Re: Kettering District!
 

To add on to what someone already mentioned:

They tried mixing up the numbers in the past. Too many people complained that they couldn't find the other teams (for strategy discussions, scouting, etc). I guess no matter what you do, someone is not going to be happy.

Re: Kettering District!
 

Congratulations to the winning alliance: 2337, 33, and 4294!

2337, you were first on our pick list and really improved throughout the competition. 33, you improved a TON since your first couple matches and really figured out the strategy for this game. 4294, your bridge balancing skills were phenomenal.

I would like to thank 862 for picking us and 3601 for joining our alliance. We knew that 3601 would work great for our plan in autonomous, but we had no idea that 862 would fit in perfectly! 6 three-pointers in autonomous is an amazing feat. Car Nack said it couldn't be done, and we proved him wrong.

Everyone should watch the video of our autonomous working in the finals if such a video ends up existing. It really is amazing... a FIRST Rube Goldberg machine.

The Eagle Imperium will be at Livonia and in the intervening weeks we will fix our problems so that we don't stop moving halfway through matches. I promise!

EDIT: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3oNVwsSWns
EDIT: Better video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqXTZyHvM4A

Re: Kettering District!
 

Agreed. Allow me to quote the description of our Rube Goldberg machine from another post.

Re: Kettering District!
 

Great event!

Congratulations to 2337, 33, & 4294 you guys were a great alliance and we had great time competing against you.

Thanks to 3322 and 3601 you guys were a great alliance partners. The autonomous mode was one of the coolest things I've seen! We had some amazing matches.

Re: Kettering District!
 

does anyone have pictures of all the robots from this competition?

Re: Kettering District!
 

Great job 2337, 33, and 4294~ You guys were an amazing alliance to play against.

Just a look behind the scenes of setting up the Kettering event.

Re: Kettering District!
 

What a great time today and yesterday. Being across the glass from you all was a challenge and an honor! Thank you to the Killer Bees and to Star Trec for helping us win our first ever Kettering District Competition! And what a great alliance in 862, 3322, and 3601! Good luck to everyone in the rest of the season! I hope to see some of you at Northville

Re: Kettering District!
 

I was unable to attend Kettering this year (the first time of my 4 years) and had some questions about designs and strategies. How was defense played and was it effective? How often did the refs swap out the balls? Can someone explain to me more about the Killer Bee's (33) stinger (bridge balancer). Any other tips for a fellow Michigan team heading for Canada next week? Looks like its going to be another fun year in Michigan.

Re: Kettering District!
 

As far a defense goes, there was little to none played since most teams either shot from the key (where it would be a penalty to interfere) or from up against the fender. In addition many teams brought drivetrains with high traction so pushing wasn't very effective most of the times it was tried. The Killer Bee's "stinger" was basically a large 4-bar mechanism from what I remember, helping them to get off the ground once on the bridge and if they were unbalanced it could hold the bridge up and provide a level driving surface for adjustments, as opposed to having to drive uphill after coming crashing down. The advice that I would give would be to try to come up with ways to complement the autonomous modes of robots on your alliance, I'm on team 862 and our alliance's autonomous mode in eliminations carried our alliance into the finals and within 1 match of winning. Also make sure to give yourselves plenty of time to balance on the bridge if you choose to do so. Nothing is more depressing than being almost balanced then having teleop end and watching your robot slide back down.
Sorry about the wall of text by the way :)

Oh and as far as swapping out balls went, our referees only changed a ball when there was a chunk missing from it. So be ready for shooting later in the competition to become a little unpredictable.

Re: Kettering District!
 

Our shooter remains quite predictable throughout the competition due to the way we compress balls.

Re: Kettering District!
 

I'm actually quite surprised: our autonomous mode seemed to be more consistent with more worn balls, so when setting up pre-match, we often tried to get less-new-feeling balls. Still, at the end of the competition, the balls were still in surprisingly good shape. Especially, that is, compared to some of the balls we had at our shop. I'm personally not too worried about ball wear.

Re: Kettering District!
 

A big thank you to the event staff at Kettering. Having gone there for several years now, this was by far the smoothest. Just a couple very minor delays early on, and then the event seemed to be running at lightning speed.
Congratulations to the 3 rookies on site 4382 was highest seed. 4376 had one of the best attitudes in FRC. It was a real pleasure working with this team to get them out on the field. I was glad to see them take home a couple awards. More on 4294 later...

To the finalists... what an exciting finals. 862, 3322, and 3601 were an amazing alliance. There auto-mode with the 3 robots working in concert was a thing of beauty. 30+3 points in auto was amazing. 3322 was a deadly accurrate shooter, and 862 had a very versatile machine, and 3601 was a very complimentary robust 3rd parnter. I love watching good play, and the 66-68 finals match was amazing with several lead changes right at the end.

2337, thank you for having faith and vision of a winning strategy. We had a lot of problems with our shooter on Friday, and it was inspiring that you guys had that much faith in our alliance. 4294, are you guys sure you are rookies? For all of you vetrans out there, this rookie team was one of the first to pass inspection, and was clean on their first pass. NO CORRECTIONS! This continued to be one of the more reliable machines throughout the competition. A special thanks to our friends up in the Crow... er ... Chicken's Nest for some strategic insight. Little changes can make a big difference.

GDC, thank you for an exciting game. Week 1 is often painful to watch as teams learn how to score and get their machines dialed in. The Co-Op bridge is an exciting twist that I expect will have several more turns in its importance and how it is utilized.

Re: Kettering District!
 

I didn't pay attention to all of the matches as I was in the pit for a lot of the tournament dealing with judges and doing some scouting via inspection of robot rather than games, and I just wanted to say to Team 33 that you guys did an incredible job improving over the competition.

The first few games that I personally saw with you guys looked a little shaky, but by the time you guys got out into the elimination matches you guys were going strong. And your stinger worked terrifically.

The final matches wouldn't have been fun if not for such strong competition. :)

Re: Kettering District!
 

I had an absolute riot at Kettering! My team did not do well until it was too late to bring us up, but we are really happy with how things came out. Once we figured out how to most effectively work the field and alliances things went a lot smoother. Thanks to all the Kettering staff as well as all of the teams that put up with my running back and forth running strategy with them!

Re: Kettering District!
 

Here's a video of us testing the autonomous code during lunch (we didn't get to test the slight modification which put us within the time limit, but we made 862 fire two seconds quicker): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zo-SUmQRjRM

And one someone else uploaded: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4Id9IR_HCU