2012 Detroit District
 

Team 1023 would like to give a huge thank you to alliance partners, Team 469, and Team 3175! We enjoyed working with you and we couldn't have done it without you! 94 points is something to be very proud of!

Congrats to teams 313, 1504 and 3538 on making it to the finals! Team 51 and 217 - Thank you for always being an inspiration to us! We have looked up to you for many years and we enjoy working with you!

To all of the teams at Detroit, it was great seeing old friends and meeting new ones. Thanks for all of the kind words and the great weekend! We look forward to seeing you all again!

Thanks to Carlos and all of the volunteers that make the events possible! Detroit will always be a special competition for our team.

Re: 2012 Detroit District
 

It was a great competition. For those that weren't there or didn't see the webcast, 1023 is the real deal. What a great robot, and one of our favorite teams. Congratulations on the great win.

Re: 2012 Detroit District
 

Are there any videos of this event posted anywhere? I would love to watch some of these machines in action, and I was unable to watch the webcast because I was reffing on the other side of the state this weekend :D

Re: 2012 Detroit District
 

I found this one of finals match 1. We haven't gotten ours up yet. http://vimeo.com/38738961

Re: 2012 Detroit District
 

Thanks Chris! The feeling is mutual. And, I didn't think we were going to get past you, you all really gave us a run for our money to get that first spot. :)

Re: 2012 Detroit District
 

As a driver (for 2224) I must say that it a lot of things going on. I managed to knock two wide robots off the bridge, almost get knocked off the bridge by team 4380, run into and knock and team 94 out of the way of the bridge and not get fouled, have the 217 try to push me onto the co-op bridge with 2 sets of chains slip and radio die, have 3 game controllers fail, and sweat myself to death from nervousness but I must say those were the best 3 days of my 9th grade life :]
BTW did anyone see the guy waving the signs for team 94, he most certainly made my day

Re: 2012 Detroit District
 

Team 94 had awesome spirit! They danced in front of us most of the day and brought many smiles to our face! It was fun! That is awesome that you are a freshman driver and that you enjoyed yourself. Keep up the hard work!

Re: 2012 Detroit District
 

Also, wanted to congratulate 123 on their Chairman's win and thanks for coming down to the floor with us and cheering us on during finals! Good luck at states!

Re: 2012 Detroit District
 

Match 17 against BX was definitely one of the most fun over the weekend.


Soooo close. :rolleyes:

Congrats!

Re: 2012 Detroit District
 

Haha yeah.. I really could not believe we pulled that one off! When I first looked at the score I thought we lost by 1, but the kids were all cheering around me so I had to look again. It was great seeing you all again! We love our Feds!

Re: 2012 Detroit District
 

I just want to say how awesome it was to have the opportunity to play with Bedford for elims. Since my return to FIRST in Michigan, you have been one of my favorite teams to watch and it is amazing how much better you guys get each year and how friendly and welcoming your whole team is. It was truely a pleasure to play with you all.

I noticed somebody posted a link to one of our matches, but I now have all of 469's matches up on vimeo, including our run through elims with 1023 and 3175.

Check it out here www.vimeo.com/channels/frc469

Kudos to 3175 for being a great third alliance. You guys were great teammates and made great decisions driving out there on the field. Triple balancing 4 out of 6 times was quite an amazing feat!

Re: 2012 Detroit District
 

Your videos are awesome! I've been watching them all day! :) I think I've linked most of them to facebook now. haha We feel the same about you all! So glad we got to play together! You are a great team and we enjoyed being with you! Hopefully we will get to play together some more (Because I know I'm not looking forward to playing against you) :) Thank you for the compliments and for helping us bring home first place! :)

Re: 2012 Detroit District
 

I just have to say that the balance in semi-final 1 was quite hilarious (only now that I know we weren't damaged and we won- LOL) but it looks so easy in some matches and this just shows how hard it really is. The fact that we ended upright, and you all balanced was amazing. I think we all tipped at some point in the wild ride! :)

Re: 2012 Detroit District
 

It was awesome competing against you guys. Looking forward to seeing Bedford at Livonia and both of you and Las at States, regardless if we make it or not. You two are some of our picks to take down states this year. Great Bots all around, and we were happy to even get an opportunity to compete against you in the finals. The Thunder Chickens and Wings of Fire were tough to get past as both are awesome teams with great bots. Walking out of that building with a second place finish after finishing the quals in 28th shocked our team to the core. I as well would also like to congratulate every team that was there and elsewhere so far this season because regardless of how well you do, completing the tasks we receive each year is tougher than most people realize and making it from beginning to end is victory enough in our books

Re: 2012 Detroit District
 

Well thank you very much! Would love to work with them again. But, there is going to be a LOT of tough competition at states! :) 2 years ago, we were one of the bottom seeded teams in Detroit, due to the fact that we used an illegal motor(had been legal up til then and we missed it was taken off COT) and so we spent most of the competition trying to get our intake working again. HOT team and WINGS of FIRE took us as the last pick of the eliminations and we got our first ever win! GO HOT Wings Express! So, I understand your feelings there! You guys did a great job! And, you are absolutely right about every team being proud of themselves. Being there with a working robot is a huge one!

Re: 2012 Detroit District
 

Debbie, thanks! It was awesome cheering you on during the finals! We had fun! Congrats on your Engineering Inspiration, you deserved it!

We'll see you at Livonia. Perhaps 123 and 1023 will make up the winning alliance at Livonia :)

Re: 2012 Detroit District
 

Debbie,
THANK YOU to the Bedford Express and Las Guerrillas! We (Team 3175) were honored to be selected as your alliance partners! What a great experience the kids had working side by side with two classy teams and having the opportunity to learn from you.

There were so many quality teams in the competition this weekend - congratulations to each team that made it through the weekend, especially to those that achieved new levels of success (1189 - highest placement in elimination in team history!, etc...) and to all of the rookie teams that never gave up and made it to the field to compete!

We LOVE the Detroit District Event and are lucky to call it our home event...

I am hoping that we will gather a few of our team members to attend the events during the next two weeks to cheer everyone else on. Good luck to you and all the teams during the last couple of weeks of the season!

Re: 2012 Detroit District
 

Just to clarify (and I've spent my weekend correcting my former team on this): 1189 has finished competitions as semifinalists (2007 and 2008), but never have they won a semifinal match. It felt so good to watch the webcast as an alum and see them stay in the top half of the rankings, and watching the #2 alliance progress through 7 matches in the eliminations was exciting as well. At least one Grosse Pointe team took home the gold ;)

Re: 2012 Detroit District
 

Hey Kara!
Sorry if I misspoke... :ahh: Just going on word from some team members at the event...

Either way, what a great event for the Gearheads! Looking forward to seeing how they finish in their next event and hoping to see them move on to States!

Hope all is well with you and your mom by the way!

Re: 2012 Detroit District
 

Thank you! Your team was great to work with (and thanks for the food also)! Great group and I couldn't be happier with our pick! :)

Re: 2012 Detroit District
 

469 and 1023: You guys have no idea how much being selected for the #1 Alliance with teams of your caliber meant to us. We were all going nuts; we didn't even have a shooter! Thanks so much for bringing us along for the ride!

Re: 2012 Detroit District
 

You all were a lot of fun to work with and you did your job well! Congrats! Here is a good pic of you and if you scroll through Dan's pictures you will find a lot more. He is an awesome photographer! :) http://www.flickr.com/photos/daniele...7629269481826/

Re: 2012 Detroit District
 

This was an absolutely awesome district to be at.
To 1023: Bedford is a great team, I was telling one of our mentors how elegant your robot was because it was so simple, yet so brutally effective (and I love the graphics on the cover, well done). Your autonomous mode is certainly something to be proud of and it will help you win many future matches, keep it up. Not only was your robot amazing though, your kids and adults alike were too. We have been using you as an example of what team spirit should look like. Congrats on Engineering Inspiration too, you deserve it.

To 3175: You guys made good alliance partners, you worked hard and made sure that the strategy just worked. It was great to triple balance with you.

To 217 & 51: The fact that you guys took time out of working on your own robots to send students out to help other teams just demonstrates that you truly understand gracious professionalism, and a couple of rookie teams may not have ever gone out onto the field if it weren't for the constant hard work of your students this weekend.

Overall a very good weekend, good luck guys and we'll see many of you at Troy!

Re: 2012 Detroit District
 

@Debbie

As a coach when choosing people for your alliance what qualities do you look for when choosing robots. I honestly think my team (which I guess every other team would say the same thing) could have been picked because of balancing alone, I mean we did manage to balance properly in all of our matches but 1. I'm not at all trying to vent on your thread and go Off Topic, I just want to know what small things could be done in order to improve my team to get chosen or maybe even be able to choose.

Thanks

Re: 2012 Detroit District
 

Well, we scout robots individually. We made 2 lists... top scoring robots and top balancing robots. (We didn't care if they balanced the co-op bridge or their own bridge, just if they balanced and by themselves or with someone)
So, we rank the top 24 teams in each of those two categories to start. That's what we made Friday night. We checked the list and adjusted for performance on Saturday, watched for moving up the list or moving down it. Before we knew we were top seed, we were looking for the best robot that could do both things for us.
Your team was actually on our top 24 list for bridge and points. But, when we found out we were first seed, we knew who we wanted for first pick, and our focus shifted for second pick. We wanted a wide-bot for the triple balance. We started ranking wide bots. We ranked our top choices for wide, some were alliance captains, some we knew would go immediately, and we were lucky that no one took the one we wanted.

If all the wide bots had been gone by our pick, we would have gone with our long bot list.

We looked at hybrid score, wheel type, how many motors on wheels, what kind of motor on wheels, super shifters, cooperation on alliances, follow through with plans(for instance - if you make plans to do the coopertition with a team, then go balance on your bridge instead, you probably aren't going to get picked by them),if you can lower the bridge, if you can cross the bump, along with the performance of the robot on the bridge and baskets.
We are still babies at this picking game, so you may want to check with some others to see how they do it. :) It depends a lot on who you are with. If we had finished elsewhere in the ranks, we may have looked for different things, but being wide was important that time because we had a ton of scoring with 469 and ourselves, so we weren't worried about that as much as the triple balance. Sorry I'm not more help, but we are still learning too! :)

Re: 2012 Detroit District
 

Thank you so much! We really try the keep it simple method. This was the first year we paid any attention to the appearance,and when we were looking at our peg for our arm, and the light around the camera, it just looked like a train! So, I begged the kids to make it a train and was very proud of what they did.(Thanks also to their high school art teacher who helped them figure out what paint to use) I am also very proud of my autonomous programmer. He is a senior this year, and the rest of the programming team has big shoes to fill, though he has been working with them all year to prepare them for next year. I've threatened to flunk him so I can keep him, but since I teach jr. high, it doesn't scare him too much. It is really nice to hear your compliments, but really we just learned from all of you! When Nick and I took over 4 years ago, we just looked around and learned from the amazing teams we have in Michigan! So, thanks to all of you for helping us get to where we are!

Re: 2012 Detroit District
 

@Debbie

Ok now I see what you mean. I don't want you to think I'm just randomly yelling picked why weren't we picked. I just wanted to see what a winning team based their opinions and choices off of. Based on what you said you were plenty of help.

Thank you so much and I hope to see you guys at the Livonia game.

Re: 2012 Detroit District
 

You are doing a very smart thing by asking. I think the process Debbie described is pretty similar for a lot of teams.

Typically in this game, a first round pick needs to be a good scorer with good hybrid scoring. Triple balance capability if possible. Our team balances really well, so we don't really care if our first pick is a good double balancer - we'll handle that.

2nd round pick for us would ideally do all of the following:

1) Be able to feed us or a partner in hybrid. Those two extra hybrid balls are important and if you can release them to a partner that is a good shooter, that's a huge benefit. It doesn't have to be a complicated conveyor belt system. If you can put a simple ramp on your robot that holds two balls with a door that releases the balls 5 seconds into the hybrid period (use a servo - it's light and easy), you're good.

2) Be able to push down the bridge. If you can't push down the bridge, one of the scoring teams has to stop scoring points in order to reset the bridge - that last ball or two that they could've scored can mean the difference between being eliminated or moving on.

3) Wide body is preferrable for balancing. However, if you are long, you must have a way to keep from falling off the bridge - like a skid plate under the robot or you must not tip over with part of your robot hanging off the bridge.

4) Have no features that will disrupt the balance. We've seen robots that when pushed up the bridge drift sideways (due to inadequate sideways friction in their drive system) and bind their robot against the bridge side rails.

If you can do #1 and #2, you should be in pretty good shape for eliminations at most districts.

Re: 2012 Detroit District
 

Thanks and congrats to all the teams for a great event...I know I had a fantastic time all weekend. Special thanks to 1701's alliance partners in eliminations...it was great, even if we did get slaughtered! This was a great competition and tons of fun for us...it was great working with all of the teams, even when they werent on our alliance! I hope to see all of you at events in the future. Good luck in the future!