GRITS 2014

[ghostmachine360]

Just wanted to put this up for any teams interested in hitting up the ATL & GeorgiaFIRST Robotics for a last chance to play Aerial Assault. Oh wait, I meant Aerial Assist, sorry. Still suffering memory loss (https://p.gr-assets.com/540x540/fit/hostedimages/1380403878/785832.gif) from being hit in the face with a AA ball. My bad.

GRITS 2014 - FRC Off Season Event
Robots Southern Style

WHAT: The 5th Annual GRITS FRC Off-Season Competition, planned and organized by GeorgiaFIRST and the Georgia FIRST FRC Planning committee volunteers and graciously hosted by the 100 Black Men of Atlanta & 100 Scholars Robotics Alliance-Team 3091 as part of their week of activities that leads up to the Atlanta Football Classic.
WHEN: Saturday, Oct. 4, 2014 (Friday, Oct. 3 from 4-7:30pm is an optional load in and practice day for teams)
WHERE: Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, GA
COST: FREE to spectators!
REGISTRATION FEE: $300 due by September 20th.
Pre-Rookies: Free!
2nd Robot Entries per Team if slots are still available after Regular Registration: $300

So, who's thinking of signing up and joining us in Atlanta, or has already made the move and signed up?

[JohnFogarty]

Once we start up here in the next week or so I'll make sure to finalize our plans, but 4901 is more than likely attending.

[Anupam Goli]

Will you waive the fee for rookies? Looks like you will need more teams:D

Registration just opened, and I know plenty of teams are planning on attending, so I don't think a lack of teams will be a problem.

1648 is definitely attending, and we're making some massive changes to our robot. GRITS is a great testing ground for new ideas and designs. Hopefully we'll have everything up and running by the time the competition rolls around.

[Kellen Hill]

For anybody searching for easier access, here is the link for GRITS registration: http://www.gafirst.org/index.php/news/113-register-now-for-grits-2014

1746 is planning to attend.

[ttldomination]

Is there a teams list yet?

- Sunny G.

[FrankJ]

2974 will be there.

[pimathbrainiac]

1127 will be there!

[ehoyla]

1311 will be there!!!:)

[Kellen Hill]

No word yet on the team list, but I did hear today that 18 of the 25 available spots have been taken.

[cameron.lynn]

Last I heard from the mentors, team 4941 was signing up to attend!

[zachrobo1]

CircuitRunners will be there with our GRITS Offseason team as well as (hopefully!!) our CircuitBreakers rookie program driving last season's bot. (Fingers crossed for an open space)

[zachrobo1]

The team list has been posted. (http://www.gafirst.org/index.php/events/frc/grits/registered-teams)

3091 100 Scholars Robotics Alliance
1002 CircuitRunners
4188 Columbus Robotics Alliance
4112 Eaglebots
4468 Fernbank LINKS
1746 Forsyth Alliance
5219 Future WARbots
1648 G3 Robotics
5109 Gladiator Robotics
1311 Kell Robotics
1127 Lotus Robotics
4509 Mechanical Bulls
832 Oscar
4910 Pope Robotics
2556 RadioActive Roaches
4080 REBOOT
1261 Robo Lions
4941 RoboBibb
3344 Robocop
3581 Sumdroids
4148 SWAGbots
1638 Techno Titans
4730 Terminators
4026 The Global Dynamics
20150067 TITANS
2974 Walton Robotics

Anyone know who "20150067 TITANS" are? Perhaps we have a new rookie team joining us?

[Kevin Pardus]

The team list has been posted. (http://www.gafirst.org/index.php/events/frc/grits/registered-teams)

3091 100 Scholars Robotics Alliance
1002 CircuitRunners
4188 Columbus Robotics Alliance
4112 Eaglebots
4468 Fernbank LINKS
1746 Forsyth Alliance
5219 Future WARbots
1648 G3 Robotics
5109 Gladiator Robotics
1311 Kell Robotics
1127 Lotus Robotics
4509 Mechanical Bulls
832 Oscar
4910 Pope Robotics
2556 RadioActive Roaches
4080 REBOOT
1261 Robo Lions
4941 RoboBibb
3344 Robocop
3581 Sumdroids
4148 SWAGbots
1638 Techno Titans
4730 Terminators
4026 The Global Dynamics
20150067 TITANS
2974 Walton Robotics

Anyone know who "20150067 TITANS" are? Perhaps we have a new rookie team joining us?

20150067 is a Temporary Registration Number given to a group trying to establish an FRC team for the 2015 season. A permanent 4-digit number is only given once the formal team registration process is completed; that includes Regional/District event & KoP-Kickoff registrations, plus event payment.

[ghostmachine360]

These are the rule changes for the GRITS off-season, adopted from the IRI rule changes with tiny revisions.

Rule Changes

1. There is no zone requirement for possession/assists.

2. A trussed ball which is untouched by another robot and enters the low goal will be considered scored.

3. G12 will be modified so that an immediately rectified possession of the opposing alliance ball will not be penalized.

4. The Violation portion of G20 will be modified :
Violation: Minor violations will result in a Foul. Loss of a bumper during a match could result in DISABLE depending on the aggressive behavior during the match.

5. Elimination Alliances are 4 teams. The Alliance captain determines which teams play each match however; every team must play in at least one elimination match.

6. One member from the non-playing team may be part of the drive team group and will be considered a COACH.

7. Draft order is 1-4, 4-1, 1-4.

8. No Time Outs in Eliminations – The Alliance Must Use Their 4th Robot.

GRITS Programs

This year at GRITS, we will again offer the Shadow a referee program. Students will have the opportunity to sign up for a qualifier match to shadow a ref.

In the coming weeks, watch for details of this program and all GRITS info at gafirst.org - Events - FRC - GRITS.

Remember, to complete your GRITS registration, payment of $300 must be received at GeorgiaFIRST by Sept. 20th.

[MARS_James]

Rule Changes

5. Elimination Alliances are 4 teams. The Alliance captain determines which teams play each match however; every team must play in at least one elimination match.
.

Does that mean that if the match of 1v4 results in 1 winning the first match 4 is forced to play their back up bot for the second match, but 1 does not since they have the option of playing their back up bot in the finals?

[Anupam Goli]

Does that mean that if the match of 1v4 results in 1 winning the first match 4 is forced to play their back up bot for the second match, but 1 does not since they have the option of playing their back up bot in the finals?

Im against a rule making playing a backup bot mandatory in general, but the way georgia ftc does it in state champs is to require all bots to have played in the first two rounds in each eliminations series.

[pimathbrainiac]

I think the backup bot on each alliance is a great idea for off-season events, personally (The bias being that we were the highest seeded team not to get picked for both FIRST 2013 and GRITS 2013).

Rule changes 1 and 2 are the most interesting, though. They should lead to some interesting games (higher defensive and offensive potential). I like the change to G12, since there were a lot of penalties last year due to accidental possessions.

[orangemoore]

Im against a rule making playing a backup bot mandatory in general, but the way georgia ftc does it in state champs is to require all bots to have played in the first two rounds in each eliminations series.

That's for all FTC competitions that have 3 robot alliances.

[Weinberger]

Re: Team list edit

1683 - Techno Titans

http://technotitans.org
http://www.thebluealliance.com/team/1683

Looks like a great list of teams! Can't wait to play!
Especially thrilled to see 5109 Gladiator Robotics.

[ttldomination]

Is there going to be a webcast?

- Sunny G.

[zachrobo1]

I'm not sure about webcast, but I know our team will be recording match results to add to TBA.

[Kellen Hill]

Team 1746 is loaded into the event!

We will be hosting a webcast for GRITS on our Twitch account here (http://www.twitch.tv/team1746/profile).

Hopefully it works out well. This is our first time streaming anything. Let me know if you have any input throughout the day tomorrow.

[ttldomination]

Team 1746 is loaded into the event!

We will be hosting a webcast for GRITS on our Twitch account here (http://www.twitch.tv/team1746/profile).

Hopefully it works out well. This is our first time streaming anything. Let me know if you have any input throughout the day tomorrow.

Stream can be directly viewed here (http://www.twitch.tv/team1746).

- Sunny G.

[FrankJ]

Thanks to all we played with & against. It a great competition.

[Anupam Goli]

It was great to see familiar faces and meet some new people at this year's GRITS competition. It was a day filled with stress excitement, lots of robot repairs, and some hardware. First, i'd like to thank 2974, 2415, and 4941 for being great alliance partners, and especially to 2974 and 2415 for putting faith in us despite us showing less than glamorous results in qualifications. We actually came into GRITS wanting to beat 2974 and pay them back for eliminating us in quarters both times in the season, but it was great to be on the same alliance. Unfortunately, our robot went out of commission for most of the elims after the first match, and I'm sorry that we could only contribute to the strategy discussion after that point. Next time we meet up in Peachtree, we'll be prepared and ready to play our hearts out.

Overall, the event went kinda rough, and there were some good points, but there are also some points that could be improved. First, what was good:

The venue was spacious, and we weren't yelled at for taking our robot and testing it in empty spots in the venue
There was plenty of time between matches for repairs and tuning
The trophies are kinda cool. I didn't like last year's trophies as much.


What can be improved:

Match schedules came out way too late. Our team was in the first match, and we found out right after opening ceremonies. We were still testing our robot and configuring it with the field at this point. It would've been nice to know what matches we were in earlier.
It's really one of the game's follies, but the reffing was, to put it nicely, not great. To give an example, we scored all of our team's missed auto balls, and we threw a ball in to start a cycle, but the refs said we still hadn't scored out auto balls, and wouldn't count any truss or assists on the ball in play. We were also told by the head ref to throw balls that were shot out of bounds in auto, back into play, instead of waiting to throw them into a bot. Point is, reffing NEEDS to be improved.
Rankings. Rankings weren't up until the last stretch of qualification matches. Sometimes match strategies depend on who is ranked where.
The match organization. The eliminations didn't need to take so long, but almost every match our alliance played in took forever to score and half the times the scores were redacted or under dispute.

[cameron.lynn]

Thanks to 2974, 2415, and 1648 for picking us to be on y'all's alliance! We were half and half in qualifications and never expected to be picked, let alone be on the winning alliance. We can't wait to meet again in Peachtree!