2007 VCU Regional

[blakwyte]

We learned the mad pace, among so much technologically, that you're going to need next year to keep your track record of success. I was ready for a horrible last week, and spent 74 amazing hours working at Robotics in the last 7 days.

the huge amount of experience that my team had in the first year was really helpful to me when i joined up with the program this year. they were also a really ambitious rookie team and learned everything about programming the camera's, building an effective drive-train ... using a band saw :) i was really glad that i we didn't have to start with a completely blank slate, and we did manage to equal the school record this year making the semi-finals, thanks largely to the things the team learned and was able to build upon.

in other news i hear that we might be riding the same bus down to atlanta with you guys from 1885 ... all i can say is be prepared :D

[Frinkahedron]

Our alliances each had one win, and it was the tiebreaker match... In my opinion, that was possibly the most exciting match at VCU. Even though we lost, we still put up a good fight.

I completely agree, we battled that round out to the end. :D

Do you know if there's video for that match posted yet? I'd really like to watch the three quarterfinals again.

[LordTalps]

the huge amount of experience that my team had in the first year was really helpful to me when i joined up with the program this year. they were also a really ambitious rookie team and learned everything about programming the camera's, building an effective drive-train ... using a band saw :) i was really glad that i we didn't have to start with a completely blank slate, and we did manage to equal the school record this year making the semi-finals, thanks largely to the things the team learned and was able to build upon.

in other news i hear that we might be riding the same bus down to atlanta with you guys from 1885 ... all i can say is be prepared :D
Whoa whoa whao dude YOU'VE GOT FREAKING PMs

[mrmummert]

If anyone took a very close look at our robot you might have noticed the 30X30 extruded aluminium frame...in the corners there had been posts which we cut off. these were to be for our ramps...which due to time and weight we
did'nt do this year...but almost did.

Our first year (2005 triple play)we tried to use and do everything...
not only were we the top rookies, but also rookie allstars...which got us
to Atlanta.

During the alliance selections...we had been approched by 116, but when we were selected by 928 we went with them. And the rest is now FIRST VCU
history...In a way we were kinda glad we did'nt go to Atlanta..(not that, thats a bad thing)...its just that..ok we had been twice in two years and have never been able to have more time to build the team...so hopefully not going will make us a stronger team next year. Lord knows we came close though.

[Metalhugginman]

VCU was fun and Metalinmotion - Team 343 - was very honored to recieve the GM Quality Award. Unfortunately, we lost a laptop computer during the competition. If anyone found a laptop computer in a case and is unsure who it belongs to, we sure would like to hear from you. My boss is not happy....... Anyway, any leads would be appreciated. Use the contact information on our webpage at www.metalinmotion.com. :rolleyes:

[cziggy343]

VCU was fun and Metalinmotion - Team 343 - was very honored to recieve the GM Quality Award. Unfortunately, we lost a laptop computer during the competition. If anyone found a laptop computer in a case and is unsure who it belongs to, we sure would like to hear from you. My boss is not happy....... Anyway, any leads would be appreciated. Use the contact information on our webpage at www.metalinmotion.com. :rolleyes:

yeah gil, i heard a couple of people wern't happy about that.

[wdw_mkr87]

does anyone know how many people were able to actually throw ringers on during the matches? our team is trying to work strategy for Las Vegas and Atlanta and we would really like to know if it is even possible to get a technique down like we had for scoring with the balls from last year competition.

[StephLee]

That's one thing I didn't keep accurate count of when I took stats for VCU (it was kind of hard to tell by the webcam), but I think the number was around 6 or 7 if I had to guess. It's a whole lot of luck, but if you've got an excellent thrower I suppose you could make it worth your while.

[blakwyte]

i'd say it was even fewer than that ... though i was in the pits or queing up alot and didn't see some of the matches ... definitely don't count on it. people were getting better at it near the end which resulted in maybe one ringer every few matches, which definitely doesn't make up for the huge amount of clutter you have to deal with.

[StephLee]

i'd say it was even fewer than that ... though i was in the pits or queing up alot and didn't see some of the matches ... definitely don't count on it. people were getting better at it near the end which resulted in maybe one ringer every few matches, which definitely doesn't make up for the huge amount of clutter you have to deal with.

Not to mention the potential for ringing a robot, rendering it incapable of picking up another tube unless it can get that one off itself. I'd imagine that could be highly annoying, and potentially a strategy-killer.

[Gene F]

does anyone know how many people were able to actually throw ringers on during the matches? our team is trying to work strategy for Las Vegas and Atlanta and we would really like to know if it is even possible to get a technique down like we had for scoring with the balls from last year competition.

The Ref's at VCU stated that any team that landed a ringer on one of the green lights would be DQ'd for obstructing the target. Make sure your human players understand the risks!

[kjohnson]

Not to mention the potential for ringing a robot, rendering it incapable of picking up another tube unless it can get that one off itself. I'd imagine that could be highly annoying, and potentially a strategy-killer.

1610 was capped by a ringer thrown by a HP in one of their practice matches, and the refs were slow to notice, and to tell the drivers. Their drivers were able to hang 2 ringers while capped, which ended up not counting.

[wdw_mkr87]

yah we had one guy throw one on in the our last match with 116 and 435 in the quaretr finals and he will def. be throwing them in las vegas and atlanta i was just wondering: do you think it is illegal to throw them on a robot to not let them score i dont know how they could catch you as cheating but i never heard a rule for it

[wdw_mkr87]

1610 was capped by a ringer thrown by a HP in one of their practice matches, and the refs were slow to notice, and to tell the drivers. Their drivers were able to hang 2 ringers while capped, which ended up not counting.

do you think that would be illegal to do on purpose

[StephLee]

yah we had one guy throw one on in the our last match with 116 and 435 in the quaretr finals and he will def. be throwing them in las vegas and atlanta i was just wondering: do you think it is illegal to throw them on a robot to not let them score i dont know how they could catch you as cheating but i never heard a rule for it

If it was done intentionally and repeatedly, I'm fairly sure this would count as unsportsmanlike conduct; in other words, a great case for a yellow card.

[Frinkahedron]

VIDEO!!

One of our team members taped all of alliance 2's matches during the playoffs and I just finished editing them together into one video.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7097463879404342032&pr=goog-sl

Gogo Teams 2068, 343 and 612!! :D


EDIT: You can also see the exact moment our wheel broke in the semis, at 8:45 into the video, the turtles pushed us sideways, bending the side of our wheel inwards towards the motor.

[cziggy343]

VIDEO!!

One of our team members taped all of alliance 2's matches during the playoffs and I just finished editing them together into one video.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7097463879404342032&pr=goog-sl

Gogo Teams 2068, 343 and 612!! :D


EDIT: You can also see the exact moment our wheel broke in the semis, at 8:45 into the video, the turtles pushed us sideways, bending the side of our wheel inwards towards the motor.

sweet! ive been looking for those. thanks a lot.

[gblake]

Hey Frinkahedron - Any way you can put that video someplace from which I can download it? Or maybe mail a CD/DVD to me? I'll distribute it to 1885, 623, 2068, and 1895. - PM me - Blake

[sporno]

VIDEO!!

One of our team members taped all of alliance 2's matches during the playoffs and I just finished editing them together into one video.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7097463879404342032&pr=goog-sl

Gogo Teams 2068, 343 and 612!! :D


EDIT: You can also see the exact moment our wheel broke in the semis, at 8:45 into the video, the turtles pushed us sideways, bending the side of our wheel inwards towards the motor.

sorry bout that breaking man ... they were playing mad defense for us

[Frinkahedron]

Hey Frinkahedron - Any way you can put that video someplace from which I can download it? Or maybe mail a CD/DVD to me? I'll distribute it to 1885, 623, 2068, and 1895. - PM me - Blake

The video file is on a school computer at the moment, so if you can wait until tomorrow, I can upload it and PM you with a link (don't want to kill my bandwith now :D)

[September]

900 did the same thing. they were playing with ramps and a scoring mechanism thursday but they ended up having to pull everything off to fit in under weight. this is much more understandable than building a purely defensive/potentially damaging robot. Like someone said before, 414 was originally built as a scoring robot. In fact, I believe they even brought the arm with them to the regionals. And every robot is potentially damaging. You ram a wooden boxbot against any robot many times in the correct place, it will damage it.

i don't understand how that is educational, rewarding or even enjoyable. you don't build anything that complicated, you don't score points and you don't really even have a chance to succeed. Seeing as how you're not on their team, nor do I believe you understand the structure of their team, I wouldn't expect you to understand why anyone would find it a rewarding experience.

Many, if not most, who join 414's team are rookies in their junior year. If the rookies weren't familiar with FIRST robotics before, and was never presented with a chance to participate in a team, then being there during the building process is a very rewarding experience. So someone new to FIRST actually participating in the creation of a functional robot... how is that not educational, rewarding, or enjoyable?

And why should everyone build something complicated? Isn't the infamous motto of FIRST "Keep it simple [stupid]"?

Success isn't about winning.

maybe they have fun ripping apart other people's hard work? Or maybe that some teams think it's better to execute a defensive strategy than an offensive strategy?

Disclaimer: The statement above expresses my opinion, and my opinion only. It does not, in any way, shape, or form, reflect the views or opinions of team 510 or 414.

[blakwyte]

owned?

i was only expressing my frustration at the fact that they were beating the crap out of something that i'd spent several grueling days working on, even though it's perfectly legal and i'm just grumpy :D they make bumpers for a reason, it's easy to put them on and it makes a robot much less likely to take a chunk off someone elses hard work. if winning isn't everything, then deliberately trying to disable someone's robot isn't the way to go.

and i definitely wasn't saying that this was 414's strategy at all. i was over in their pit many times, and i saw that they had definitely planned on scoring ringers ... as you say i have no idea what they were planning on doing before the competition or how much they got out of it. i was just saying that if someone had a strategy like that (purely defensive, potentially damaging robot. ive heard stories.) i consider that to be at the very least inconsiderate of other teams.

again, just my opinion ...

[blakwyte]

Not to mention the potential for ringing a robot, rendering it incapable of picking up another tube unless it can get that one off itself. I'd imagine that could be highly annoying, and potentially a strategy-killer.

yep ... we had that exact thing happen to one of our alliance mates (1086) in the semi-finals ... i'd say it was definitely one of the biggest reasons we didn't make it to the finals ... imo, tossing rings out there quickly and haphazardly isn't the way to go

[blakwyte]

yah we had one guy throw one on in the our last match with 116 and 435 in the quaretr finals and he will def. be throwing them in las vegas and atlanta i was just wondering: do you think it is illegal to throw them on a robot to not let them score i dont know how they could catch you as cheating but i never heard a rule for it

there is a rule against doing this, although there's no penalty mentioned for the offending team, it makes it basically a useless move. RTFM ya'll XD

GAME PIECES may fall on to a ROBOT during the course of normal game play (e.g. a RINGER falls on a ROBOT while attempting to HANG it on a Spider Leg). In such cases, GAME PIECES that are already in the POSSESSION of the ROBOT may be played. However, the additional GAME PIECE must be removed from the ROBOT (either by the ROBOT or by an ALLIANCE partner) before it can POSSESS a new GAME PIECE. GAME PIECES may not be intentionally placed on opposing ROBOTS for the purpose of causing a violation of this rule. Any such GAME PIECE placements will not be considered in POSSESSION of the affected ROBOT, and will be ignored.

[mechanicalbrain]

Congrats to the winning alliance, especially 2108. It's amazing that a rookie team can win as an alliane captain at such a big regional.

I was not a fan of the red alliance's strategy. 623 would have been better off playing defense for at least a little while and then retreating to the alliance station to deploy their ramps. With some more defense the outcome might have been different.

In answer to this (we got asked about this a couple times) in the begining of the tryouts we cam across a unexpected flaw in our design. We used a release system so that the front panel controlled all the side ones on our robot to save weight as aposed to pneumatics which we saw a bit. While this was a huge help on cutting weight. But we found, while testing our robot in defence, that if someone pushed our front panel forward they could force a release and dangerously so since the dampening pneumatics wouldn't deploy. We adopted a "just deploy" strategy rather then risk discualification or a unsafe situation. We also had a arm for innertubes that didn't get as much action as we wanted.

It probabely hurt is in a couple cases but it also made it very hard for other robots to prevent ramp deployment by filling our area with innertubes to block ramps. It was a strategy choice that was a two sided sword for us in the end and probabely cost us in the finals. But yeah we kind of wish we could have had more in game time though. :( All in all we were happy with the year as I think this was without a doubt our best if only because how much the kids loved working with it and even now have plans to turn it into a skate park.

[BBnum3]

Thanks for clearing that up. Your strategy made sense considering the circumstances.

[I_Robot]

Hi everyone,

I have finally gotten around to posting pictures of the various robots from the NASA/VCU regional in March. Check them out at www.CrestOak.com (http://www.crestoak.com/robotics/nasavcu2007/nasavcu2007.html). As a mentor, I got a chance to visit all the robots in the pits and take snapshots. Lot of photos organized by team number. I also have photos of Vex robots from a local scrimmage game which allow you to see the robots from all angles. Really cool. Feel free to browse the rest of the site and check out all the stuff I started to put up.

[wilsonmw04]

Great photos! thanks for putting all those together for us. It must have been alot of work. But i have a question for ya... Why did ya have to post the pic of 2106 with a nice shot of my butt? ;-)

http://www.crestoak.com/robotics/nasavcu2007/images/S7001292.jpg

Maybe I can post this as my "who am I" photo...
Great job! :-)

[I_Robot]

Hi wilsonmw04. Glad you enjoyed the photos. Now that you pointed it out, I have now noticed you bent over in the background. That's funny! :) When taking the photos, I was too focused on the robots and not what was going on in the background. I bet you don't have many photos of yourself like that! Next time, I'll have to try harder to get a shot of your "other" cheeks.