California Robot Games 2004

[Ken Leung]

WRRF is proud to announce California Robot Games 2004 is being put together as of this moment. After careful consideration of the dates in late September/early October, we've decided October 2nd is the best date for us to have Cal Games 04. We will be capping this event at 28 teams until further notice.

Registration to this event will be first come first serve, and I will let everyone know as soon as registration is open. We would love to see the Southern California teams come back again this year (and bring another team or two with you), and hope the Sacramento teams will join us as well. As always, I would love to see as many Bay Area teams participate as possible.

I am going to attach the event flyer we handed out at the Silicon Valley Regional to this thread. Please reply if you are interested in participating.

Let the craziness start again!

[Cory]

Eh, I think Team 100 might show up since we'll be hosting the event ;)

We can't wait for the biggest and best Cal Games yet!

Cory

[Winged Globe]

Team 1151 will be in. Oct 2 is a pretty good date. From around beginning of school to Cal Games, we can try another six week build/retrofitting period for the newbies...

[activemx]

well i think MVRT will be competing two robots at the Next CalGames, haha sadly :( i wont be a MVRT team member but certainly will be attending the competition. Team will be building a new drive train/chassis over the summer.

[FotoPlasma]

With any luck, 258 will have a much improved robot at CalGames, this year... Anyone who was at SVR knows what I'm talking about...

[Grommit]

Yes, we will be replacing the swerve drive with a poof drive... Sorry poofs, but your 6-wheel idea is just too terrific to pass up! Look out for a much cleaner bot that doesn't have 30 purple people trying to fix at any given moment :p.

[phrozen solyd]

Yes, we will be replacing the swerve drive with a poof drive... Sorry poofs, but your 6-wheel idea is just too terrific to pass up! Look out for a much cleaner bot that doesn't have 30 purple people trying to fix at any given moment :p.

Awesome! As they say, "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery"...

If you guys need any help with anything, feel free to contact any of us.

Good luck!

[Korbin]

What are the rules like, both in this comp. and other offseason? Everything still apply such as weight, etc? Is it real tight, and formal, or loose and more relaxed?

[Cory]

weight and all will still apply, but the whole competition is much more relaxed.

I can't speak for the event officials, but if you're over by like 1/10th of a pound, or your robot protrudes by 1/8", noone should make a big stink about it.

One thing I dont think Ken mentioned is the side events.

Last year we did robot sumo wrestling, fastest autonomous mode, obstacle course, human player challenge, etc. The side events are a lot of fun and sort of "bragging rights" for us Bay Area teams :)

Everyone should come to the biggest and best Cal Games yet, if not with your team, just to spectate, because it's tons of fun.

Cory

[Eric Brummer]

being relatively new to the FIRST world, and interested in taking our team to some off season competitions, especially since some of our seniors would like more time in before we part with them, i was wondering, what are the rules etc? obviously the game will be staying the same, but can we redo the entire bot if we choose to? just curious. thanks

[Cory]

You can change whatever you want on your current robot as long as it still fits withn the 2004 FIRST Frenzy rules.

Many teams will completely overhaul their robot to make it perform perfectly, and some teams will build a second robot, or enter a previous year's bot that has been modified to fit the current year's competition.

Cory

[Matt D]

The last two years (at least), we have entered two robots in the Cal Games. One was our competition robot with no changes made to it. The other was a robot we built over the summer. This year, I think we will be entering our competition and our practice robot (got to check with the adults on the team though). It's a great way to try out new drivers.

btw--two years ago I drove our summer built robot, which finished in last place (we spent all our time trying to pick up the soccer balls, finally did in our last match)
last year, I was the human player for our real robot, in which we were the finalists and beat our summer robot in the semi-finals

Cal games rocks!

[Paul Copioli]

I thought the Cal Games was a blast even though my team wasn't there. Ken L. asked me to be the MC and I was pleased to come out West. I thought it was great meeting all the California teams and the side events were awesome. I had soo much fun jumping between the main event and the side events. I highly recommend CalGames as an off season event you should attend.

-Paul

[Ken Leung]

I thought the Cal Games was a blast even though my team wasn't there. Ken L. asked me to be the MC and I was pleased to come out West. I thought it was great meeting all the California teams and the side events were awesome. I had soo much fun jumping between the main event and the side events. I highly recommend CalGames as an off season event you should attend.

-Paul

Haha, when the midwest people are recommending it, it MUST be good!

Now, I know everyone is waiting eagerly for annoucement of registration, but we are still finalizing some details with the high school administration. So stay tune ;-), just start working on your robot or your 2nd robot for Cal Games 2004. We can't promise there will be enough opening slots for 2nd robots because there are lots so much more interest for Cal Games this year, but we will do what we can to get everyone to come play.

Mean while, just to keep Cal Games around the top of your head, here is a few things I want you to think about:

1. Side events: Every year we have too many side events, and they are always hard to run when every is busy preping their robots for the main tournament, especially sumo wrestling and king of the hill. This year we want to try to do less side events, but make them more fun to play.

So what I need from everyone is suggestions for good side events. Think about speed, think about agility, think about power, think about major aspects of the game.

2. Remember we were timing autonomous mode last year? Well, this year we are definitely having more than 1 awards for that. This year preformence in the game is definitely going to matter.

How fast you hit the 10 pt ball in autonomous, how fast you hang from the start of the match, how many balls you push to human players, how fast it take from the moment you touch the hanging bar to the moment you clear the 2nd step, how high your robot is off the ground ;-). We might count all of that for awards, we might pick a few, or we might come up with some other ways to measure your preformence during the matches. So definitely think about that ;-). Feel free to suggest some too.

[Ken Leung]

There are now 21 teams signed up for Cal Games 04! Lots of veteran teams coming back including the Southern California, as well as some new faces from Sacramento and rookie teams of the 2004 season. Take a look at the list of participants:

100 WHS/CHS Robotics Woodside High School Redwood City California
114 Los Altos Robotics Los Altos HS Los Altos CA
254 ChessyPoofs Bellarmine San Jose CA
256 Willow Glen Rams Willow Glen High School San Jose California
670 Homestead Robotics Team Homestead High School Cupertino California
701 RoboVikes Vanden High School Fairfield CA
766 M-A robotics Menlo Atherton High Schoo Menlo Park California
814 Megaforce Squadron New Technology High Schoo Napa California
840 The Aragon Robotics Team Aragon High School San Mateo California
846 Lynbrook Robotics Lynbrook High School San Jose CA
852 Athenian Robotics The Athenian School Danville CA
972 Los Gatos Robotics team Los Gatos High school Los Gatos CA
980 ThunderBots Delphi Academy Southern California CA
1072 Harker Robotics The Harker School San Jose CA
1097 Site-3-Engineering Jesuit High School Carmichael Calif.
1120 Milpitas Xtreme Robotics Milpitas High School Milpitas CA
1120#2 Milpitas Xtreme Robotics Milpitas High School Milpitas CA
1151 The Hitchhikers Middle College High Schoo San Pablo California
1280 Raging Sea Biscuits San Ramon Valley High Sch Danville, CA
1351 AMHS Robotics Team Archbishop Mitty High Sch San Jose California
1458 Mustangs Monte Vista High School Danville CA

The event is back at Woodside High School again, with a similar setup as last year. Pit area and the playing field will be seperated, and there will be food and booths in the quad. Again, Friday is open for teams to come in and setup their pit area.