robots are able to take a fair amount of a beating.

Overall, Thank you for the great regional. Thank you for the alliance selection to 525 and 1986, thank you for the amazing final match to 4143, 2039, and 171. And most of all, prepare your robots for a lot of defense in this game.

Cataclysmatic

02-03-2014, 12:08

That may have been a G26-1. It occurs at about 1:58 into the match. 2039 reached into the red low goal while trying to get a blue ball from the corner. I am surprised they ruled it a technical, rather than just a foul.

Edit: This comment was incorrect and proven incorrect later on in the forum by information that I had not known of.

tanmaker

02-03-2014, 12:08

...1989...

Might want to double check who your alliance members were haha

Cataclysmatic

02-03-2014, 12:11

Might want to double check who your alliance members were haha

I am still tired from last night and the drive home, I have fixed that up haha.

BoilerMentor

02-03-2014, 12:21

The blue alliance should have been red carded in the final finals match.

Intentionally tipping a robot falls well within the bounds of an automatic red card especially considering it had happened in the previous match with obvious consequences. Behavior like this on the part of a team or alliance is despicable and goes against the entire concept of this program. I've seen rough play before, but intentionally tipping over a robot goes above and beyond. I know, as many have already pointed out, that the outcome would not have been changed. This behavior needs to be publicly discouraged and the shame of losing a finals match in that way would have likely made it clear that it isn't okay.

That said, I'd like to thank our alliance partners 3138 and 3284. They are both excellent teams and we look forward to opportunities to work with them in the future. Our matches in quarters were hard fought and we could have won if we hadn't lost power in the second match. For that I am sorry. Our battery box broke and allowed enough movement for the connection to be broken during a hard hit from the opposing alliance.

The inspectors that we worked with, specifically the gentleman from 1986 who performed the bulk of our inspection was fantastic and exactly the type of inspector that we need more of. It is obvious that Al runs a tight ship and things went smoothly on Thursday

A huge congratulations for the number one seed winning alliance. The level of adversity that this alliance faced was unlike any I've ever seen. No alliance should have to put up with play like that being allowed against them and they still won. An excellent showing.

The problems all of the teams at the event faced were because of a few individuals. The rest of the volunteer staff was amazing. The queueing staff was excellent and friendly. A huge thank you to the volunteer staff in general. Events like this one can't happen without a great deal of support.

Jay O'Donnell

02-03-2014, 12:30

PandaHatMan

02-03-2014, 12:44

Not quite. The manual says:

G27

Strategies aimed at the destruction or inhibition of ROBOTS via attachment, damage, tipping, or entanglement of ROBOTS are not allowed.

Violation: TECHNICAL FOUL and YELLOW CARD

Yes, but there's also this

The Head Referee may assign a YELLOW or RED CARD as a result of egregious ROBOT or Team member behavior at the ARENA. A RED CARD results in DISQUALIFICATION.

furthermore,

Examples of egregious behavior include, but are not limited to, severe and/or repeated violations of a rule and/or inappropriate behavior.

BoilerMentor

02-03-2014, 12:55

Not quite. The manual says:

G27

Strategies aimed at the destruction or inhibition of ROBOTS via attachment, damage, tipping, or entanglement of ROBOTS are not allowed.

Violation: TECHNICAL FOUL and YELLOW CARD

I stand by my previous statement. I'd also venture my drivers (the student who posted in response) knows the rules as well as almost anyone. It was egregious and it happened multiple times.

Ryan Dognaux

02-03-2014, 12:56

What I observed from the stands - in Finals match 3, the referee pointed at 4296 after 4143 was tipped while waiving the red alliance flag, then made an X symbol by crossing his arms. I have never been a referee before so I'm not sure what that call means, but maybe someone else could elaborate?

wesbass23

02-03-2014, 12:57

Does anyone have video of any of the elimination matches? The stream was rather blurry and stopped streaming toward the end.

Jay O'Donnell

02-03-2014, 12:59

Navid Shafa

02-03-2014, 13:04

Not quite. The manual says:
G27
Violation: TECHNICAL FOUL and YELLOW CARD

This happened to 118 yesterday and the appropriate G27 violations were assessed.

Logan Byers

02-03-2014, 13:16

I've also never been a ref, but I believe that's supposed to mean a technical foul on the team he was pointing at.

As a referee, you are correct in your assumption that the referee was signaling a technical foul. That hand signal has been used over the past 3 years.

1975Flyers

02-03-2014, 14:43

Tom Ore

02-03-2014, 15:36

Logan Byers

02-03-2014, 15:42

Typical sporting event. Refs let them play. The game gets a little more physical. Both sides feel like they are the one being wronged. Both try defend their actions and believe they can call out the other teams intentions.

FIRST isn't a "typical sporting event". In my opinion, FIRST is thriving to become much more than that.
Even so, referees in FIRST and in sports are suppose to control the attitude of game play. Referees can lose control of a game if they don't call the rules as intended. FIRST created the game rules to reflect the spirit of FIRST, as they state in some of the rules (G14, for example). If referees aren't enforcing the rules correctly, the competition can get out of hand and devolve in to a competition that does not reflect the spirit of FIRST.

JeremyLansing

02-03-2014, 15:43

Apparently the refs discussed this after the match and decided not to call it because they didn't call it when 4296 was flipped twice and 1986 was flipped once. Definitely a very rough elimination round.

I believe that was ruled as a regular foul, resulting in the 20 points for red, and the technical from the ruled intentional tipping with 50 points to blue.

We could never get a good answer from the referees about the reason for either penalty called during Finals match 3, and I'm curious where you guys heard this, because they sound mutually exclusive. I find it hard to believe the refs would call intentional tipping on 4296 after no-calls on 3 previous tips. Regardless it was a very, very hard fought finals, easily the roughest matches I have seen in FRC. Congrats to both your teams as well as 1986 for the win.

JeremyLansing

02-03-2014, 15:49

Tom Ore

02-03-2014, 15:50

I'm curious where you guys heard this, because they sound mutually exclusive. I find it hard to believe the refs would call intentional tipping on 4296 after no-calls on 3 previous tips.

I heard it third hand - but you're right it doesn't make sense. I re-watched the video and the ref does signal red foul and crosses his arms right after 4296 pushes 4143 over.

DeAnnaC

02-03-2014, 15:52

Does anyone have video of any of the elimination matches? The stream was rather blurry and stopped streaming toward the end.

Videos are being cropped right now.. Will post when they are uploaded to youtube.

BoilerMentor

02-03-2014, 15:58

For those who missed the finals, here is a summary of the tipping:

F1: 1:29 171 tips 4296, no foul
F2: 1:35 171 tips 4296, no foul
F2: 2:19 171 tips 1986, no foul
F3: 0:20 4296 tips 4143, technical foul
F3: 1:00 171 tips 4296, no foul

In all the cases where 171 tipped another team were they actively playing defense?

If a robot is tipped by an opposing alliance member playing defense, at that point I believe it becomes a violation of the G27 rule and should have resulted in a Technical Foul and a Yellow Card. Meaning, the finals should have been over in two matches and the alliance in question should have lost due to disqualification. Fitting for the behavior, unsportsmanlike conduct, and strategy employed here. I'm outraged still, not sure if I'm more upset with the fact that the rules weren't enforced or that a team would employ that type of strategy to win.

I've never seen teams play like this. It is very disappointing if not infuriating. I'm glad our next event will have a very high quality officiating crew and always has.

PandaHatMan

02-03-2014, 16:01

You are entitled to your own opinion, but as Team 171's drive coach I can tell you we were not deliberately trying to tip any robots on the Red Alliance. We were playing defense as hard a we could, and in the process, robots got tipped over. A robots center of gravity is an important consideration during design, and I can't help it if robots with higher CG's got tipped. I'm quite embarrassed that we ended up tipping 4 robots, but I find it insulting that you would say we did it intentionally

FIRST tries to remove some stress from the refs by making most of the rules clearly objective and not based on intent. Perhaps it was not intentional, but if you look at it objectively, 171 did tip over 4296 every match at approximately the same time each match. I have nothing against you or your team, but intentional or not, it did happen repeatedly, which can be viewed as 'strategic'.

kylelanman

02-03-2014, 16:03

We could never get a good answer from the referees about the reason for either penalty called during Finals match 3, and I'm curious where you guys heard this, because they sound mutually exclusive. I find it hard to believe the refs would call intentional tipping on 4296 after no-calls on 3 previous tips. Regardless it was a very, very hard fought finals, easily the roughest matches I have seen in FRC. Congrats to both your teams as well as 1986 for the win.

Fact:
I was the FTAA down on the field. I heard the ref tell the score keeper intentional tipping. Then I asked the score keeper which alliance the call was on.

Opinion:
I believe 4296 tipped over at least once and possibly multiple times prior to the finals. Getting a reputation as an easily tippable robot lessens the chances the ref will deem it intentional tipping oppose to a design flaw.

A similar situation occurred with a team and leaving parts on the field. After 2 matches of things breaking off there robot they were issued a technical each match following when a part fell off.

Cataclysmatic

02-03-2014, 16:07

From 4296 perspective in response to the prior post. We had flipped once during qualifications. We had also resulted with flipping one other team during qualifications.

JeremyLansing

02-03-2014, 16:08

FIRST tries to remove some stress from the refs by making most of the rules clearly objective and not based on intent. Perhaps it was not intentional, but if you look at it objectively, 171 did tip over 4296 every match at approximately the same time each match. I have nothing against you or your team, but intentional or not, it did happen repeatedly, which can be viewed as 'strategic'.

You are absolutely right that within the rules what occurred could have, and probably should have been called as strategic tipping. I take issue with the statements that have been made by others that we planned to do so, that we were attempting to execute an un-sportsmanlike strategy, and that we were trying to get a "dirty" win at all costs. I'm terribly sorry about what happened, but it was not intentional.

jspatz1

02-03-2014, 16:42

Apparently the refs discussed this after the match and decided not to call it because they didn't call it when 4296 was flipped twice and 1986 was flipped once. Definitely a very rough elimination round.

This is accurate. After a conference following the final match, the head referee reversed the TF called on 4296. The explanation given to our drive captain was that the TF would not have been consistent with the lack of TF's in the other multiple defensive tips that occurred in the round.

Tim Koch

02-03-2014, 17:03

Ryan Dognaux

02-03-2014, 17:50

Team 4329 had a great time at the first ever Central Illinois regional. The venue was very unique and once it warmed up a little bit after the cold morning, I loved it. The concession options were reasonably priced and excellent. The field crew and volunteers were on top of their game as well.

I wanted to personally thank all the teams we played with and against and apologize if our robot was dead in any of those matches. We were battling with many, many issues throughout Friday & Saturday that with the help of Al & the rest of the volunteers allowed us to narrow it down to a power issue. Rest assured we are putting together a plan for resolving this issue for the St. Louis regional and hope to be on top of our game at that event.

Congrats to the winners & all the teams who made this a really competitive regional.

jeremylee

02-03-2014, 18:11

On behalf of the Regional Planning Committee, we would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to all the teams that came and volunteers who took on the challenge of a week one inaugural regional and made it feel like we had been doing this for years! Your attention to detail, willingness to change things up to make something run smoother, and your overall positive attitudes and responses were simply stellar.

Whether it was engaging in conversation with teams in the pits, or watching you cheer from the stands, sharing your seats with visitors (we had an overwhelming response from the local community of first time people to an Robotics competition), to the closing rendition of YMCA, it was the “hardest fun” we have ever been part of.

We knew this regional was going to be competitive when we saw the registration list. Anyone willing to share what the best match they were part of? Good communication, good strategy session, good game play? Best shot under pressure?

Again, our thanks on behalf the entire Regional Planning Committee for the CIR.

My two favorite match moments involved the Roboteers:

In our match before Quals 21, we ended with a bent lower cylinder. We managed to get it removed, but didn't have time to install the spare. We sent the robot out anyways hoping the arm would stay up with only 1 cylinder. This was a tough match up against the Roboteers and Titanium. As we played some tough defense with our arm flopping around, our alliance managed to pull off a very close win by 1 point. I hope someone has the match recorded for our team to watch again.

The 2nd was Quarters 3 Match 2. With the Roboteers on our alliance this time and down 1 match already, our alliance played a great match to force a rubber match. On defense, our alliance was able to prevent the opposing team from scoring for over a minute to end the match. As I caught our driveteam coming back to the pits, Martin from 2081 on the opposing alliance was coming back to the pits with a big smile on his face and said something to the effect of "I knew you guys could do that to us." Here's a video of the match uploaded by 4213:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2vOnc1RrEE

You can see at the end the blue ball still hasn't been put in the goal. 2081 went on to win in match 3, and I'm sure we'll reminisce about this great best of 3 in the future.

It was a lot of fun to finally be able to play with and against all the local teams from Central IL at the same regional along with all the great teams who traveled.

XaulZan11

02-03-2014, 18:13

I probably have a minority opinion on intentional tipping, but I don't think tipping should ever really be called. Imagine I push a box bot square on their side, push with full power for 5 seconds and they just get pushed to the side but stay righted. Imagine I push a tall, high CG, arm bot square on their side, push with full power for 5 seconds and they tip over. Should I get a tipping penalty for just pushing a top heavy robot who happens to tip? (Kind of joking, but if so, then I'll just build a really top heavy robot knowing that opponents would be afraid to play defense on in fear of getting tipping penalty).

Especially for a week 1 and first year event, I thought CIR was a great success. After hearing and seeing some of the issues the other regionals had, I think CIR did a fantastic job. Hopefully, Illinois doesn't go to districts next year so 1732 could attend!

Ryan Dognaux

02-03-2014, 18:34

Sunshine

02-03-2014, 18:38

Here is my take on the venue as a spectator.

Lots if room for growth if they plan accordingly. Lots of space for more pits.
Lots of food choices around venue.
Hotel rooms are inexpensive compared to other sites.
Well run tournament.
Great crowd
Will need to add portable bathrooms in future. Very long lines for the one.
Having one exit door was a pain.
Should add a second concession.
There will not be enough bleacher seating if they add more teams in the future without adding more seats.

The finals
The final matches played out as I predicted. I have said all along that aggressive defense will become the norm.
To the drive coach of 171. It's hard to believe that tipping was accidental when it appeared your driver went in for the kill shot as the other robot was starting to flip. That was this man's observation. It looked deliberate. Fool me once but don't try to fool me three times.

Advantage Platteville! The same head ref is usually in Milwaukee so if he doesn't change his opinion on the tipping, we'll all see it again.

jeremylee

02-03-2014, 18:44

I found these two finals videos on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5YPGacCbhA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzmhG-Bsmio

After watching a few times, as far as I can tell, the refs may have made the correct calls for these 2 matches. More rough than we've been accustomed to in the last few years. Plan accordingly!

I didn't see much of match 2 as I was helping take down our pits. I'd love to see a video of that also if someone has it.

barn34

02-03-2014, 18:55

Guys, I agree that the finals (and all of elims for that matter) were rough on everyone's bumpers. Elims are always high intensity and that just ramps up as you get closer to the finals. With the nature of this year's game, this intensity resulted in some unfortunate toppling of the robots competing in the championship matches. Being on the opposite end of that unfortunate event in a regional deciding match last year, I empathize greatly for anyone having to watch a high stakes match play out with that sense of combined disappointment and helplessness. However, blatantly jumping to any conclusion and publicly accusing any team of intentionally dirty play is in the exact opposite of everything the spirit of FIRST represents. I'm sorry, but thats completely uncalled for. I know this is a time of frustration for some teams, but please take a step back, calm down, and remember what this program is really all about.

DeAnnaC

02-03-2014, 18:56

It looks like the Channel Cats team 1094 captured some of the elimination matches & qualification matches 71-80 & can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnxYxpXol19JVG7sar12H2Q

I was wondering if anyone else happened to record any other matches & planned to upload them?

Edit: Just saw 1094's post a page back - did you guys manage to capture all of the qualification & elimination matches?

I believe we have all of them captured, they are uploading now.. we started a new youtube account which is listed above.

If anyone needs raw footage for something, please let us know. In case you didn't know, anyone can tap into the video feed at any regional/championship event and record it. They have a dedicated 'recording station' at each event. We now use a laptop, but back in the day, we used a home DVR with a hard drive/dvd burner to capture.

See you in STL!

Feed the Fish!

DeAnna

McWilliamsK17

02-03-2014, 18:56

As the Team 171 driver, I apologize, it was not intentional (even though some think it was). During the finals matches we were playing hard. Congrats to 525, 1986 and 4926 :). I would also like to thank our own alliance 2039 Rockford Robotics and Mars Wars 4143, I don't think we could have gotten as far as we did with out you guys.

Sparky3D

02-03-2014, 19:24

We knew this regional was going to be competitive when we saw the registration list. Anyone willing to share what the best match they were part of? Good communication, good strategy session, good game play? Best shot under pressure?

I don't remember what match it happened it, but one match was tied with under 10 seconds to go, both alliances had possession of their ball and are going for a truss shot to win. The red alliance got their shot off first and it cleared the truss for 10 points. Then the blue alliance shoots their ball, and just as it leaves the robot it collides with the red ball that is coming down from the truss shot and deflects away. A few inches further over on the red ball shot and blue would have tied it up at the buzzer.

As a side note for the regional, the box lunch delivery was one of the smoothest lunch breaks I've seen for our team at a regional. Usually it is utter chaos with missing sandwiches, long walks outside in the cold, and mentors trying to corral students who "forgot" where the meeting place was. Having food delivered into the venue, and having a place to eat it right there was quite convenient.

Woolly

02-03-2014, 20:02

I don't remember what match it happened it, but one match was tied with under 10 seconds to go, both alliances had possession of their ball and are going for a truss shot to win. The red alliance got their shot off first and it cleared the truss for 10 points. Then the blue alliance shoots their ball, and just as it leaves the robot it collides with the red ball that is coming down from the truss shot and deflects away. A few inches further over on the red ball shot and blue would have tied it up at the buzzer.

I believe that was Match 27, with 1806 shooting the red alliance's ball.

audietron

02-03-2014, 21:20

That said, I'd like to thank our alliance partners 3138 and 3284. They are both excellent teams and we look forward to opportunities to work with them in the future. Our matches in quarters were hard fought and we could have won if we hadn't lost power in the second match. For that I am sorry. Our battery box broke and allowed enough movement for the connection to be broken during a hard hit from the opposing alliance.

We are sorry for any damage done to your robot, it was not intentional and are sorry for breaking any part of your robot. It was some tough quarterfinals and we had problems our selves with our shooter during the same match from all of the defense being played. Great Job and good Luck at other regionals your attend!

RyanShoff

02-03-2014, 21:22

I believe that was Match 27, with 1806 shooting the red alliance's ball.

Yes, I believe we shot the blue truss attempt that would have tied the match, but for it colliding midair with the winning red ball truss shot.

BoilerMentor

02-03-2014, 21:37

We are sorry for any damage done to your robot, it was not intentional and are sorry for breaking any part of your robot. It was some tough quarterfinals and we had problems our selves with our shooter during the same match from all of the defense being played. Great Job and good Luck at other regionals your attend!

Oh, no hard feelings what so ever. You have nothing to apologize for. The battery box was the least well thought out part of our robot. It was already damaged and we didn't think it would cause an issue, but we were wrong. The battery literally rotated 90 degrees in the box. It was a hard fought quarter finals and we finally had the strategy figured out, but it just wasn't in the cards. We were frankly a little surprised we ended up choosing our own alliance, but we ended up with quality teams. Your alliance played extraordinarily well and we were caught off guard after the first match, so it took a huge regroup to get it figured out.

Again, great work. Good luck to you at the rest of your events as well.

1975Flyers

02-03-2014, 21:38

The joy at 1:29 in the third match.

Alpha Beta

02-03-2014, 22:43

On behalf of the Regional Planning Committee...
...We knew this regional was going to be competitive when we saw the registration list. Anyone willing to share what the best match they were part of? Good communication, good strategy session, good game play? Best shot under pressure?

It took us an extra 9 hours to get home in the midst of a winter storm fittingly named Titan (http://www.weather.com/news/weather-forecast/winter-storm-titan-ice-storm-snowstorm-west-midwest-northeast-20140226). A bonding experience made a bit sweeter by the weekend's successes.

We had a great time. The enormity of the venue gave the event a very grand feel. The hospitality and professionalism of the volunteers made it easy to forget this was a 1st year event.

The level of competition was top notch, full of old friends and some very impressive new ones. Thank you 525 for inviting us to join you on the run to the regional championship. Your drive team handled their machine beautifully, and adapted well to the changing circumstances. Your whole team was a pleasure to work with from the PR department making the alliance buttons down to the scouts willing to collaborate on our pick-list. We've attended many regionals together, but this was our first time aligning in elims, and it was fun. 4296 was a great compliment to the alliance, possessing an agile drive train, quick roller intake, and a drive team with a calm focus able to switch between the triple assist and the shut down defense.

Much has been made of how over worked the officials were in this game. While I agree that a dedicated pair of score keepers would enhance the field crew, I want to give my heart felt thanks for the job they did.

On the tipping in finals. Now that the videos are up (http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnxYxpXol19JVG7sar12H2Q/videos?sort=dd&view=0&flow=list&live_view=500) I've had a chance to reflect on the robot flips. All but one of the tips were generated by bumper to bumper contact on robots that had demonstrated a CG a little higher than what their drive train depth could support. 4296 frequently popped a wheelie when changing directions, and 4134 nearly tipped over in the first final match when their partner 171 hit them right after flipping 4296. No need to vilify the drivers here, and no hard feelings. We'd gladly play with 171 in the future.

I do wish the calls for deliberate or damaging contact inside the frame perimeter would have been enforced. The one tip that wasn't bumper to bumper (http://youtu.be/J9LYpjZz0ic?t=2m18s) we thought would fit into this category. Anxious to hear what the referee's have to say at the week 2 driver's meetings regarding appendage contact inside other robots.

Extremely proud of the team. It was quite an honor to receive the Regional Chairman's Award among such a veteran group in a year when everyone can present at every event. I work with a fantastic set of mentors and students whose dedication to helping others through FIRST continues to amaze me. It is impossible to outwork this team.

Ryan Dognaux

02-03-2014, 23:40

I had access to a Google Glass during the event and recorded a few matches from the drive team coach's perspective. Here is match number 11 from start to end: http://youtu.be/ORwTxVWRt5I If anyone is interested I may upload a few more. I thought it was a pretty neat perspective to have for a video. Thanks to 1806 & 3138 for being awesome alliance partners in this match!

evand4567

03-03-2014, 01:24

I believe we have all of them captured, they are uploading now.. we started a new youtube account which is listed above.

If anyone needs raw footage for something, please let us know. In case you didn't know, anyone can tap into the video feed at any regional/championship event and record it. They have a dedicated 'recording station' at each event. We now use a laptop, but back in the day, we used a home DVR with a hard drive/dvd burner to capture.

See you in STL!

Feed the Fish!

DeAnna

can I have the footage of the 3 quarterfinals between 2022, 292, 2081, and 1786?

BoilerMentor

03-03-2014, 09:48

Several of you who have said it are right. My frustration is more with the head ref than any particular team. For that, I apologize. I imagine this would be much more heated if it had effected the outcome, but thankfully it didn't.

This is my full explanation of my feelings regarding robots tipping (how I would expect for it to have been called had it been my team being called into question). Also, I've included my thoughts on a few rules that were blatantly ignored in one case in a rude and unprofessional manner by the referees.

Ignoring the intent, when something happens in the course of game play that is advantageous for a specific alliance it has become a strategy. This is a definition I've heard multiple times from different referees/head refs. Obviously the same robot ended up on its back multiple times in different matches, so by that definition, regardless of intent, it became a strategy.

Per G27:

Strategies aimed at the destruction or inhibition of ROBOTS via attachment, damage, tipping, or entanglement of ROBOTS are not allowed.

Violation: TECHNICAL FOUL and YELLOW CARD

So at a minimum it should have been a technical foul and a yellow card simply because it happened multiple times, not because of any intent on the part of the drivers/drive team/alliance.

If you consider that robots being tipped gained a strategic advantage for the alliance now playing 3 v 2 it could be considered a strategy on the first offense. In this case it could have been (and I think would have been totally justified) a technical foul and a yellow card the first time it happened. The second would have then been a technical foul and a Yellow Card, causing a DQ with a further Red Card based on G13, because regardless of intent the strategy resulting in repeated instances of robot tipping would be egregious behavior.

I've coached for long enough to know that there is almost always time to avoid tipping an opposing robot in a two robot interaction. The GP thing to do is to back off and let them down. Defense robot to robot in stable configurations on the floor is totally acceptable, but ANYTIME our driver has a robot off of its wheels I immediately advise him to back off and we do. Our robot spent a match on its back and it isn't fun. It isn't the way we want to win either. You guys do what you feel is right and we'll do the same. I certainly don't have any trouble sleeping at night with the way we play.

On G28:

In the course of qualifications on Friday we had a robot come to rest at the completion of a match with its appendage inside of our robot. This caused cosmetic damage to our sponsor panels, but more importantly popped the HDPE trim that the ball rides on through our shooter mechanism off in one area. The referees sitting at the scoring table not only acknowledged the fact that the robot was in contact, but also grinned. No technical foul was called. The head referee claimed he didn't see it, which is ridiculous, considering that the robots came to rest that way. The point of the rule is not to react to damage to robots, but discourage the damage from happening, at least that is our interpretation and the interpretation of the rule I've heard from reliable, knowledgeable sources, so it should have been called if there was even a question of damage. I'm sorry to hear that there were even more serious instances of this being ignored. 1736 built a heck of a robot. The only drivetrain we really ever struggled to control in defensive interactions in the course of qualification play.

G20 was also not being enforced. Teams repeatedly lost bumpers and continued to play. The rule is clear:

ROBOTS must be in compliance with Section 4.6: BUMPER Rules throughout the MATCH.

Violation: DISABLED

No interpretation required. If you lose a bumper, you're in violation, you pose a risk to other robots, you should be disabled. It happened many, many times with no instances of robots being disabled that I'm aware of.

This game is rough. Totally open field means very high speed robot to robot interaction. Bumpers have to be tough and rigidly mounted. I hope things calm down as the season wears on, because this is not battle bots and it was starting to feel that way.

Best of luck to all the teams of CIR with the rest of their season.

dsergison

03-03-2014, 11:21

"That escalated quickly"

Bruce Newendorp

03-03-2014, 18:55

Thanks to Tim Koch and the rest of the planning team for a great event. Everything was well organized and ran smoothly. The staff and volunteers were all very gracious and helpful. The venue was a bit chilly in the morning but warmed up nicely throughout the day. The team social was a nice addtion - it reminds us of previous years when these were common.

We had a great time working with 1986 and 4296 in the elimination matches. It was nice to be able to partner with our friends from Titanium instead of playing against them in eliminations at our previous regionals. It was awesome to see the drive teams working together to form a strategy and adapt as needed when opponents or situations change. The matches were intense for all involved and are typical of how these events go on Saturday afternoon. The game rules this year allow tough defense so it's up to us to make sure our robots are ready for it. Matches like these expose our weak points we need to design out in the future. Thanks to 171, 4143, and 2039 for the exciting finals matches.

Congratulations to Team Titanium on receiving the Regional Chairman's Award - well deserved.

My personal highlight was being able to welcome my wonderful wife Jan to the field when she received the CIR Woodie Flowers Finalist Award. Woodie presenting it made it even more special.

kylelanman

03-03-2014, 20:03

G20 was also not being enforced. Teams repeatedly lost bumpers and continued to play. The rule is clear:

ROBOTS must be in compliance with Section 4.6: BUMPER Rules throughout the MATCH.

Violation: DISABLED

This was due largely impart to the fact that the FMS did not allow the head ref or the score keeper to disable a robot without disqualifying them. If the bumper violation occurred early on in the match the head ref would go over to the player station and demand the team press or press the E-Stop button for the team. If the bumper violation occurred towards the end of the match the head ref did not bother to disable the robot because of the amount of time it took to walk over to the player station press the E-Stop button.

Gregor

03-03-2014, 20:26

This was due largely impart to the fact that the FMS did not allow the head ref or the score keeper to disable a robot without disqualifying them. If the bumper violation occurred early on in the match the head ref would go over to the player station and demand the team press or press the E-Stop button for the team. If the bumper violation occurred towards the end of the match the head ref did not bother to disable the robot because of the amount of time it took to walk over to the player station press the E-Stop button.

Seriously?... What's the point in having a disablement punishment in the rules, if the team has to disable themselves. Why didn't the FTA disable them?

BoilerMentor

03-03-2014, 21:09

This was due largely impart to the fact that the FMS did not allow the head ref or the score keeper to disable a robot without disqualifying them. If the bumper violation occurred early on in the match the head ref would go over to the player station and demand the team press or press the E-Stop button for the team. If the bumper violation occurred towards the end of the match the head ref did not bother to disable the robot because of the amount of time it took to walk over to the player station press the E-Stop button.

That is unreal. My understanding is that the head ref, under no circumstances should leave his post at mid field this year, especially with the responsibilities on the tablet there. I was pretty shocked to see him moving around the field. That said, obviously FIRST needs to make a real solution to this problem if that is indeed the case.

RyanShoff

03-03-2014, 21:33

In addition, I would like to apologize about any damage that we caused during the entire regional from defense, I know our robot took a lot of damage through out the weekend and has caused us to prepare to make a lot of fixes at our next regional, thankfully these robots are able to take a fair amount of a beating.

Chances are, our pits will be right next to each other at Wisconsin. It'll be fun comparing bent parts coming off the robots. I thought about challenging you to a race to see who could make the first practice match, but there is little chance we'll make one.

You might want to consider some "curb feeler" posts on the corners of your frame riding about an 1/8" over the carpet. Your wheels must in real far in, or you have a lot of drop in your center wheel. You practically tip over when you change direction. People kept hitting our climbing robot last year, and the colored discs would fly out. We added "curb feelers", and we lost a lot less discs.

No hard feeling from 4143. We'll gladly play with you, or cleanly against you at Wisconsin. Good luck at St. Louis. Hopefully we'll see you there.

Gutsyten42

03-03-2014, 21:52

This was a great competition and I'd like to thank anyone and everyone who helped put on the event. It was a lot of fun and I look forward to next year CIR. I'd also like to thank our alliance partners 171 and 4143, you guys were a great alliance and I can't wait to see you guys at Milwaukee. Congratulations to 525, 4926, and 1986, you guys played extremely well and going into that last match I had no idea which alliance was going to win, I hope to see you at Championships (if my team wins at Milwaukee that is). And again congratulations to 1986 on the Chairman's win, we were hoping to win it, but I'm glad to see how close we were to the team that won. To all other teams I wish you a good season and we will see any of you that are going to Milwaukee there.

jeremylee

03-03-2014, 21:58

1736 built a heck of a robot. The only drivetrain we really ever struggled to control in defensive interactions in the course of qualification play.

Thanks! We put more focus on drivetrain this year and are happy with our kitbot on steroids. I think part of it was our driver Dan though. I think he has the knack (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmYDgncMhXw).

You guys had a great drivetrain too. I recall Dan not being too excited to start the quals against you guys after the practice matches.

I'm curious, how did the blue nitrile hold up? Is this your first year using it?

Cataclysmatic

03-03-2014, 22:14

Chances are, our pits will be right next to each other at Wisconsin. It'll be fun comparing bent parts coming off the robots. I thought about challenging you to a race to see who could make the first practice match, but there is little chance we'll make one.

You might want to consider some "curb feeler" posts on the corners of your frame riding about an 1/8" over the carpet. Your wheels must in real far in, or you have a lot of drop in your center wheel. You practically tip over when you change direction. People kept hitting our climbing robot last year, and the colored discs would fly out. We added "curb feelers", and we lost a lot less discs.

No hard feeling from 4143. We'll gladly play with you, or cleanly against you at Wisconsin. Good luck at St. Louis. Hopefully we'll see you there.

Wait... we are supposed to plan for time for practice matches? I thought that first day was fix the robot day ;)

Yeah, we have a few (a lot) of changes that we are planning out prior to Wisconsin that we plan on implementing.

Don't expect any less defense from us though, just more clean defense ... and possibly stronger :rolleyes:

Regarding the tipping, there's a couple things wrong with the robot currently, and I will relay your recommendations to the rest of my team to check out... a lot of it is also that prior to the regional, I had about 10 minutes worth of real drive time with the robot and still don't really have a feel for driving it (First year as the driver)

See you there... along with the rest of your alliance from CIR haha.

BoilerMentor

03-03-2014, 23:04

Thanks! We put more focus on drivetrain this year and are happy with our kitbot on steroids. I think part of it was our driver Dan though. I think he has the knack (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmYDgncMhXw).

You guys had a great drivetrain too. I recall Dan not being too excited to start the quals against you guys after the practice matches.

I'm curious, how did the blue nitrile hold up? Is this your first year using it?

Our blue nitride should last at least one more event thankfully, as there is 216"^2 on the robot. We love our blue nitrile. HBR has been using it for at least 6 years. We have a heck of a driver too. This is his third year. The drivetrain on this robot is tough to keep on the ground with the torque and traction it has, but he is adjusting to it. 6 cims with an 18.75:1 reduction was kind of a sick fantasy that just happened to come true this year. I like.

BoilerMentor

04-03-2014, 11:25

This was due largely impart to the fact that the FMS did not allow the head ref or the score keeper to disable a robot without disqualifying them. If the bumper violation occurred early on in the match the head ref would go over to the player station and demand the team press or press the E-Stop button for the team. If the bumper violation occurred towards the end of the match the head ref did not bother to disable the robot because of the amount of time it took to walk over to the player station press the E-Stop button.

If they unchecked the box prior to submitting final match scoring it doesn't apply the DQ, so it could be used to disable, then unchecked at the completion of the match.

J-Blondie

04-03-2014, 13:15

I sincerely hope that reffing gets better for Milwaukee being the same head ref. There needs to be more consistency in the calls and there needs to be calls regardless of the outcome it makes on the match.

We played a match where our robot died with a ball in it's possession. Therefore, at least two members of our alliance put up the dead ball sign including us. They then began hitting the glass with it to get the attention of the field crew/refs. With a little more than 20 seconds until the end of the match, one more score could have at least been attempted, however no ball ever got put back into play because the pedestal never lit up. Our robot was having issues, so our team went back to the pits while our two alliance partners went to the box to discuss this issue and why a ball was never allowed back into play. The story I was told was that it may have been an error on the field, however the ball being in play wouldn't have caught up with enough points and therefore there would be no match reply. Those involved can feel free to correct me if I am wrong as this was heard secondhand from a couple of people, but watching from the stands I was definitely thinking there would be a reply of the match because of no ball coming into play and was very surprised that after the amount of time it took them to bring up the final score and finish discussing everything that a reply was not going to happen. We also had a DQ on our record and were never really sure what it was for so we discussed it with the head ref who also wasn't sure. It has since been removed from our record so it was probably just a mistake and didn't really matter for us, but luckily we noticed it and were able to bring it to attention and get it off of there.

Also as far as robots taking damage. I think we can all understand that robots are supposed to be built to take the possible defense and collisions they might come up against. However I know that many teams have been surprised about the amount of defense involved in this year's game. That said, to give you an understanding about how rough it actually was out there, we now have a cRio that is unusable in a competition robot. While it is a cRio that has of course seen a couple seasons, something that was brought to light was the delamination (I think that's the right term) happening to the circuit board. This was brought to our attention by the head inspector (Al) and some of the control systems people there. While it could have been there before we even started playing this past weekend (there is a good chance it was starting anyways) there is also a possibility that it was worsened by a couple hard hits we took. There were definitely a couple of hard hits that caused us to go dead for either part of or the rest of the match. Just something to consider if you think that you're safe from damage if you build a robust enough robot...

All in all, it was a pretty good regional. Our team had fun though we didn't do all that great. 2-9-1 is a record we are definitely looking to improving for Wisconsin... Perhaps the autograph of Woodie Flowers will do us better for Wisconsin (We asked him to sign our robot) :D

gurellia53

04-03-2014, 13:41

at least two members of our alliance put up the dead ball sign including us. They then began hitting the glass with it to get the attention of the field crew/refs.

I had to call dead ball a few times with no issue. I would take the card around the driver station wall and get near enough to a corner ref where I could yell for him or her to look over and see the Dead Ball sign. Just holding the sign up to the glass was very ineffective.

J-Blondie

04-03-2014, 14:45

They might need to come up with another way entirely. As I said, it was two of our alliance members all pounding on the glass and yelling at the refs about it and trying to get their ok to release another ball. Ah well, what's done is done, I just hope they either come up with a better way or pay more attention when that happens.

PandaHatMan

04-03-2014, 15:49

The FMS and dead ball system both need work. There was one time our robot had rebooted due to low voltage, and was up and running again before they even saw the dead ball sign. Perhaps a button per alliance station would work that would trigger FMS to light up the pedestal?

The pedestal also had a long delay between scoring a ball and lighting up. I realize part of this is the refs have to count the ball as scored, but some times it took more than 10 seconds.

Nemo

04-03-2014, 16:03

From our team, congratulations to all of the teams who made this a great event. It was pretty cool to see 525 pair up with 1986 (and don't forget 4296). 525 and 1986 are both so full of super nice people that it was really cool to see them win together. Our alliance had hopes of upsetting them in the semis, but that #1 seed was simply more reliable and effective than us. If we replayed that matchup enough times, we'd eventually get lucky and win a few :)

It was great to meet some really cool teams while we were there. I got a chance to talk to people from 1756 a bunch, and they're a really cool team with a great program - thanks for the alliance invitation! 1288 is likewise a very smart bunch. It's SO much nicer to work with allies who are quick on their feet with rules and strategy. Sorry we couldn't get our auto working in the elims! We thought we had it!

Congratulations to Team 1986 on their first Chairman's Award (am I right?). I knew it was only a matter of time.

Congratulations to Jan on the Woodie Flowers trophy! No surprises there either, and no surprise that 525 now has no fewer than three WFFA recipients mentoring the team.

Congratulations to the finalist alliance on a strong performance. Our team has a bit of a new connection to 171 since their drive coach is a respected alumni of our team.

Some thoughts on the robot flipping in the finals, and this is all just my analysis, not an attempt to tell anybody the definition of right and wrong.
4296 had a tendency to tip. While their team built quite a good robot, it is possible for it to tip as a result of normal pushing on the front bumpers. That indicates that the bumpers were mounted a little too high, the CoG was too high, the CoG was too far to the rear of the robot, or some combination of those. That was evident in one of the qualifier matches prior to alliance selections, so I'd say that the #1 alliance took a knowable risk by selecting them. I don't think the first flip in Match 1 of the finals was an example of egregious behavior. I do think it would have been better for everyone if the 171 driver had had the presence of mind to realize that the robot was in the process tipping and backed off before it happened. In match 2, 171 had a blue ball they were trying to score, so I don't entirely blame them for driving through the defender on the way to their scoring zone. In match 3, the driver had already tipped 4296 twice and could be reasonably expected to know that they were tippy. I think it was unnecessary for them to plow through and tip them again, so I find that instance to warrant a penalty or yellow/red card. I can give the driver a bit of slack since finals match 3 is a really high adrenaline situation, they know they're the underdogs and they're trying to play 110%, things happen faster than people think behind the glass, and 4296+alliance own a piece of the responsibility for the existence of the tipping risk of that robot. Nevertheless, on balance I call that third tip a penalty/yellow card offense. And if the first or second ones had been called as a foul, that's life, because that's a risk you take if you tip a robot over, even if it's by accident. I fully believe 171 when they say they weren't intentionally trying to tip anybody. On the 1986 tip, it's worth noting that 171's arm was stuck in the deployed position (bent cylinders); they were not intentionally leaving it down as a battering ram. But it's a foul/card for contact inside the frame perimeter as the rules are written, and a driver has a responsibility to drive a little more carefully when their collector arm is sticking out in front of the robot. It can cause damage and tipping, which is a potential issue both from a sportsmanship perspective and from the pragmatic perspective of avoiding fouls and damage to your own robot.

In that last area, our drive team also has had a bit of a learning curve. We have talked about it some, and I think we are a little wiser now. To 1747, I wish we had gone over to your pits to apologize and try to help with repairs after we accidentally scraped off your pneumatics with our collector arm during the qualifier match. Our drivers said that they got more careful about the arm position after that, but they certainly continued to drive aggressively. If we damaged anybody else, we apologize. (we have some scars of our own)

I do hope FIRST finds a way to make this game less difficult to referee. While I did feel there were some incorrect calls and scores, I don't blame the refs for not being able to correctly do so many things at once. The system needs to be adjusted to provide some relief to the referees, who are human after all.

I have plenty of other opinions... if you want more, just ask! Okay, I'll shut up.

Mastonevich

04-03-2014, 16:45

Only because you asked, 1986 won their SECOND Chairmans Award. First was in 2009. They are a very deserving team indeed.

tanmaker

04-03-2014, 16:48

Only because you asked, 1986 won their SECOND Chairmans Award. First was in 2009. They are a very deserving team indeed.

I hear that in 2009, they had an awesome driver and Chairman's presenter in as well!

(It was me :P Brandon and Drew were the other 2 in our awesome Chairman's team)

PandaHatMan

04-03-2014, 16:54

To 1747, I wish we had gone over to your pits to apologize and try to help with repairs after we accidentally scraped off your pneumatics with our collector arm during the qualifier match.

All is good. It was a quick fix. The tanks were only held on by zip-ties. (If you didn't notice, we tied them on with rope afterwards) You guys did do a number on the compression fitting, but we had extras. Thanks for playing with us and we look forwards to competing again.

Mastonevich

04-03-2014, 16:59

Alpha Beta

04-03-2014, 17:07

...It was pretty cool to see 525 pair up with 1986 (and don't forget 4296). 525 and 1986 are both so full of super nice people that it was really cool to see them win together.

Thanks. I look forward to the day that we get to play together too.

Congratulations to Team 1986 on their first Chairman's Award (am I right?). I knew it was only a matter of time.

Actually, this was our 2nd. We won Chairman's back in 2009 before we ever won a tournament. That always reminds me of the value of building a strong foundation before reaching for on-field victories.

On the 1986 tip, it's worth noting that 171's arm was stuck in the deployed position (bent cylinders); they were not intentionally leaving it down as a battering ram. But it's a foul/card for contact inside the frame perimeter as the rules are written, and a driver has a responsibility to drive a little more carefully when their collector arm is sticking out in front of the robot. It can cause damage and tipping, which is a potential issue both from a sportsmanship perspective and from the pragmatic perspective of avoiding fouls and damage to your own robot.

It didn't look entirely premeditated. They led with their non-intake side initially but when we spun around they pursued with what ever side of the robot was most convenient. Just glad it was at the end of the match and not the beginning. We were the only functional scorer at that point.

Cataclysmatic

04-03-2014, 18:34

Regarding 4296's "Tippability", we entire agree with a lot of it, and noticed it early into friday and qualifications, sadly I had only a few minutes (Yes, minutes =/ ) worth of practice driving during the season and we had not noticed the massive problems with it. Since then, we have already planned a lot of changes, and are in the process of planning out the changes to make when we get to our second regional in Wisconsin... so don't worry Wisconsin, we hopefully won't tip as much there haha.

1986 brings up another thing that was "fun" with our last 2 matches in the finals and completely forced us into quickly changing our strategy... 1986 really was our only robot capable of shooting in the last 2 matches. 525 had a problem with their bands (all I know, didn't really ask specifics as I wasn't entirely sure how the shooter worked in the first place) resulting in their inability to shoot.
Our shooting, albeit slow/inaccurate in the qualifiers, was impossible in the finals because of an axle inside of our gear box that acted as a stop for the winch broke and we could not actually tension the bands anymore... Thankfully a little duct tape allowed us to push our shooter arms out of the way or we wouldn't of even been able to drop our intake during the finals(Which really only mattered when we were right side up haha)

Bruce Newendorp

04-03-2014, 19:10

Halfway through the timeout between F2 and F3 we realized the problem was the nut on the pot that sensed the main ball pickup arm position loosened so we lost the calibration. The arm was then too close to the ball and partially blocked the ball's path when shooting. There was not enough time to tighten and reset the calibration before F3.

Including practice matches, we had run over 20 matches before this with no problem. Unfortunately it came loose at a very bad time.

The pot body will be hot glued in place and the nut Loctited at Queen City. We usually do not Loctite the pot nuts but this may convince us to do so.

RyanShoff

04-03-2014, 19:32

One could argue that in Finals-2 blue was not awarded the correct assists points on the first cycle.

Kellen Hill

04-03-2014, 19:55

1986 has quite the streak of wins I might add:

1 2010 Minnesota North Star Regional
2 2011 Colorado Regional
3 2012 Greater Kansas City Regional
4 2012 St. Louis Regional
5 2013 Hub City Regional
6 2013 Greater Kansas City Regional
7 2013 Oklahoma Regional
8 2014 Central Illinois Regional

The secret is out, they are good!

525 is also on quite a tear over the past several years having won 7 of their last 9 events since 2010. Between 525 and 1986 there are 15 regional wins in the past 5 years.

1. 2010 Greater Kansas City
2. 2010 10,000 Lakes Finalists
3. 2011 Greater Kansas City
4. 2011 10,000 Lakes
5. 2012 Greater Kansas City Semi-Finals
6. 2012 10,000 Lakes
7. 2013 Northern Lights
8. 2013 10,000 Lakes
9. 2014 Central Illinois

I'm looking forward to seeing how 525 does with the rest of their season. I had a blast working with them in 2012. A great group of people and a very solid program. Good luck with the rest of your season Swartdogs!

jspatz1

04-03-2014, 21:40

One could argue that in Finals-2 blue was not awarded the correct assists points on the first cycle.

There was certainly a lot of that going around for everyone. Scoring errors in virtually any match you care to pick. If you watch F-3 you will find that Red was not awarded their full autonomous points (15 vs. 35). Fortunately it did not affect the outcome.

The_Marmot

04-03-2014, 22:20

Mr. Shoff, I think our alliance did not get awarded the full assist points because Rockford never possessed the ball with the robot entirely in the white zone.

As for the finals, they were very exciting and intense. There were many potential outcomes. Teamwork, chance, and strategy all took a part in the outcome. It was awesome getting that far as a 3rd year team.

-In match 3, it did look like 171 pushed 4296 over deliberately, but that was after a pushing fight.
-Us (4143) got pushed over at the 7 second mark in teleop. 4296 was heading towards us at the beginning, but 1986 and 171 got in their way. They went around them, lined up ~15 feet away and went straight for us. They were in contact for 3 seconds and pushed us back ~7 feet.
-To me, this seems like a pre-planned strategy: take out their main scorer in the beginning before they get any points (and 1 less robot defending). With assists from our teammates, we could score +80 points in tele-op, so a 50 point penalty would not compensate for the flip. The other alliance would "gain" points even with a technical foul.

-(in my opinion with no offense or accusations to any teams. It's just hard for me to imagine an accident like this early in the match)

So was it an accident or a pre-planned action? It's been greatly bothering me since the regional. Thoughts?

Tim Koch

05-03-2014, 11:04

Here is the link to the recap video that was shown just before the Awards Ceremony on Saturday. We thought you might want to see it one last time and share it with friends and family who might not have been able to make the trip with you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoMzQuV_hiE&feature=em-upload_owner

Thanks to all the Teams, families, volunteers, event staff for working together to make the Central Illinois Regional happen. We hope to work together in the future and even see you throughout this season as well. Good luck to all!

JeremyLansing

05-03-2014, 15:04

So now that I have stepped back and taken a more objective look at what happened, I want to offer my perspective of what occurred in the finals matches, as well as some of my conclusions.

First off, we did not do enough to back off after hitting 4296. They start to go up, but rather than backing off immediately to let them down, we continue pushing. This was not a result of malicious intent, but lack of driver experience, and poor coaching on my part. This was the first competition for our driver, and he did not react when he saw them going over. I needed to pull him aside after the first match and make sure he was aware that he needs to back off immediately in those situations, but I was too caught up repairing the robot and getting it ready to go back out between matches for that to occur to me. It has been said by several others that 4296 was a rather "tippy" robot. While they did show a certain instability, and I think that it was not terribly erroneous not to call a penalty after the first flip, I do believe we should have been penalized after the second time we flipped them because it was becoming repetitive, and by some definitions, a strategy. I'm going to try to work with our driver between now and Wisconsin to improve his recognition of this types of situations, and improve his ability to react and pull away from robots that have begun to tip over.

Regarding the hit on 1986 at the end of match 2. As Nemo said, our intake cylinders were already wrecked from a previous hit earlier in the match, and we had no way to raise the intake. That being said, G28 would seem to apply regardless of intent if the contact was damaging, but I will leave sorting out the enforcement problems with that particular rule to another thread.

Despite what it looked like to spectators, we did not ever enter the field with the intent of flipping a robot, nor did we ever construct a match strategy around flipping any member of the opposing alliance. I got angry when I saw what I believed to be people on Chief Delphi characterizing our team and the way we behave based upon what occurred on field. I apologize for that, and I hope this will help everyone understand what went on behind our driver's station during those three matches. I would never want to win a regional in that way, and I have nothing but the utmost respect for 525, 1986, and 4296.

To our alliance partners 4143 and 2039, you guys were awesome. It was amazing to play on an alliance with so much strategic flexibility and I think that was one of our greatest assets. I look forward to playing with both of you at Wisconsin.

Despite what happened, I think this year is a very good game, with lots of ways for alliances to approach it. There are some issues with enforcing penalties, and I know we had some issues with the pedestal not lighting up, but I believe those issues can be addressed. I would like to thank all those involved in making the Central Illinois Regional happen. I thought it was a very well run event, especially considering this was its inaugural year, and a week 1 event no less. I would absolutely come back to play in the "Snow Globe" next year.