Sacramento Regional 2012
 

Thought it was about time to start this thread up again this year! Who is getting excited for the competition? Less than a week away! I have two teams to root for this year so it should be fun!

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

I'm so excited for this year, Solano County has got 4 teams repping it with 701, 2085, 3013 and 4185.

Some more teams im excited to see compete:
692 The Fembots: Always fun to be at their scrimmage and see them at this regional, one of the friendliest teams
971 Spartan Robotics: world champions not too long ago, be afraid...
100 Wildhats: We at team 701 consider team 100 one of our bigger rivals and welcome any opportunity to compete against a strong robot.
115 MVRT: Routinely does well at this competition
1678 Citrus Circuits: Always find some way to impress me each year
604 Quixilver: I never remember their team number but they always build a great robot and get lots of awards
1351 TKO: hosted a great Cal Games one year and always a competitive bot

The Solano Alliance:
701 RoboVikes: I feel like we've been a pretty strong team the last few years and with how much work went into this year's robots we may finally be able to make that leap and win a regional.
2085 RoboDogs: Consistently strong bot, finalists last year.
3013 Zombots: Great robot, and when i played with them unstoppable on defense, shut down the Penguineers in 2009
4185 Fantastic Falcons: New team who 701 has lent a little help, can't wait to see what they do at their first competition.

Sorry for any teams i don't know, This competition is always great but my memory isn't the sharpest when it comes to remembering the teams.
I'm excited guys let's make this a great one!!! :D

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

Team 3189's lookin' forward to the competition!

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

SAC is gonna be so awesome this year! I wish we could make it, but 256 will be rocking SVR and CVR. Maybe next year. :)

Good luck to all the teams! Let's hope for another great year!

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

Team 840 is excited to be there-- it's our first year competing in an event outside of SVR! See you all there.

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

Don't forget 1323, they always have a powerful robot.

971 is pumped for Sac!!!

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

1671 has a great bot again this year and is looking forward to some great competition this year :)

Here is a video of Doc VIII The Fish!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKYWxh8Zn28&context=C4253175ADvjVQa1PpcFNX HOABJxkBPRNzDv6Di84WmEHEN51NPGk=

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

1671 can't wait to attend the sacramento regional and see the other teams from the central valley compete. It's always been a great regional.

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

Ah Yes Madtown, the regional chairmans winners in 2009. Nevermind the fact that they always compete well and end up high in our scouting system. Can't believe i overlooked them. Same with the bird brains, correct me if im wrong but they had an interesting robot last year and always seem to put together an impressive animation.

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

DampRobot will be there. I look forward to see all the great bots. Good luck, teams!

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

I think what will be interesting this year is Sacramento is mostly a defensive competition, and it's very difficult this year to play defense. I think this year SAC may have outcomes that no one will expect...

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

SAC usually is a defensive regional, however a lot of powerhouse teams from SVR will be going this year. The team im looking out for is 971. I have a feeling the defensive SAC veterans won't stand a chance against the unmatched power of NorCal.

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

Well true, but a lot of defensive teams have switched to offense this year. It will just be a whole new ball game this year.

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

Lol. It is, as you say, a whole new ball game this year. :p I've never quite seen a ball game like Rebound Rumble (Aim high is close, but never scoring in horizontal hoops).

And you bring up another interesting point; The teams who normally play defense will be playing offense this year, some of them for their first time. Will the new offensive teams be able to keep up with the veteran offensive teams?

Only time will tell. 4 days until SAC. You ready? :cool:

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

Sacramento isn't a "defensive" regional as much as it is a "can't-play-offense-ive" regional. The average scores over the years speak for themselves, it's not like all those teams go into the competition intending to play defense. I expect a few teams to do well, but scores will be below average compared to other regionals.

-Mike

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

I would actually have to agree. For many teams this is their first regional so they use it to practice and make sure everything is working. That is why scores are normally so low. But from what I have noticed, there are a lot of teams this year that are stepping up their game, and I think scores may be a bit higher than in previous years.

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

^This.

Not to sound rude, but SAC has never been a strong regional. Not to say there aren't strong teams there, but that there are a few decent teams, maybe one or two strong teams, and a bunch of average-class teams. In order to succeed as an average-class team in this regional, all you need to do is prevent one of the stronger teams from scoring, and you'll be chosen to be on the winning alliance. Because of this factor, many of the teams there focus more on becoming better year after year at defense, rather than becoming strong offensive bots. Therefore, when the teams from offensive SVR come this year, there will be a huge upset. Most of the standard defense used in this regional from previous years won't work against the offense-heavy SVR teams, and the average teams will be blown out of the water.

I hate to say it, but it's true. A team gets better by competing with teams better than them, and in an environment where A) there aren't too many strong teams, and B) it doesn't take much to defend against the few strong teams, the average-class teams don't get any better.

Maybe a little NorCal power is what the SAC regional needs to become the offensive regional it's destined to be.

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

I agree that Davis is defensive not because of choice, but because of necessity. Our team (somehow) got chosen for eliminations despite the fact that our manipulator was broken, and ended up playing defense.

Given that I'm fairly new to FRC, is this defensive trend true for all early regional? Or is it just the unique dynamics of Davis? As stated above, there are few "powerhouse" teams, but it seems to me that this would be advantageous to mediocre offensive teams scoring, not resorting to defense.

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

Like I said above, SAC is a regional where you don't need to be a good scorer to succeed. Unfortunately, it's one of the only regionals like that. Because of the lack of strong scorers, team's have gotten into a trend of trying to be the best defensive robots at the regional, often making their goals be more oriented towards "making alliance xxxx score 1/2 of their normal score", instead of having goals of "scoring xxxx points". If you compare a team who can score well vs. a team who defends well, generally the scoring robot will be put into higher regard. If you put the same two robots in Sacramento, the defensive robot will be put into higher regard, since it seems a stronger defense has become more important than offense.

Is it the best option to make the new and surrounding teams stronger? No. Is it a bad idea? Maybe, maybe not. Look at it this way: How many teams have you seen who regularly go to Sacramento, a defense-heavy regional, make it to the finals of a championship division, or even Einstein, compared to the amount of teams that make it from offensive-strong regionals like SVR?

Good defense is always nice to have, but isn't worth it if what you're defending against isn't that strong in the first place. That's Sacramento in a sentence.

Let's see that change this year (971 is going to win it all, I'm calling it).

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

Here is who I predict will be top 8.

1. 971
2. 1323
3. 100
4. 1868
5. 1671
6. 1678
7. 604
8. 115

971 will most likely choose 1868 because they have worked with each other in the past and they have the ability to practice with each other frequently because they are so close. 1323 has a history of declining to join the 1st seed and go for their own alliance so I could see 1323 going with 100

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

What? No 4159? :p Though 604 hasn't released their robot yet (come on Quixilver!), we can assume they'll get pretty high in the rankings. I've seen 115's robot, and it's pretty good as well. I don't know too much about 1671 and 1678. From the little I've seen/heard, 1868 will have a good robot, as always, though not as good as 971. Wildhats have a good robot this year, though they don't seem too good at scoring in their video, but that could (and most likely will) change at the event. 1323 is always good, but it looks like we'll be relying on RC to give out the info we're all looking for. Having collaborated with a championship winning team last year must mean they have something up their sleeves this year (maybe ANOTHER championship winning team *cough*254*cough*). 971 is going to beast up the competition, and I know this as a fact even though they haven't shown anything yet!

The only thing I see about this regional (and most other regionals) is that the majority of the robot designs are going to be the same. That's going to leave it up to a strong strategy to win the regional, and while those top 8 teams are very strong teams, it'll be the alliance with the most beneficial variation on design and strategy that will beat the rest.


On another topic, will we see any triple balances in SAC? I know a lot of powerhouse teams are going long this year, and though that doesn't mean it can't happen, it's going to be very unlikely.

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

From what I can remember/dig up...(I don't know much from pre-2003 and data is lacking, so there may some omissions).

Sacramento:
7 unique teams in 7 appearances
1 Division Finalist, 6 Division Champions, 2 World Finalists and 1 World Champion

1388 in 2004 (SAC Quarterfinalists, Curie Division Champions)
766 in 2005 (SAC Champions, Archimedes Division Champions)
245 in 2005 (SAC Champions, Archimedes Division Champions)
254 in 2005 (SAC Finalists, Galileo Division Champions and World Finalists)
330 in 2005 (SAC Semifinalists, Newton Division Champions and World Champions)
56 in 2005 (SAC Finish?, Galileo Division Champions and World Finalists)
1717 in 2009 (SAC Champions, Galileo Division Finalists)

Silicon Valley:
6 unique teams in 10 appearances
2 Division Finalists, 8 Division Champions, 2 World Finalists and 4 World Champions

254 in 2001 (SVR Champions, Archimedes Division Champions and World Finalists)
60 in 2002 (SVR Champions, Curie Division Champions)
254 in 2005 (SVR Champions, Galileo Division Champions and World Finalists)
190 in 2007 (SVR Champions, Newton Division Champions and World Champions)
987 in 2007 (SVR Semifinalists, Newton Division Champions and World Champions)
254 in 2008 (SVR Champions, Galileo Division Finalists)
100 in 2008 (SVR Champions, Curie Division Finalists)
971 in 2009 (SVR Champions, Galileo Division Champions and World Champions)
254 in 2010 (SVR Champions, Archimedes Division Champions)
254 in 2011 (SVR Champions, Galileo Division Champions and World Champions)

It's not quite as lopsided as you might think, although SVR is clearly favored (and not just because of 254), especially considering the Sacramento 2005 "anomaly".

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

2005 was such a huge outlier it's almost not worth including. It had an influx of out of state teams in that single year only. You've also forgotten 56 who went on to win Galileo and finish as Championship finalists.

I wonder if there has ever been a non-MSC event to feature 4 teams who would go on to Einstein in the same year.

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

Wow. That's pretty cool! While only two teams on the SAC list still go there (1388 and 766), the other 3 winning teams haven't gone back to Sacramento since their victories, and for many it was their first time going.

I'll now revise my old statement to say "How many teams who regularly go to Sacramento make it to the finals of a division at the championships, compared to Silicon Valley" (We can even leave 254 out of this, if you want. :p)

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

Thanks, edited for completeness. I didn't even remember they attended, and FIRST's site has no data for SAC 2005, so I only looked up the teams I could remember by number.

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

And both of you are forgetting the team that picked 56. 330 won Newton and Einstein in 2005, after taking a semifinalist spot in Sacramento. But, they haven't been back to Sac since.

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

To answer this question, the 2004 Buckeye regional had teams 340, 67, 1126, and 1038, who all made Einstein that year.

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

We can't wait for SAC,

1323 has been itching to have a chance to play with 971/604, especially after the Throwdown/comps last year. We'd like to get a regional win with them sometime soon!

604 and 971's robots are very well done, I honestly can't wait to see both of them perform.

-RC

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

That 2005 sacramento anomaly was a great regional. While waiting for Einstein to start,I was amused that the tunnel where they had the division champions wait was pretty much a Sacramento regional reunion.

I really wish I could visit Sacramento but alas I am now in Anaheim. I look forward to what 1323 and 971 are cooking up this year. I hope my data plan will hold up at Long Beach.

Hey RC, is 1323 and 973 collaborating again this year? Sorry if i missed it mentioned elsewhere.

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

I think you'll be quite surprised by our bot this year.

As for 1323/973, we are not this year. But 973's robot is a work of art. I honestly can't wait to see it, HEARD a ton about it.

-RC

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

I see what you did there...

Now that it's come to light that 5 of the 2005 Einstein robots competed at Sacramento (56, 245, 254, 330 and 766), has this feat EVER been duplicated?

MSC had 4 robots on Einstein in 2009 (67, 217, 68 and 247), and Buckeye in 2004 (340, 67, 1126 and 1038)

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

Just a quick look at the teams that went to Einstein in 2003 and those that went to GLR that year seems to indicate that there were SIX (!!) Einstein teams that year from Great Lakes: 111, 65, 469, 494, 292, and 302.

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

If we can get this working properly my vote is for yes. :)

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

I hope we get to see that in action! Very original idea!

ONE MORE DAY EVERYONE! Who is excited?!

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

The more relevant picture is from Waterford finals, where three long (or close to long) robots did it in an actual match.

971 is very excited to be returning to Davis for our second time (the only other time was in 2003).

Does anyone know if there will be a webcast? I'd really love to see my team play...

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

San Diego 2011 had four Einstein teams and two champions. Only on two alliances for both as well, 987 and 254 just swapped partners.

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

Looks like NASA will pick up the webcast again this year. Looking forward to it!

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

Thanks Sam! :D

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

604 will be webcasting (and archiving) through MadStream.

EDIT: Webcast is up.

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

Congratulations to all the participants at the regional. The competition started slowed but ramped up surprisingly well. Unless I'm mistaken the 3 rookies were all ranked in the top like 15.
Many robots impressed and I hope everyone feels good about a successful regional. I look forward to next year.

Side note:
does anyone happen to have a video of the quarterfinals match where the fembots were on our robot?

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

I don't mean this to sound rude, but that fall was just epic. The stream was on some weird slowmo lag so the fall was just.... epic. I hope you guys can perfect your innovative balancing method by your next regional!

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

On behalf of FIRST Team 4159 I would like to say congratulations to every team that competed at Sacramento this weekend! It was a blast to work with all of you!

Congratulations to our regional winners: 1678, 971, and 3189!
Congratulations to team 1868 on winning the chairmans award!

We hope to see you all in St. Louis!!

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

You just made my life.

We're looking for the same! I have a [really bad] picture of us after we fell off, but that's about it.. Let us know if you get one? Wish it could've happened, it would have been perfect.

Thank you for Alliancing with us, it was super fun and we enjoyed cheering with you guys! It was truly a pleasure and a ton of fun. Sorry for the com issues.. <3

(...and.. .I may or may not have Facebook stalked your team the second I got home)

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

Great job to everyone who competed! It was the most fun I have had in a while. Congrats to all the award winners!

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

Haha it's all good man, it's more designed for long short robots to work best that way but we tried to make it work anyways.
I actually missed it coming back late from lunch but heard it was very loud when we got them on.

Thanks for all the support guys, i have a feeling since we've gotten a video of it on the practice field we'll be able to show it off at our next regional in Spokane and hopefully have some success there. :)

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

A huge thanks from 971 to our alliance partners, 1678 and 3189.

1678 was a dominating force on the field all weekend, taking their only loss in a 1v3 match against 1671 and 971 (the #2 and #3 seeds). We were thrilled to be invited to your alliance.

3189 I have no idea how you lasted that long. Your driving was top notch, you got the balls from the bridge every hybrid mode, kept us fed and played some excellent defense. I hope we'll see you at championships!

Major congrats to the 1868 Space Cookies for their second Chairman's in a row, and to 604 Quixilver for the EI.

And an extra special shout out to the webcast crew from 604. I know there were some weird problems with the webcast but you got it working and I am very thankful to have been able to watch my team play!

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

FIRST Team 3250 thanks everyone! Who is going to Central Valley in week 6?

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

Team 1678 would like to extend a huge thank you to our alliance partners 971 and 3189. It was a very exciting regional this year and there were some very competitive matches in the final rounds. Both of your teams were key to helping us win this year's regional. I agree with 971, we were lucky to have you (3189) still available as a third pick. Your driver was as good as any at the competition, you had an awesome autonomous mode, were agile crossing the bridge and played great defense.

I also want to acknowledge team 1671 who were one of the strongest and most consistent robots throughout the competition. They scored consistently in autonomous, had a flawless 2-point shot in teleop and achieved the only triple balance at Sacramento. We are looking forward to competing with you again at the Central Valley regional.

Also, congratulations to Space Cookies for winning the Chairman's award and to all the other teams who made this year's event so exciting.

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

Thank you guys so much for letting us be apart of your alliance! You guys were awesome at the double balance, consistently scoring baskets and offense. Thanks for your support and all of your help in the pits.

See you in St. Louis 1678 & 971

As a driver, thanks for letting us play defense.

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

On behalf of team 1671 I wanted to give thanks to teams 3970 and 1388 for being great alliance partners. It is too bad we had to go out the way we did and left the regional without anything to show for our accomplishments but we are even that much more excited for the Central Valley Regional and can't wait to see a lot of you there.

If anyone has video of the triple balance that would be great to have. Thanks!

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

A giant thank you from 1388 to everyone in 1671 and 3970 for being such an awesome alliance. I'm happy and proud to have been a part of that. See you at CVR!

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

Does anyone have video of the Quarter Finals Match 2. Would help us alot !

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

Here is the webcast videos. They're not split into individual match videos. If you find it, let me know what video and at what time.

Thanks

http://www.justin.tv/firstteam604/videos?page=2

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

Fembots on top of RoboVikes youtube video.

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

Unfortunatley I couldnt find the quarter final matches in the videos, but thenk you for your help

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

Here is video of the triple bot balance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfeT6B3MxNA

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

If you skip to 1:06:00, there is the match where we went out on due to the blue alliance robot losing their battery infront of our bridge.


http://www.justin.tv/firstteam604/b/311998688

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

Thanks! We had a few issues with the computer overheating, however we will have them fixed for SVR.

If anyone else has any feedback for the webcast, please PM me or post here and we'll make sure they are addressed for SVR.

Thanks for posting the link. We will be splitting the videos and uploading them to YouTube for The Blue Alliance sometime this week.

Also, congratulations to 1868 for their second Regional Chairman's Award, and 3256 for their finals appearance, as well as 1678/971/3189 on their well deserved regional win. Only two weeks until SVR, hope to see everyone there!

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

The Bird Brains will be there. How nice to go to a local regional at last!!

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

Thank you for the kind words. I feel like 1671 is at last emerging as a consistently high performing team and it was so much fun being in the thick of things right through to the end. I enjoyed being next to you in the pits. I only wish we could have taken you on in the finals. THAT would have been awesome.

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

Thanks to everyone who posted the videos. That triple bot balance was amazing and i cant believe i missed it, (distracted by team 8 falling completly off the field)
It's very impressive and im glad someone pulled it off at Davis.

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

Thanks everyone for another great Sacramento Regional. Congrats again to 1678, 971, and 3189 - a well deserved regional win. It is so awesome to see the Citrus Circuits winning the regional in back to back years and I have a feeling you could easily go for more in the future. Also congrats to 604 for winning the EI and 1868 for the CA.

While our Stacking Bot performance wasn't perfect, we did prove it is possible on the practice field and gave it a shot in the quarterfinals with a bit of drama (sorry fembots). We should be more prepared in a few weeks to try it again at the Spokane Regional.

Here's a video segment of our practice with 2085 and 675 as well as another view of the quarterfinals.

http://youtu.be/1q65MRAJTD0

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

Here are my finals video. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESYewQsPEmk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2YTY4FFa4k

Re: Sacramento Regional 2012
 

Woot woot! See ya there!