2010 Silicon Valley Regional

[Ken Leung]

Are you excited about SVR?

I am! I am also very nervous about it. MVRT went to San Diego and managed to win Finalist because of a lot of luck and really, really great alliance partners in the finals, but the level and intensity of competition is going to step up another notch at SVR this year.

We are going to see the 5 brother and sister teams who went down to San Diego with us in week one (which include a regional winner, 100, as well as 192, 668, 846, and 1868). We are going to see teams who went to Oregon (team 8 and 1700). We are going to see the Poofs preforming the very first time at a competition (team 254). We are going to see some very strong teams from Sacramento region (Team 692 and 701). We are going to get some very tough competition from the Danville/Livermore/San Ramon teams (Team 852, 1280, 1458, 1516). We are going to see the return of one of our National Championship Divisional and Championship Winner from last year (Team 971). We are going to see Mad Town in blue (Team 1323). And we are going to see some very strong rookie teams this year (Team 3129, 3156, 3256).

You excited?! I am excited!

Luckily, we were able to spend some time over the weekend on our practice bot putting on a stronger kicker with a better trajectory. As of yesterday we were making goals consistently from the back and mid zone with the practice bot. But I also heard teams were having awesome, awesome practices at NASA Ames in the past few weeks. So I am nervous, very nervous about how this weekend will unfold.

What do you say? You guys ready for some fierce competition this weekend?!

[=Martin=Taylor=]

Don't forget 766, 114, and 604!

Can't wait to see Breakaway played live!

Team 100 has been practicing tirelessly with our practice bot*


*by which I mean: 'we've been sitting around and relaxing' (becuase we were too lazy to build a practice bot :) ).

[Eugene Fang]

Thanks, Martin.

Team 604 is pumped. See you all there tomorrow!

[fordchrist675]

Dont forget about the team from the middle of nowhere in nor cal.

675 is itching to be at SVR it's our favorite regional.

Can't wait to see everyone there!

[blackbrigadeer]

Team 2489 is thouroughly excited! Can't wait for tomorrow. [:

[CraigHickman]

Looking forward to seeing some pretty impressive robots this year! 8, 100, and 254 come immediately to mind, but I have a feeling we'll be seeing some quite impressive rookies as well!

Team 114 is excited to bring the same drive base that carried 997 to win the Oregon Regional. See you all tomorrow!

[pakratt1991]

I'll be streaming this regional at work, I'm still trying to get a projector set up for the whole office to see. :)

Can't wait to see some old allies in team 100, and 1458 from Davis. and 668 from Cal Games the one year we ventured down.

I'm always excited to see the Outbacks tracks out there competing again. Good luck to 114, 668, and 1458 at SVR. I'll be cheering for you!

and Of course I'll be excited to see what the Poofs came up with this year!

[lancerbots]

Team 2367 will be there....looking forward to some intense competition!

[Steven Sigley]

Can't wait to come down and see all our friends today and apply what we learned about Breakaway from D.C..

Best of luck to everyone, it's gonna be a tough regional!

[rsisk]

Is a stream for the competition available yet?

[pakratt1991]

I found a link here. (http://robotics.arc.nasa.gov/events/2010_frcwebcasts.php#webcasts)

It looks like there will be one but I do not believe it has started yet. I'll try and keep my eye on it this morning to see when it starts and will post an update here.

[CraigHickman]

If any are interested, a member of 114 will be updating regarding the team's progress on the twitter account frc114.

[115inventorsam]

The stream is up now here (http://robotics.arc.nasa.gov/events/svr_stream.php), but there seems to be very few teams making it onto the field each match.

[pakratt1991]

The stream is up now here (http://robotics.arc.nasa.gov/events/svr_stream.php), but there seems to be very few teams making it onto the field each match.

TYVM! Streaming this AND the vandy game is gonna be killing my internet :P

[billbo911]

The stream is up now here (http://robotics.arc.nasa.gov/events/svr_stream.php), but there seems to be very few teams making it onto the field each match.

Few teams and SLOW moving, but that seems to be the norm this year at most regionals on practice day this year.

[The Lucas]

Which team is trying to do the 469 style ball redirection? I couldn't read the numbers on their bumper (if they had numbers at this point).

[CraigHickman]

Which team is trying to do the 469 style ball redirection? I couldn't read the numbers on their bumper (if they had numbers at this point).

8.

[ATannahill]

Does anyone have the embed code or a stream link for the Silicon Valley Regional?

[Steven670]

Woo-Hoo, Team 670 first to pass inspection at 10:33am, at least we are best at something this year. We sailed through up to programming the modem, which gave them endless trouble. The new software just didn't work. They finally dug out last year's instructions and got those to work. We ran in all our practice match with only some minor problems to iron out.

Seriously though, it wasn't going well over in the inspection area, only 10 or so teams passing by 3pm.

I only noticed one apparent field problem, fairly late in the day (3pm or so) resulting in at least 15 minutes of delay. They rushed the practice matches after that so as to finish around 30 minutes late.

Team 8's ball director had serious problems on test, I'll be surprised if they get it working for this competition. I'm told they built it all in the last 3 days after seeing 469's success.

[Basel A]

As someone in Michigan, I'm quite interested to see how well you west-coasters build robot. Speaking of well-built robots, my handy-dandy FRC tracker reported that there were 30 points scored in one practice match, for one alliance. Hopefully it got that wrong? Should I be scared? Can anyone get me some details? Heheh.

[Steven670]

As someone in Michigan, I'm quite interested to see how well you west-coasters build robot. Speaking of well-built robots, my handy-dandy FRC tracker reported that there were 30 points scored in one practice match, for one alliance. Hopefully it got that wrong? Should I be scared? Can anyone get me some details? Heheh.

Since no robots showed up for the first few matches, the refs were throwing the balls into the goals to give the human players some practice and test the scoring system, so 30 is quite possible. 7 was the highest score in a real match that I saw. I don't think they bothered to score the hangs or the penalties, though.

[=Martin=Taylor=]

Woo-Hoo, Team 670 first to pass inspection at 10:33am, at least we are best at something this year....

Team 8's ball director had serious problems on test, I'll be surprised if they get it working for this competition. I'm told they built it all in the last 3 days after seeing 469's success.

I was actually very impressed with 670’s robot this year. Quite good kicking and hanging :)

I'm doubtful 8 will get their shoots working. The balls come down their shoots very fast, and their shoots are much shorter than 469’s. I'm not sure they'll be able to direct them into the goals. But we shall see.

I don’t know why 8 is rebuilding most of their bot, their original ball control and kicker system was IMO very successful in Portland.

[pakratt1991]

I was actually very impressed with 670’s robot this year. Quite good kicking and hanging :)

I'm doubtful 8 will get their shoots working. The balls come down their shoots very fast, and their shoots are much shorter than 469’s. I'm not sure they'll be able to direct them into the goals. But we shall see.

I don’t know why 8 is rebuilding most of their bot, their original ball control and kicker system was IMO very successful in Portland.

They had some issues in Portland gathering the balls, once they were able to get their cups controlling the ball it seemed to work great.

I personally don't see why they would do this, I understand winning is important but if your students have spend 6 weeks working really hard on a design / strategy that the team concepted/prototyped/designed and eventually built it's probably worth competing with it.
But I digress, this isn't the time or place for that discussion :p


As someone in Michigan, I'm quite interested to see how well you west-coasters build robot. Speaking of well-built robots, my handy-dandy FRC tracker reported that there were 30 points scored in one practice match, for one alliance. Hopefully it got that wrong? Should I be scared? Can anyone get me some details? Heheh.

This was the Reffs, I was watching and couldn't figure out if they were testing the ball counters or what. Thanks Steven for enlightening me.

[Eugene Fang]

As someone in Michigan, I'm quite interested to see how well you west-coasters build robot. Speaking of well-built robots, my handy-dandy FRC tracker reported that there were 30 points scored in one practice match, for one alliance. Hopefully it got that wrong? Should I be scared? Can anyone get me some details? Heheh.

Team 604 scored 30 points in a match with team 254 and 973!

But yes, it was a test match where the refs were testing the field. I hope we see that alliance on Saturday! :D

[pakratt1991]

Ouch, I'm watching qualification match #14 and the blue alliance only has 1 robot on the field :eek:

[Michael Corsetto]

In match #20, 192 was on 675's ramp, and was touching the tower with their bumper. It looked like the whole robot was above the plane of the platform, but I don't think the refs scored it as a hang. Can someone else shed light on what happened there?

[Kristian Calhoun]

In match #20, 192 was on 675's ramp, and was touching the tower with their bumper. It looked like the whole robot was above the plane of the platform, but I don't think the refs scored it as a hang. Can someone else shed light on what happened there?
To me it looked as though one of their wheels had dropped below the plane of the platform when 675 backed away from the tower.

[Michael Corsetto]

To me it looked as though one of their wheels had dropped below the plane of the platform when 675 backed away from the tower.

Yeah, I figured that's what happened, but they never took a close look at it like they do with most hanging robots. It made me think they completely dismissed it as not having a chance at scoring since it was on top of 675, when in fact it would count as long as the whole bot was above the platform and in contact with the tower. Just curious, I don't want another 2008 "ball de-scoring" fiasco...

[Akash Rastogi]

Since I just tuned in....

can someone give me a little update on how 1323, 3129, 973, and 604 have done so far?

[waialua359]

Since I just tuned in....

can someone give me a little update on how 1323, 3129, 973, and 604 have done so far?

http://www2.usfirst.org/2010comp/events/SJ/matchresults.html

Too bad I have to leave soon for a small vacation back to Vegas now. ;)

[ShaneP]

Do I spy a 254/1868 collaboration? I've yet to see 1868 hang, but otherwise they look identical.

[Nuttyman54]

Do I spy a 254/1868 collaboration? I've yet to see 1868 hang, but otherwise they look identical.

The robot they had at San Diego had an upper section that looked like it was meant for a hanger (different than 254's), but it seems they took that off entirely.

The drive bases do look almost identical though

[Tom Bottiglieri]

Do I spy a 254/1868 collaboration? I've yet to see 1868 hang, but otherwise they look identical.
1868 works in the same lab as 254. Since both teams had similar strategy goals, it made sense to build the same drive base.

[Michael Corsetto]

After Day 1 its:

1. 971
2. 254
3. 192
4. 1868
5. 114
6. 8
7. 100

Wow, pretty much all my favorite Bay Area teams (including my alumni team) are at the top! I just wish I could be in San Jose watching the matches instead of taking finals today and tomorrow... :o Good luck tomorrow everyone, the matches at SVR are looking great so far!

[=Martin=Taylor=]

"I'm not a mentor. I'm a tormentor" -Mark leon

Sebastian Thrun as guest speaker? Really cool! :D And that video was awesome!

[Bethie42]

glad to see 8 doing well, competed with them at the Oregon regional.....it's that home-turf thing I guess :)

[s_forbes]

I'm loving the high quality webcast! This is one of the more competitive regionals I've seen so far, with lots of high caliber bots that stand out. Lots of really sticky ball magnets coming into play, too.

971 is FAST! Some of the best driving that I can recall seeing at any FIRST event. The lighting bolts on their drivetrain are very fitting.

[CraigHickman]

That 971 bot sure is impressive. Those students should be proud to the core of what they've built. It's awesome to watch them soar around the field.

Also, I have to say that I LOVE the 254 hanging mechanism. So simple in operation, and so quick.

Edit: It's a really stacked regional... Looking forward to tomorrow!

[CallieJ]

Do I spy a 254/1868 collaboration? I've yet to see 1868 hang, but otherwise they look identical.

We work in the same lab, so it made sense to have some things be very similar. Our drive train is the same, but that is being used by quite a few other teams as well. I don't remember their numbers off the top of my head, but could find out if anyone is curious.

Our roller system and kicker are fairly similar, but then again, a lot of people have similar roller/kicker combinations this year.

Oh, and we removed the hanger mount because we hoped we would be able to get it done for SVR, but didn't quite have the manpower. This way we have the tunnel option as well. If we make it to Championships we might use our backup frame and get a hanger.

[Tom Bottiglieri]

971 is FAST! Some of the best driving that I can recall seeing at any FIRST event. The lighting bolts on their drivetrain are very fitting.
971's driver, Scott, is easily one of the best I have ever seen.

Also, 971's roller is pretty cool. They implemented a software clutch using motor current and drive base speed. It works like money.

[Nuttyman54]

Also, 971's roller is pretty cool. They implemented a software clutch using motor current and drive base speed. It works like money.

I seem to recall hearing someone made a bet that they couldn't get it working...any news if it got paid out?

I'm really impressed with the the bot 971 came out with this year, it's a beast of a machine. Makes us alumni proud!

[Michael Corsetto]

971's driver, Scott, is easily one of the best I have ever seen.

Seconded. It is also worth mentioning that aside from being 971's driver, Scott is also the team captain and one of the most dedicated FIRST students I've known. On top of that, he's a sophomore! 971 is only going to get better from here folks!

[Nuttyman54]

Does anyone else have a really choppy webcast?

[ATannahill]

Does anyone else have a really choppy webcast?
Yes, I have it off right now.

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

Does anyone else have a really choppy webcast?
The Flash one was incredibly choppy. I switched to the Windows Media Player stream and the quality is great. (And comparable to the Trenton match I watched last weekend.)

[Nuttyman54]

I haven't been able to get the WMV feed to work correctly either

Edit: feed seems to be working OK now

[sanddrag]

Anyone know when finals will be starting?

[brianelite]

sanddrag: http://www2.usfirst.org/2010comp/events/SJ/matchresults.html

It seems that in elimination matches there is a robot that is immobile on the field?

668 Too bad

[sanddrag]

They're using a flag to determine if robots are above the plane?

[Alex Cormier]

What's going on? It's been a couple meetings since the timeout ran out, and were still not playing a match?

[Nuttyman54]

What's going on? It's been a couple meetings since the timeout ran out, and were still not playing a match?

I was wondering the same thing. 1323 wasn't on the field when they last showed it. Maybe they're getting a replacement robot and it's taking longer than they expected?

[Alex Cormier]

I was wondering the same thing. 1323 wasn't on the field when they last showed it. Maybe they're getting a replacement robot and it's taking longer than they expected?

If they wanted a replacement, it should have been called a few minutes prior to the TO end. That is the last time you are able to call in for a replacement.

Edit: Field crashed due to new radios...

[Eric Bareiss]

1280 hung exactly like that earlier and they called it good. The camera zoomed in close to show it was tilted down and the ref's still gave them the hang. But this time, when it counts they don't give it to them. Bad call refs.

[Karthik]

Did anyone else notice the Red Alliance's score drop by 2 during the last few seconds of F1-1? It went from 9 to 7.

[Alex Cormier]

Did anyone else notice the Red Alliance's score drop by 2 during the last few seconds of F1-1? It went from 9 to 7.

I also noticed a penalty on red for being outside of the frame perimeter as their lexan shield was sideways. Rematch anyway because of field fault.

[ATannahill]

Did anyone else notice the Red Alliance's score drop by 2 during the last few seconds of F1-1? It went from 9 to 7.
DOGMA penalties are applied in real time, thats probably what you saw.

Another thing is when the human player sticks the trident into the goal, the numbers might jump around.

[sanddrag]

Did anyone else notice the Red Alliance's score drop by 2 during the last few seconds of F1-1? It went from 9 to 7.Yes, I noticed this.

Also, what's up with the ref's making two different calls for the same type of field issue?

They announced a ball counting error on blue, and added one point to their score making it a tie.

Then, they announced a ball counting error on red, declaring a field fault and a replay.

It should have either been a replay due to the field fault for blue (from the outset), or a point added for red (resulting in a win) because that's how they handled it for blue.

Their rulings are not consistent. What determines if a fault should result in a points adjustment, or a replay?

[Nuttyman54]

Did anyone else notice the Red Alliance's score drop by 2 during the last few seconds of F1-1? It went from 9 to 7.

We had this issue at WPI too. The way it was explained to me is that the goal counters can identify the direction the ball is travelling, such that if a ball gets passed backwards through the goal towards the field, the system will subtract the point that the ball had scored, and assess an automatic penalty. Thus anytime a ball goes in, hits a ball already in the goal and bounces back past the counter, two points are deducted (you will notice this happened twice in F1-1 to the red alliance. I didn't see if it happened to the blue alliance).

I haven't had any experience on the technical side of the field however, so this is simply how it was explained to me, I cannot verify this is correct.

[Cory]

They explained to us that they had someone watching three of the four goals and could not verify an official count for red

[Karthik]

We had this issue at WPI too. The way it was explained to me is that the goal counters can identify the direction the ball is travelling, such that if a ball gets passed backwards through the goal towards the field, the system will subtract the point that the ball had scored, and assess an automatic penalty. Thus anytime a ball goes in, hits a ball already in the goal and bounces back past the counter, two points are deducted (you will notice this happened twice in F1-1 to the red alliance. I didn't see if it happened to the blue alliance).

I haven't had any experience on the technical side of the field however, so this is simply how it was explained to me, I cannot verify this is correct.

Thanks for the explanation, Evan. This explains the couple of replays we had in Pittsburgh when the same situation occurred.

My next question, if this is an expected piece of functionality why are they replaying matches when it occurs? Also, what rule does this penalty fall under?

[Joe Ross]

Thanks for the explanation, Evan. This explains the couple of replays we had in Pittsburgh when the same situation occurred.

My next question, if this is an expected piece of functionality why are they replaying matches when it occurs? Also, what rule does this penalty fall under?

It's discussed on the FIRST forums here: http://forums.usfirst.org/showthread.php?t=15097. Matt says it's from <G16>, but I think the reasoning is specious at best.

[Jimmy Cao]

We had this issue at WPI too. The way it was explained to me is that the goal counters can identify the direction the ball is travelling, such that if a ball gets passed backwards through the goal towards the field, the system will subtract the point that the ball had scored, and assess an automatic penalty. Thus anytime a ball goes in, hits a ball already in the goal and bounces back past the counter, two points are deducted (you will notice this happened twice in F1-1 to the red alliance. I didn't see if it happened to the blue alliance).

I haven't had any experience on the technical side of the field however, so this is simply how it was explained to me, I cannot verify this is correct.

I've seen this happen in empty goals, so I think there's something else that can cause it.

Regardless, the cause is the same; the ball counter working the wrong way. Every time I've seen it happen it was corrected (either based on the authority of n people other than myself who caught it, or the authority of a volunteer counting the in/out manually).

[Scott Bahl]

971's driver, Scott, is easily one of the best I have ever seen.

Also, 971's roller is pretty cool. They implemented a software clutch using motor current and drive base speed. It works like money.

Hey thanks!

Though i have to admit it got pretty hard at times, 8 out of the 16 matches the kicker malfunctioned and stuck out of the robot, blocking the rollers, leaving me with a tiny bit of intake on each side of the kicker to work with.

[eugenebrooks]

There is no standard of inspection for breaking the plane
in the rules, other than to eyeball the plane. When robots
are suspended from the top it is easy to eyeball the plane.
Eyeballing the plane is difficult for robots that hang on the
vertical pole if they slip down the pole and make contact
with the plane, removing the air gap that would otherwise
exist.

The lower hanging clamp on our robot was clearanced the
day earlier in order to produce a more reliable latch on the
top clamp, given the bump in the carpet as you approach
the tower that we had not replicated in testing at our
shop. This produced the angle for the lower clamp.
We added "feet" of 1 inch box tubing, but neglected to make
sure that these feet did not extend past the platform. The
head ref made the right call in the elimination match and
clearly paid a lot of attention to this issue during the
eliminations as would be expected once it was realized
just how tough this particular call is. The earlier call
that "missed" the problem is not relevant to making
the correct call in the elimination matches.

The best alliance won SVR and the alliance that eliminated
our alliance earned their move up the elimination ladder.
It is as simple as that.
We move on to the Sacramento regional next and we will
most certainly have re-worked our hanging clamp to remove
this issue, among other re-works that are also in order.

See you guys at Sacramento!

Eugene

1280 hung exactly like that earlier and they called it good. The camera zoomed in close to show it was tilted down and the ref's still gave them the hang. But this time, when it counts they don't give it to them. Bad call refs.

[=Martin=Taylor=]

All in all this was a great event! I had an awesome time.

Thanks to our alliance partners 1868 and 675.

The 675 crew is really cool. :cool: Very enthusiastic and dedicated group of people. It was an honor to play with you guys again. Too bad we never got up the ramps. Ah well, there's always CalGames. I think I drove everyone on my team crazy with that cowbell you gave me. :p

Also thanks to 1868 for the pick! Robot was a good striker, and a tough machine.

I was very proud of the way our alliance performed in the finals. Despite the odds, we managed to tie the red alliance in the first match and put up high scores in the following matches.

Team 971 is pretty amazing. Their robot is proof that good ball control is the key to winning. Even without a functioning kicker or a hanger they were able to easily score 10+ points single handedly. Congrats guys.

[CallieJ]

All in all this was a great event! I had an awesome time.

Thanks to our alliance partners 1868 and 675.

The 675 crew is really cool.

Also thanks to 1868 for the pick! Robot was a good striker, and a tough machine.

I was very proud of the way our alliance performed in the finals. Despite the odds, we managed to tie the red alliance in the first match and put up high scores in the following matches.

We were honored that you accepted our pick! We really, really wanted to be on an alliance with you given your team attitude and technical aptitude.

I have to say, this was an incredible event. If you had told me my first year, when our robot could barely move, that one day we would be team captains for 3rd alliance, pick the legendary team 100, and almost beat 254 in finals.... I wouldn't have paid attention.

I wish they would give "Most Spirited Alliance" Awards instead of just team ones. We would've won for sure. Congratulations for the win at San Diego and have a great time at Championships! We wish we could join you. :)

[Josh Fox]

Are there any pictures of the Poofs or 971 floating around? I'm dying to see them.

Video would also be more than acceptable. :D

[Tom Bottiglieri]

Hey thanks!
No problem, Scooter.

:p

[Scott Bahl]

Are there any pictures of the Poofs or 971 floating around? I'm dying to see them.

Video would also be more than acceptable. :D

P.S. 971's last 3 qual's, the drive Jaguars fried and the robots performance was very unimpressive. Luckily 254 gave us Victors to replace with for the Drivebase CIMs.

(i would watch out for those jag's if i were you)

[Scott Bahl]

No problem, Scooter.

:p

darn programmers....:rolleyes:

[Nuttyman54]

Hey thanks!

Though i have to admit it got pretty hard at times, 8 out of the 16 matches the kicker malfunctioned and stuck out of the robot, blocking the rollers, leaving me with a tiny bit of intake on each side of the kicker to work with.

Scott you were on fire out there! Sad to see that the kicker wasn't fully functional, but I'm confident the team will get that working by championships (and the other collector too, hopefully).

Loved the Poof's bot too, and they're only going to get better...I predict they'll get 2-3 in auto consistently by champs, and hang even faster (if that's possible).

And how about 649? I can't believe they lasted all the way back around with they way they were driving and the defense they played. A steal of a pick, and the perfect partner to round out that alliance.

Big congrats to MVRT 115 on the RCA. I don't know you guys all that well, but it sounded well deserved.

[AdrianB]

P.S. 971's last 3 qual's, the drive Jaguars fried and the robots performance was very unimpressive. Luckily 254 gave us Victors to replace with for the Drivebase CIMs.

We on 649 actually had a similar problem, and were forced to switch to victors Saturday morning. We were worried our poor performance wouldn't get us picked, but thank you 971 and 254 for picking us, despite are total lack of offense.

[AustinSchuh]

P.S. 971's last 3 qual's, the drive Jaguars fried and the robots performance was very unimpressive.

The jaguars didn't exactly break. They would work intermittently, which is in some ways worse. I'm not exactly sure what the problem was. Scott was noticing that the problem was getting worse and worse as the qualification matches went on. We finally correlated that during a match, Scott hit the wall and pushed against it in high gear for a tiny bit to grab a ball. When he tried to back up, one drive side immediately started acting up. It seemed like the Jags had trouble with the momentary high current draw that was caused by pushing against the wall, and then waited for a second or two before coming back to life. So, we'll be using Victors in our drivetrain and with our other high current motors from now onwards.

[Vikesrock]

It seemed like the Jags had trouble with the momentary high current draw that was caused by pushing against the wall, and then waited for a second or two before coming back to life. So, we'll be using Victors in our drivetrain and with our other high current motors from now onwards.

This is a designed feature of the Jaguars. They have an overcurrent fault protection built in that will trip before the 40A breakers will. The fault automatically clears after 3 seconds.

The Jaguars are rated for 40A continuous, 60A for 2 seconds and 100 peak.

[ThomasL]

This is a designed feature of the Jaguars. They have an overcurrent fault protection built in that will trip before the 40A breakers will. The fault automatically clears after 3 seconds.

The Jaguars are rated for 40A continuous, 60A for 2 seconds and 100 peak.

This issue plagued us (649) all of Friday, with our wheels locking up when we rapidly changed directions. We limited our max speed in code for the last round on Friday to reduce current draw before swapping out swapping out for Victors Saturday morning.

We put on a decent performance after that for our last three qualifying matches. Given our trouble moving cleanly for the first seven, it's not much of a surprise if any team found us risky as an alliance pick.

(We also had a rather embarrassing issue: a metal staple found its way into our digital sidecard, occasionally shorting it out. Oops... Thanks to Kiet of 254 for finding it and pulling it out for us. It was jammed in there good.)

Anyway, IMO, a more proper solution to this would have been to limit how fast the motor could change speed in software, instead of swapping to Victors.

[Nuttyman54]

Are there any pictures of the Poofs or 971 floating around? I'm dying to see them.

Video would also be more than acceptable. :D

Here's a video of F1-2. It's mostly focussed on 971, but it's a pretty good field shot so you can see what 254 is doing most of the time as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0X27bojZ26k

[Josh Fox]

Here's a video of F1-2. It's mostly focussed on 971, but it's a pretty good field shot so you can see what 254 is doing most of the time as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0X27bojZ26k

Thank you very much.

That was some truly fantastic driving done by team 971.

[phoenix_fire]

Team 2489 had a great time at SVR this year. It was our first year using pneumatics in our three year history, and we did run into some problems. We would like to thank Mike from team 115 MVRT (Chairman's Award winner) and Steven form team 100 Wildhats. With their help we were able to get our kicker working on Saturday.

Congratulations to MVRT for a well deserved Chairman's Award!:)
Congratulations to 254, 971 and 649 for winning.

Special shout out to the Dean's List Finalist Award Winner from our team, Anne Liu.
We love you Anne!!!

[Chickenonastick]

Does anybody happen to have a video of the SVR alliance selections?

[Doug G]

I had setup a Pinnacle video transfer/encoder, but someone swiped the Black 8 GB, USB memory stick from it at the end of the day (perhaps took the wrong one by mistake?). Anyhow, if anyone has it by chance - upload the video from it!

Also thanks to 192 and 1280 for picking us. We gave 100, 1868, and 675 a good semifinal run at it. Congrats to 971, 254, and 649 - definitely an amazing alliance.

[JYang]

Team 604 would like to thank Teams 8 and 1323 for being amazing alliance partners and to Teams 254, 971 and 649 for being great opponents. Congrats on your win!

I have posted photos of teams I took throughout SVR here: http://picasaweb.google.com/cubing.rox/SiliconValleyRegional2010#

Hope you enjoy!
-Jenny

[Michael Corsetto]

Team 604 would like to thank Teams 8 and 1323 for being amazing alliance partners and to Teams 254, 971 and 649 for being great opponents. Congrats on your win!

I have posted photos of teams I took throughout SVR here: http://picasaweb.google.com/cubing.rox/SiliconValleyRegional2010#

Hope you enjoy!
-Jenny

Great pictures of both the teams and the people! Thanks for sharing them, they almost make up for missing the event! :o

Will you be taking a similar amount of pictures at Sacramento?

[JYang]

Great pictures of both the teams and the people! Thanks for sharing them, they almost make up for missing the event! :o

Will you be taking a similar amount of pictures at Sacramento?


Thanks. Glad you enjoyed them =] Though being at the event is better.

I was thankful enough to receive a Media badge at SVR so I was able to get close to the playing field and in backstage areas where normal student participants would not be allowed to go. I will still take photos of teams in the pits working but I am not sure how many close-up match shots I will be able to get.

[Akash Rastogi]

Here's a video of F1-2. It's mostly focussed on 971, but it's a pretty good field shot so you can see what 254 is doing most of the time as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0X27bojZ26k

Good lord 971...

:ahh:

[R.C.]

I would like to say thank you to Team 8 and Team 604, you guys were the best partners ever. We loved playing with you guys and it was a great alliance. But I would like to apologize for our DT gearboxes popping/ripping 25 chain. We will be switching that part to gears for Davis.

I can foresee a 604/1323 tag team at Davis.

But congrats to 971/254/649. You guys were amazing. 254 had one of the best lifters, wish you guys the best of luck at your next comps. Hats off to Team IFI.

-RC

[Andy L]

Didn't Jim Beck say pictures would be on firstsv.org today?

[Dennis Jenks]

Didn't Jim Beck say pictures would be on firstsv.org today?

Jim did say that, unfortunately they won't be available quite that quickly.

We (BAE Systems) hired a professional photographer to shoot the entire regional. Because the photographer goes through each image individually to adjust color and lighting it will take some time before all of the images are available, I would say a week or so. Please continue to check firstsv.org for updates and I will also post here to let people know when the pictures are available.

[Tom Bottiglieri]

Good lord 971...

:ahh:
971 is very, very good.

The end.

[WynS]

Thanks to all the teams who played with us and against us. It was an exciting weekend all around.

I have said that my only regret is that I never got to see 973 perform up to what I know was their potential. Hopefully we'll get to see what they can really do in Las Vegas. :D

[PaW]

971 is very, very good.

The end.

Incredibly fast, extremely well driven.
I forced some of my kids to watch the webcast on Friday... they were in awe.

Nice work and congratulations!

[fordchrist675]

971 is very, very good.

The end.

Hopefully we gave you guys a little bit of a scare. It was a thrilling and amazing experience thanks to 100 and 1868 for givings their all. Congrats to 971, 254, and 649 you guys were amazing. And to everyone else we played great job it was a tough close game every time .

[Andy L]

Jim did say that, unfortunately they won't be available quite that quickly.

We (BAE Systems) hired a professional photographer to shoot the entire regional. Because the photographer goes through each image individually to adjust color and lighting it will take some time before all of the images are available, I would say a week or so. Please continue to check firstsv.org for updates and I will also post here to let people know when the pictures are available.

thanks for the quick response, thank you very much for the photographer!! I'm very excited to see these pictures :D

[CallieJ]

Hopefully we gave you guys a little bit of a scare. It was a thrilling and amazing experience thanks to 100 and 1868 for givings their all. Congrats to 971, 254, and 649 you guys were amazing. And to everyone else we played great job it was a tough close game every time .

Totally agree with you on that. We're very happy with how things went and how far we got. It would've been nice to win, but 971, 649 and 254 deserved it. We love our alliance and are only sad we never got those ramps to work. Also, there was something wrong with our right drive train that we still can't diagnose. Hopefully we can learn from it and fix whatever it was for the future!

[fordchrist675]

Totally agree with you on that. We're very happy with how things went and how far we got. It would've been nice to win, but 971, 649 and 254 deserved it. We love our alliance and are only sad we never got those ramps to work. Also, there was something wrong with our right drive train that we still can't diagnose. Hopefully we can learn from it and fix whatever it was for the future!

You know what? its all good we did amazing and even with some of the technical difficulties we put on a great show :D Hope you guys get it fixed :)

[Steven Sigley]

Any updates on the availability of pictures or video from the event besides what's already been posted?

[Dennis Jenks]

Any updates on the availability of pictures or video from the event besides what's already been posted?

Yes, we have over 3000 pictures that should be ready very soon.

The photographer we used goes through each picture individually to adjust lighting and color so that he can produce the best possible image, which takes some time. I expect to have them available shortly after Championships.

Here is a sample he sent the other day. Apparently he spent some time in the rafters so there should be some interesting shots!

[Mark Sheridan]

Wow epic shot. I look forward to seeing the rest.

[Steven Sigley]

Wow and thank you for the update, that is a lot of photos.

[Dennis Jenks]

Hi all,
The 2010 SVR pictures are available for download here:
http://baesystemssiliconvalleyfirst.shutterfly.com/

Over 2500 in all with some very interesting perspectives!

Enjoy! :D

[=Martin=Taylor=]

Hi all,
The 2010 SVR pictures are available for download here:
http://baesystemssiliconvalleyfirst.shutterfly.com/

Over 2500 in all with some very interesting perspectives!

Enjoy! :D

These are some of the greatest photos ever taken of a FIRST event!

Well done!

This is cool. (http://baesystemssiliconvalleyfirst.shutterfly.com/pictures/194)

[blayde5]

It's very interesting to see a top view where the robots actually look like the ones in 5th gear... (they all look the same except for the ones with hangers)

[Andy L]

Hi all,
The 2010 SVR pictures are available for download here:
http://baesystemssiliconvalleyfirst.shutterfly.com/

Over 2500 in all with some very interesting perspectives!

Enjoy! :D

Beautiful pictures!

A lot of really cool angles too