2016 Central Illinois Regional

[Tim Koch]

It is almost here! Looking forward to seeing all our friends at the Central Illinois Regional at Bradley University Renaissance Coliseum. There are 40 teams representing 7 states.

For more information:

http://www.bradley.edu/FRC
http://www.ilfirst.org/frc/events/central-illinois-regional/

[Arevan]

This is by far my favorite regional to volunteer at! The venue is incredible, the teams are all pretty dang competitive, and the planning committee does an awesome job organizing it every year! I'm super excited to be back, Thursday can't come soon enough.

See you all there!

[neshera]

Webcast?
Or am I just too early, wanting to see practice matches?

[jajabinx124]

This looks like a competitive event with a bunch of competitive teams. (111, 876, 1625, 1732, 1756, 2169, 2481, 4143) I'll definitely be watching the stream for this event.

[northstardon]

Webcast?
Or am I just too early, wanting to see practice matches?

I think that practice matches start at noon. The CIR live stream is up (just not showing much at the moment): http://www.ilfirst.org/frc/events/central-illinois-regional/central-webstream.htm (http://www.ilfirst.org/frc/events/central-illinois-regional/central-webstream.html)

[jalozinski]

Is there anyone at the event using CANTalons with PID that'd be willing to help us? Given that LiveWindow isn't compatible with CANTalons, I can't think of an efficient way to tune these things.

[neshera]

Thanks, northstardon!
Can't install Flash on my work computer! :(

[ElvisMom]

Webcast?
Or am I just too early, wanting to see practice matches?

Way too early to see 1625 in practice matches.

But I'm quite enjoying the medieval background music while I work. Will post a note to Twitter and FB if the feed gets more interesting.

[Alpha Beta]

Nice quality on the webcast. Good full field view without any fish-eye distortion. What's the set-up here?

[barn34]

Nice quality on the webcast. Good full field view without any fish-eye distortion. What's the set-up here?

Thanks, Aaron. Good to know its looking good. I will see if I can get some details or you.

[Tim Koch]

Thanks for noticing and commenting on the video. Improving the web feed was a point of emphasis this year. The video feed at CIR is from the HD event camera that our A/V crew is using. We use a StarTek USB 3.0 Video Capture Device - HDMI / DVI / VGA / Component HD Video Recorder - 1080p 60fps (about $250) for the broadcast.

[Ryan Dognaux]

Thanks for noticing and commenting on the video. Improving the web feed was a point of emphasis this year. The video feed at CIR is from the HD event camera that our A/V crew is using. We use a StarTek USB 3.0 Video Capture Device - HDMI / DVI / VGA / Component HD Video Recorder - 1080p 60fps (about $250) for the broadcast.

This is great information, thank you! Are you guys using multiple of these devices - one for the real time score display and one for your high definition camera? Also curious how you're combining the video streams together to output them onto UStream. Always interested in other setups so we can improve ours :] The home viewer experience for CIL is fantastic right now.

[CalTran]

What happened to the wide view from practice day? :(

[jajabinx124]

Congrats to 2481, 876, and 2220 for winning the regional! Another congrats to 2220 for winning the chairman's award.

[Chief Hedgehog]

Did they accidentally tip their caps to 2220 when they announced them for Winners? The announcer stated that their winning CIR opened a wild card spot - but they had yet to announce CA.

Anyone else catch that - and I am understanding that wrong? 2220 is going to Iowa, but they didn't compete prior to this.

[jajabinx124]

Did they accidentally tip their caps to 2220 when they announced them for Winners? The announcer stated that their winning CIR opened a wild card spot - but they had yet to announce CA.

Anyone else catch that - and I am understanding that wrong? 2220 is going to Iowa, but they didn't compete prior to this.

I caught that as well and was heavily confused until they mentioned 2220 for CA, so they did tip their caps off I think.

[dodar]

Did they accidentally tip their caps to 2220 when they announced them for Winners? The announcer stated that their winning CIR opened a wild card spot - but they had yet to announce CA.

Anyone else catch that - and I am understanding that wrong? 2220 is going to Iowa, but they didn't compete prior to this.

Ive heard this happen before as well. It's a freudian slip that just happens sometimes.

[SharonO]

Up Next had such a great time playing at the Central Illinois Regional for the second time. The competition here was intense. So many more high goal shooters from the start than we faced just a week ago in Kansas City. By the time Saturday afternoon rolled in, these teams had their shooters dialed in. Also, many more climbers in Illinois. The only way we were able to stay competitive was to run fast cycle times to weaken the tower for capture.

2481 once again has built an amazing machine. Undefeated, and NOT a low-bar robot. Their alliance partners 876 and 2220 were a tough group of robots. Congratulations also to RAS winner- 5822, EI winner- 2081, and Chairman's Award winner- 2220. (yep, there was a definite blooper on the wild-card announcement) We wish you all the best of luck in St. Louis.

Many thanks to our #4 alliance captain- 1625 Winnovation. It was great sharing the same field with you (along with the same hotel). Some awesome defense was played by the 3rd member of our alliance- 4212 Techno Ferrets.

We are sad that our Stronghold season is now finished, but we wish all of the CIR teams that still have competitions ahead of them the best of luck! Chief Delphi, if you are competing against any of these teams in the coming weeks, watch out!

[Truelight]

Did they accidentally tip their caps to 2220 when they announced them for Winners? The announcer stated that their winning CIR opened a wild card spot - but they had yet to announce CA.

Anyone else catch that - and I am understanding that wrong? 2220 is going to Iowa, but they didn't compete prior to this.

Yes we did notice this, we were pretty sure at the time that it meant we had won either RCA or EI. It makes you wonder why they didn't just wait until after Chairman's was announced like they did with 2826 at North Star last year when they won both Chairman's and the regional.

[barn34]

What a great 3rd annual CIR event. Massive thanks to all the great volunteers who helped make the event run smooth as possible and helped make it an amazing experience for the entire roster of inspiring teams in attendance.

Big thanks go out to our amazing alliance partners from 876 and 2220.

It was great to finally team up with 876 on an elim alliance. You've got a very good robot this year and your drive team just kept picking up the consistency match after match really making it shine. Amazing team to work with and the Roboteers will look forward to any opportunities to do so again in the future. Good luck and we will see you in St. Louis!

2220, you guys were once again great partners and played a great support role for our alliance. We were ecstatic to see your number still available on the board at pick 16. You were great to work with last year and this year was more of the same, as expected. Amazing job, guys. Also, massive congrats on also winning the Regional Chairman's Award!!! Very well deserved. We will continue to look forward to any opportunity we get to share the field with you guys in the future. Best of luck and we will see you again in St. Louis!

I also cannot say enough about all of our friends on the amazing finalist alliance from 1756, 1736, and 4156. Those were some hard fought finals matches, and it was a ton of fun sharing the field with all 3 of you guys for them. Incredible job!

Congrats to Argos on earning a spot in St. Louis by way of the wild card. Best of luck at Midwest and we look forward to seeing you in St. Louis!

1736, its always a blast competing with you guys. While your spirit is amazing (as always) and your robot is great, that driver station was without equal. That truly is some award winning bacon, and well deserved! ;)

[Tim Koch]

Thanks again to all the volunteers. We had an especially gratifying showing of FIRST alumni that came and provided support where ever it was needed. We had some really tired field reset folks after 3 days of moving defenses and a number of alums back-filled field reset positions on Saturday.

Thanks to all the teams for a great event. I wasn't able to watch a lot of the matches, but every time I looked at the scores I was impressed. If you attended the event, you may want to check out the Insights for the event on Blue Alliance. I think you will also be impressed by the caliber of teams and level of play at CIR.

https://www.thebluealliance.com/event/2016ilpe#event-insights

[DohertyBilly]

Does anyone know if the webcast was archived? There were some fantastic matches that I'd like to be able to see again.

[Tartan47]

Does anyone know if the webcast was archived? There were some fantastic matches that I'd like to be able to see again.

I wouldnt consider this an official source but it looks like they are bring posted under this playlist on the Roboteers Youtube channel currently: 2016 Central Illinois Regional CIR Matches: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGEVWSs4MszgFkssObbOd4Xts47NMjgIG

[ElvisMom]

Have to echo an earlier comment - this venue for CIR is great. My 9th year as a parent/mentor and this is by far the best arena for FRC I've seen. Comfortable seats with drink holders, large mezzanine with tables and chairs in the arena, multiple large viewing screens with crystal clear displays. Glad we were able to attend this year. Kudos for the organizing committee for their work.

[Captain_Kirch]

I'd like to take an opportunity to thank our alliance partners, 3528 Up Next and 4212 Techno Ferrets.

3528, you guys blew away even our highest expectations. Your team carried the brunt of both breaches and captures. Even though we didn't receive bonus points in all of our matches together, without you there it would have never been a possibility.

4212, you played some of the best defense I've seen. Yet again, we couldn't have asked for more. You single-handedly shut down the scoring potential of our opponents in every match. I only wish we could have played more matches together.

We had a great weekend, thank you all for such a great time. I hope we can see you all again next year!

-Aaron Kirch, Team 1625

[Tyler Olds]

It makes you wonder why they didn't just wait until after Chairman's was announced like they did with 2826 at North Star last year when they won both Chairman's and the regional.

Cause I'm pro level yo!

[maddoctor90]

This is great information, thank you! Are you guys using multiple of these devices - one for the real time score display and one for your high definition camera? Also curious how you're combining the video streams together to output them onto UStream. Always interested in other setups so we can improve ours :] The home viewer experience for CIL is fantastic right now.

A couple of things I will add about the webcast setup. We had one of the USB3HDCAP USB 3.0 Video Capture Devices connected to a laptop running Open Broadcaster. If you are wanting to use this device, please make sure to read all the documentation on the website before purchasing. This device will only work with USB 3.0 and is not capitable with ASmedia or Etron USB 3.0 controllers. I also have found that it can be really finicky to get working correctly. When you are lucky, it is possible to have two of them connected to the same computer. At CIR we had a high def feed via HDMI coming from the AV crew per our request. We also requested the full field view with score overlay during matches and for the most part they stuck to it.

I wouldnt consider this an official source but it looks like they are bring posted under this playlist on the Roboteers Youtube channel currently: 2016 Central Illinois Regional CIR Matches: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGEVWSs4MszgFkssObbOd4Xts47NMjgIG

All of the remaining match videos will hopefully be uploaded by tomorrow morning.

[Tim Koch]

Here is the link to the 2016 Central Illinois Regional Recap video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYsuCb66Y6M

[thor876]

The Central Illinois Regional was run very well. It is an outstanding venue that had an terrific field of tough teams.
A big thanks to our winning Alliance partners 2481 and 2220!