2012 Los Angeles Regional
 

Who's ready for the Los Angeles Regional?! 66 teams this year, which is the most I've personally experienced at a single event.

I'll be there with rookie Team 4123, if all goes well you should see us out on the field during practice day calibrating our Turret Auto-Targeting Control and Gyro/Encoder assisted Ramp-Drive Control.

Re: 2012 Los Angeles Regional
 

The High Rollers can't wait to get "rollin" westward! We're looking forward to playing with many of our old friends...and make some new fiendships during our visit. We are staying at he Travel Lodge a couple of blocks away from the arena and could use some recommendations for good eats nearby;)

Re: 2012 Los Angeles Regional
 

I think there're a couple places down by the waterfront, near the Aquarium of the Pacific. There's also a Famous Dave's somewhere in the area, but it's a bit farther. (The area around said restaurant also has some other places, but I don't remember what.) It's been a while since I've been down there, though.


I personally probably won't be there--I'll be in Van Nuys Friday-Sunday at a collegiate engineering competition. (Anybody wants to come up Sunday, drop me a PM and I'll send more info your way.)

Re: 2012 Los Angeles Regional
 

I'll be dropping by on Saturday, not sure when yet though. Good luck to all the teams!

Re: 2012 Los Angeles Regional
 

Heading out Wednesday with a trailer full of bots from the IE. Field setup then inspection.

Re: 2012 Los Angeles Regional
 

Tons of good places by the Waterfront -- the Yardhouse is always a favorite, Famous Dave's for BBQ, and Gladstone's for fish (and they give out free aquarium tickets).
If you venture a little further out to the Belmont Shore area, I'm a big fan of Taco Surf (fish tacos). Just going over to the Belmont Shore area in general would be easy to find something for everyone.

Re: 2012 Los Angeles Regional
 

We're almost ready. Dropping the robot off on Wednesday. Still working on some issues with our 30lb allowance...


Might want to check the Long Beach convention center website to see if a convention is going on. If so you're looking at HUGE lines at restaurants Saturday.

Re: 2012 Los Angeles Regional
 

Coming up from San Diego for inspection duty. Not coming with a team and it will be my first time at the LA Regional. Looking forward to seeing you all!

Re: 2012 Los Angeles Regional
 

We are heading up Wednesday for our second year at the LA regional. I hope it will be as great as last year!

Re: 2012 Los Angeles Regional
 

589 here :) we are heading down! anyone else staying at the best western plus in long beach?!

Re: 2012 Los Angeles Regional
 

1138 will be at the LA regional. Its tied for the largest event (66 teams). Looking forward to seeing everyone on thursday, friday, and saturday :).

Re: 2012 Los Angeles Regional
 

I am looking for someone to carpool with to the LA regional. I am volunteering as a robot inspector all day (7am til the end of the day) Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, unfortunately I live on campus at USC without a car. I was wondering if there was anyone nearby who I could carpool with, I'd really like to avoid the 90 minute bus and train ride, especially in the morning. Even if you can only help me out once or twice, it would make my commute a lot easier and be greatly appreciated. You can contact me via PM.

Re: 2012 Los Angeles Regional
 

Jason is this for all 3 days or just thursday?

Re: 2012 Los Angeles Regional
 

I'm volunteering all three days, but a ride even one day would help.

Re: 2012 Los Angeles Regional
 

I am, Pauline. :p

Re: 2012 Los Angeles Regional
 

david i know u r! ahaha

Re: 2012 Los Angeles Regional
 

Woah! The regionals start tomorrow?! :ahh:

Re: 2012 Los Angeles Regional
 

I can not wait until tomorrow. La regional is going to be a bomb and for those of you you have not seen our robot.

Re: 2012 Los Angeles Regional
 

This is going to be a good year.

I saw 973 bringing their bot to the pits as well, wow.

Re: 2012 Los Angeles Regional
 

Speaking of guys, we are revealing the robot tomorrow morning so please no pictures. You will see what we have in store tomorrow.

Re: 2012 Los Angeles Regional
 

This should be a great regional, sounds like a lot of the teams we know will be there. I'll try to tune in the webcast and see how you'all are doing....

have fun!

Re: 2012 Los Angeles Regional
 

Just a reminder, the Los Angeles Regional webcast will be hosted at
http://bhrobotics.com/

1515 looks forward to competing in LA once again!!

Re: 2012 Los Angeles Regional
 

So, I am pretty excited for tomorrow. So, I guess I am known for very aggressive driving. I managed to get onto the bridge, swerve right and balance all in 2-3 second so that the robot was facing the edge of the bridge, leaving room for more robots. I was able to pull that off for 6 consecutive times. I guess I was quite surprised myself. We seem to have the balance solidly down. Unfortunately, the back up drivers weren't able to consistently pull it off like I did, but they did great. The back up drivers are rather timid compared to my style.

Re: 2012 Los Angeles Regional
 

Looking like a great event. Good luck to all teams!

Re: 2012 Los Angeles Regional
 

Great. We'll be watching!
What an all-star West Coast lineup this regional will showcase.

Re: 2012 Los Angeles Regional
 

Ran the practice field on Friday, saw one major problem, most of the teams were bringing their bots to the field powered up! Many times without the control station on, tethered or even in close proximity to the robot.

Also, had an two injuries, one when a student placed his hand inside an energized robot and had two of his fingers seriously lacerated-NOT WEARING GLOVES, and his team members did not feel it was necessary to power-down the robot!?

Another student twisted his knee on the practice field, no one thought tell the volunteers running the field, as there were three teams on the practice field at the time. I suspended all operations and asked all robots on the field to power-down and leave the field. The student was ok after being attended to by an EMT.
We all need to do better than this, and think about our Operational Safety Plans, Manuals and training.

Re: 2012 Los Angeles Regional
 

I would be far more concerned if he had been wearing gloves and stuck his hand inside the robot.

Re: 2012 Los Angeles Regional
 

Our policy is that if a team member must check on a component inside the perimeter of the robot, we power it down.
If we need to check on operation, the robot is "chocked" like an aircraft so it cannot move or lurch.
We use gloves at all times when handling the robot.

Re: 2012 Los Angeles Regional
 

We got pretty far! Made it to the quarterfinals, and we got an award! I think I picked a good year to join 696! I had a great time!

What about you guys' experiences? I look forward to doing this again!

Re: 2012 Los Angeles Regional
 

You guys had a great bot.

Re: 2012 Los Angeles Regional
 

We have almost every qualification match on Youtube. Also, we captured the FIRST feed for the entire event, but it will take us a while to slice it.

Re: 2012 Los Angeles Regional
 

973 had a great time. We were struggling all weekend trying to get our bot together and working. It turned out fairly well although I can assue you we have not reached our full poential yet.

We like to thank 294 for picking us and 1836 for joining our alliance. We had fun and while we didn't win we were at least beaten by a better alliance.

We'd also like to congratulate teams 987, 1717, and 3512(our previous rookie team) for wining the regional, 207 for wining the Engineering Inspiration award, and 597 for winning the regional Chairmans award. You all deserved it and we'll see you at champs.

Re: 2012 Los Angeles Regional
 

1836 had a great time. We couldn't have asked for better alliance partners in 294 and 973, both who helped us so much. It was so exciting, and we had a great time.

Congrats to 987, 1717, and 3512. We had an amazing time playing against you in the finals. Good luck in St Louis.

Re: 2012 Los Angeles Regional
 

Team 207 had an amazing time. Thanks to 973, 294, and 1836 for giving us some great quarterfinal matches, and to everyone else for making it a great regional as always.

Re: 2012 Los Angeles Regional
 

Many thanks to our alliance partners, teams 1717 and 3512 for working together so well as we fought our way through eliminations. So glad you guys had our back as we struggled with what turned out to be a broken joy stick and a gyro issue those last two matches. Also, a shout out to 973, 294, and 1836...you guys put up a heck of a battle!

Re: 2012 Los Angeles Regional
 

Thank you team 702 and 1197 for having us on your alliance. Perhaps, I should apologize on behalf of the drive team for not being an as effective defender as you anticipated. We had to remove our ball manipulator Thursday because of a weight problem. If we had just starved balls and passed the balls, who knows?

1197, good luck at Central Valley.

Re: 2012 Los Angeles Regional
 

Team 3677 had a great time too. And a big thanks to all of our alliance members that carried us to 23rd place!

Re: 2012 Los Angeles Regional
 

LA was awesome for 3309. We ended up ranked fairly high, picked by an alliance (599 RoboDox and 1138 Eagle Eng.), playing in some amazing elimination matches, and walking away with the Entrepreneurship Award! One of team members (my brother!) also got Dean's List.

Thanks 599 and 1138 for picking us, it was our first time playing in elimination rounds and it was very exciting even though we didn't quite pull off any triple balances.

3925 and 1644 helped us out with a failed craptop battery and broken joystick at the last minute, thanks so much!

We are looking forward to Central Valley where we'll likely see many of the same great teams!

Re: 2012 Los Angeles Regional
 

Team 599 would like to thank teams 1138 and 3309 for being on our alliance, we had a great run! We definitely gave the first seed alliance a run for their money.

And congrats to 987, 1717, and 3512 for winning!

Re: 2012 Los Angeles Regional
 

Thanks a lot to all the teams at LA this year! Team 207 had some decade long dreams come true finally winning the coveted engineering inspiration award at home! We also had a hard time through qualifiers, that $@#$@#$@#$@# ribbon cable got us for a while. Now that our drivers have some drive time and when we get this camera tracking, I think we'll be at a whole other level at nationals.

Can't wait to see 973 do the same, they seemed to just get better durig the whole regional, and I must say in my 9 years of FIRST, I would be hard presses to name a more fun team to work with, all around great guys.

987 and 1717 also deserve major Cred. 987 for an equally dominating shooter are in Aim High, and 1717 for coming together late in the regional to win it! Epic performance by household names in the So-Cal robotics scene.

Corazon de Chileno was also extremely great both on and of the field. Glad they had the time to stop by and say hello at Hawthorne High. I speak for the whole team when I say that 207 would love to start working more with other teams, we want to start making World's a yearly destination and would love to learn some strategies teams like 973, 294,1717, and 987 use to do so. I know we plan on heading up north for the Maker Faire later this year. Maybe we could come say hi in Atascadero on the way there?

See you all in St. Louis!