Cal Games Results

[Cory]

First off, I want to thank all the teams who attended and the volunteers for making this year's Cal Games the best yet. We were a bit behind schedule, but things ran really smoothly and it was really fun. Even with the controversy surrounding the last match, the finals were really awesome.

The Results:

Winners: 968, 258, 481

Runners up: 256, 254, 100(4th year in a row! :))

Human Player Challenge: 115

Autonomous Challenge: 258

Obstacle Course: 1072? Someone help me out here.

Im so tired Im forgetting the rest...

Cory

[FotoPlasma]

Wow.

That was so much fun, despite being awake for 18 hours on 3 hours of sleep!

Many many many thanks to Woodside Robotics and Woodside High School for the best venue Cal Games has ever seen. Your team rocks, Cory (we still need to hack, dude!).

Many many many thanks to Mister Paul Copioli from team 217, the Thunderchickens, for being a great emcee (and a really cool guy).

And, as usual, thanks to the entire WRRF crew, including, but not limited to, Ken Leung (!!!), Ken Krieger (!!!), Jason Morrella (!!!), and every single participating team. The only way such an event as this could have been possible was with and by the support and hard work of the teams involved.

And now, I'd like to thank our alliance partners, team 481, De Anza High School, DART, and team 968, West Covina High!

Last, but most certainly not least, I would like to thank and congratulate every single team who participated in the entire event, in any way, shape, or form.

[Eric Reed]

Yay! Cal games was soooo much fun. We have a heap of new students on our team this year...and this was an excellent way to introduce them to robotics. Thank you Ken and crew for the hundreds of hours of effort that it took to pull this off. Woodside is a fantastic venue...thank you for opening the school to us.

Also thanks to our partners. 968 is a power house, thank you for choosing us as your partner. And Lincoln...what can I say. I remember when Bill first told me you were going to do swerve drive, way before the season started, and you pulled it off perfectly! Yours was the team we first really connected with after our rookie year, and I'm glad we got to play together. Stokely must be proud.

And... The winner of the Human challenge was actually 1151, Middle College. The Hitchhikers rock.

Eric Reed
De Anza High School

[Alaina]

I must say, that was the funnestest competition I've been to all year. It was so good to see all of my robotics buddies again and I'm so glad there are people dedicated enough to make events like this happen. Thanks^100 to all the volunteers. :]

And, Eric, I agree with you, we brought a bunch of new members as well. I think they had a pretty good time, and now they know what FIRST is about, and they'll stop asking if it's anything like BattleBots...

[Winged Globe]

Thank you Mr. Reed. :)

Our first Cal Games was terrific. Many thanks to WRRF and Woodside High for hosting a wonderful event. It has left us with a great first experience of off-season competition, and we will definitely be back next year. Our newer members were quite impressed with the atmosphere and people in the competition, and most seem commited to stick around for the spring.

Thanks to 192, 100, and 254 for helping to get us motors early in the morning after we busted both of ours. And still more thanks to 100 for saving us yet again with replacement FIRST gearbox bearing holders that kept us in the competition.

Thanks to our alliance partners 846 and 115 for a good run. And thank you to everyone else who helped to make Cal Games a great experience.

P.S. De Anza's great! You guys saved our behinds again, and again, and again, and again....

[GryphonthePure]

just out of curiousity, what is the Autonomous mode record time?
(and what about the telescoping arm? that was pretty damned fast)
(oh, and thanks to everyone because I feel peer pressure to do so)

[Cory]

I think the fastest time was 2.2 by 258, although 252 (The 2nd 254 bot) supposedly unofficially did 2.0. I heard from the 980 people that they got to the stacks with their arm in 1.5-1.8 seconds

Cory

[sanddrag]

I don't know exactly what happened at CalGames but I can gaurantee that the statement by the 980 people was correct at the LA regional. That thing is awesome. It was really funny: at Phoenix they hadn't yet worked in limit switches or stops and that thing was spinning wildly. Judges were ducking for cover and FIRST staff was fleeing the fieldside. Almost clipped a cameraman too. I believe they actually stoppped one match because that arm was coming close to hitting so many people. I love it!:D

[Cory]

Sanddrag... where was your team. You not notifying the event organizers that you werent coming screwed quite a few teams who had to "compete" with you and ended up being double teamed. Luckily everyone made the finals.

Cory

[sanddrag]

OMG my team signed up?!?!? I assure you that I will investigate the incident fully and the individual resposible for this will have a serious talking to. That is not how we usually run business. I am terribly sorry for the confusion and I will look into what exactly happened. We were never supposed to be going and apparently someone sent the wrong message to WRRF. On behalf of my team, once again I am terribly sorry for the false signup and I hope you will not take this as a reflection of the quality of my team.

[Ken Leung]

Originally posted by Cory
I think the fastest time was 2.2 by 258, although 252 (The 2nd 254 bot) supposedly unofficially did 2.0. I heard from the 980 people that they got to the stacks with their arm in 1.5-1.8 seconds

Cory

The Autonomous Mode Challenge measure the amount of time a robot takes from the start of the match, till the time their front wheel touch the top of the HDPE surface. Each robot was timed during their last three matches, and the fastest time of the 3 matches is their official score.

[Kevin A]

I would like to thank WRRF and everyone involved for a great event! It allowed us to let most of the members on our team drive or atleast be behind the plexi.

I would like to thank our alliance partners who brought us to the top, 968 and 258. I would also like to thank Bill Gold for being an awsome person and a great help.

[sanddrag]

(not that the others aren't) but 968 is a great bunch of people with some really great mentors and a really great robot. Way to go! I'm so proud my team had the honor of playing with you till the last match in LA.

[Bill Gold]

Okay. I'm going to try this again (our power went out after I had typed part of a huge post).

I would like to thank the following people/groups of people (the order is random. sorry if you're down there somewhere):

Ken Leung - You did a great job of delegating duties to people that enabled the WRRF to pull off a flawless event. Yeah, a few things behind the scenes weren't the way you wanted them to be, but that's alright. No event is perfect, but you did such a great job that no one outside a small group of people noticed an imperfection. Even though you don't want to be one, you're an Unsung FIRST Hero to me :).

Jason Morrella - What can I say? Your organization, logistical endeavors, and keen insight as a member of FIRST is a huge factor in helping this event realize how many volunteers/etc. are needed and in what capacities to run a successful event. Your work as an advisor and the veteran field manager (and match queuer when need be) was very much appreciated by everyone involved in the event. You're definitely another FIRST hero. Oh. I hope you liked those Krispy Kreme doughnuts I got you Saturday morning :).

Ken Krieger - Even though he probably won't read this, I think I should thank him here. Even though he's the WRRF President, and not in charge of the event, he always had his head into discussions and meetings critical to the running of the event. He did a lot of manual labor (along with Ken Leung, Andy Lee, and me) dealing with the carpets before the competition, and he assembled a crack team of organizers and A/V people for this event.

Paul Copioli - Thank you for making the trip out west to help out by being a wonderful MC. You were hilarious. I'm glad I finally met you in person (and am now allowed to make fun of you on these boards ;)). Also, like Jim said earlier, thanks for being such an awesome person in general. It was great fun talking to you away from the competition. Thanks for the constructive criticism that you passed along after the event on Saturday. That really meant a lot to me. I look forward to competing with you in the future.

Woodside's Robotics Team & Woodside High School - Thanks for being such gracious hosts. Your hard work was much appreciated by everyone involved in running and participating in the event.

Everyone who setup and tore down - It was tough trying to get the field up starting at ~6pm, but thank you for all your hard work. It's a pain in the butt to lug plywood, carpets, field pieces, and field electronics all over the place, but someone had to do it. Thank you again. Thanks especially to people from Woodside (100), MVRT (115), GRT (192), The Cheesy Poofs (254), and The Hitch Hikers (1151). And individual thanks to the Kens and company for working through the night to assure a successful event. You all are amazing. I almost forgot... HUGE THANKS to those of you who stayed at Woodside through the night making sure everything would work for the event. My hat is off to you (and I'm sure you know how hard that is ;))

The volunteers from Southern California - Thank you all for making the drive or flight up north to help us out. Special thanks to Sean (even though he had to catch a flight back Saturday afternoon), Ken Berry, Nancy, and the throng of kids from team #22 led by Wendy Wooten. This event wouldn't have been possible without each and every one of you. Thank you again.

Team #968 - Many thanks to Travis and company for selecting my team as a playoff alliance partner. It was an honor to be paired with such a strong team for the playoffs. It was amazing when your team pushed 481 up to the plateau in the semi-finals! Thanks for being such great people and great competitors.

Team #481 - Thank you guys for contributing to an amazing playoff run. Thank you for a perfectly played first match of the finals. That autonomous mode of yours, and the interference you ran on our opponents was just what our alliance needed in that match. Great driving guys. It was extra special to me, personally, that we won our first event in our team's history with your team as one of our partners. I'd also like to more specifically thank Eric Reed and Kevin Antaki of De Anza Robotics for their kind words earlier in this thread. I'm sure Stokely would be proud, but I haven't been able to get through to him on his cell yet. I guess I'll have to drop him an email soon. I'm not sure what I did to help, Kevin, but I hope I can do more to help you and anyone who asks me for help in the future. I'm glad your team feels the same connection with us during competitions as our team feels with yours. It's too bad our teams aren't closer geographically.

Many, many, many thanks to Joseph Strong (GryphonthePure) of 258 - Without your badass autonomous mode programming skills (jesus... 2.03 seconds to the HDPE... that was incredible.), we wouldn't have won. You did an awesome job this year. I'm really proud of you.

Everyone on our team who was present the first time we ran our swerve - It was ~3am. Jim Gold, Mike Olliffe, and Mark Whitehouse: you guys are hardcore.

Jim Gold - Thank you for putting up with me. I think I know how much of a tall order that is. You're an awesome brother, and an even better team mate. I'm really glad that we work well together. You've got insights and skills that are integral to the success of our team. I hope you realize that. Keep up the wonderful work, and I hope you can keep contributing and help teach our students about all technical aspects of robotics (especially electronics, and programming ;)).

Harry Garland, Alex Ko, Roy Nangoy, & Walter Steever - Thanks to all of you for being at the competition, and helping us overcome our technical difficulties. Without Harry's help the past two years we would not have a school advisor (even though he's a volunteer, not a teacher), and consequentially wouldn't have a team. Thanks for all of your help on our electronics, and your hard work helping us fabricate parts. Without Roy designing those bearing covers for our swerve, we would have been dead after that bearing flew out in our fifth or sixth match (the only match that our autonomous mode failed). Without Alex's help over the past 4 years, we wouldn't have a team today. I can't thank him enough for the many hours he puts into helping our team. Without Walter's generosity and hard work we would be building robots out of cheap plywood using hand drills and exacto knives. Thank you for the pieces you made for us, and for the horizontal band saw and milling machine. You're all incredible.

Caroline Conley - To be honest, when you said you thought we'd win Cal Games, I was less than confident... but you were right. Thank you for being so supportive during the build period. I'm sorry we couldn't talk more on Friday and Saturday.

I know there are people I'm forgetting, but my tired mind is drawing a blank right now. Sorry.

[Ken Leung]

Here is the list of award winners for the 4th Annual California Robot Games 2003:

Stack Attack Tournament Champion: team 968, 258, 481
Stack Attack Tournament Finalist: team 256, 254, 100

Driver Challenge Obstacle Course Champion: team 1072
Driver Challenge Obstacle Course Finalist: team 1120

Robot Sumo Wrestling Champion: team 968
Robot Sumo Wrestling Finalist: team 980

Human Player Challenge Champion: team 1151
Human Player Challenge Finalist: team 115

Autonomous Mode Challenge Champion: team 258

Highest Seeded Rookie: team 1151

[ppy]

I've posted a selection of the pictures I took of the 4th WRRF California Robot Games (Sat 9.20.2003 at Woodside HS) at:
http://wrrf.cim3.org/files/pics/wrrf-calgames4_20030920a/

[Bill Gold]

Originally posted by Ken L
Here is the list of award winners for the 4th Annual California Robot Games 2003:

Stack Attack Tournament Champion: team 968, 258, 481
Stack Attack Tournament Finalist: team 256, 254, 100

Driver Challenge Obstacle Course Champion: team 1072
Driver Challenge Obstacle Course Finalist: team 1120

Robot Sumo Wrestling Champion: team 968
Robot Sumo Wrestling Finalist: team 980

Human Player Challenge Champion: team 1151
Human Player Challenge Finalist: team 115

Autonomous Mode Challenge Champion: team 258

Highest Seeded Rookie: team 1151
WRRF Volunteer of the Year: Norma Hammes (Bill Gold & FotoPlasma's [Jim Gold] mother)

[Bill Gold]

I almost forgot... I wanted to thank whoever was watching the video feed in the pits of our first match and after seeing our autonomous mode hit the wall in barely over 2 seconds said "[Dang]! That was fast!" It made my day when I heard about that from my dad :).

[jentz]

I have to give kudos to Woodside, for not only providing the school site, but for also setting up the food service. You guys did a lot of work (setting up the grill, the carts, etc.) , and I enjoyed making pancake batter at 6 AM :D (BAGEL BURGER!)

BTW, interesting coop-op food effort. Anyone interested for WRRF meetings?

[DougHogg]

Thank you everyone for a great event. We had a lot of fun. During the elimination rounds, I was running around in high gear finding spare motors, getting more batteries and feeling like we were in the finals at the nationals. It was very exciting.

Also the side events were first class. Great ideas.

We plan to see you next year, and this time, we will have our PWM cables epoxied in. (That tip is curtesy of the Cheesy Poofs.)

Thanks to our alliance partners, Teams 841 and 1120.

See you all same time, same place next year.

[sanddrag]

As for your PWM cables, I would try silicone glue or shoe goo, it will hold just as good as epoxy in that application but will be much easier to get off if you have to for any reason.