Re: 2012 Mid-Atlantic Robotics FRC Region Championship
 

My expectations for a District championship event have certainly been made after this event. Thank you to all of the teams who made the inaugural MAR Region Championship event one to remember. A huge thanks needs to be sent to the championship volunteers! You all are the best in supporting our teams and the event

Congrats to teams 433 and 75 on your Chairman's Award win. I am sure you all will represent the MAR region well in STL as you look to become the 4th team in our region to join the FIRST HoF.

Best of luck to team 3142 for the Engineering Excellence, 3929 for the Rookie All-star Award, and all of the other qualifying teams moving on to World Championships. Compete like crazy and have fun!

To Don R from 1676 and all of the Dean's List Finalists, thank you for being the role models to our students and mentors. You all certainly those we should be looking up to as leaders within the FIRST community.

Our championship volunteers of the year, Ed Petrillo and Frank Larkin, you both sincerely rock! Your dedication to the teams in our region and leadership in kicking off the District model was huge. THANK YOU

On behalf of the Storm Robotics Team, thank you to all teams for your support and enthusiasm. Our students and mentors greatly appreciate being a part of this FIRST community and look forward to everything the future brings in our region.

Re: 2012 Mid-Atlantic Robotics FRC Region Championship
 

I have to say, I've never been to a more INTENSE regional. Between all the close matches, the triple balances, and the last minute scoring, I was on the edge of/out of my seat the entire time.

Mad props to the human player from 75 who won a qualifier by one point by throwing a basket from the feeder station. :)

Re: 2012 Mid-Atlantic Robotics FRC Region Championship
 

Indeed.
Re-quoted for truth
1676 is definitely going.

Re: 2012 Mid-Atlantic Robotics FRC Region Championship
 

Any idea when the matches beyond 41 will be posted?

Thanks for putting everything up.

Re: 2012 Mid-Atlantic Robotics FRC Region Championship
 

The field was not the "MAR Field" and I believe the same one as Rutgers (Chestnut Hill had the MAR field that week).

From what I heard from some of the Field Crew, at least 2 of the Elim issues were bad batteries, and at least 1 was watchdog. Remember to have several batteries fully charged before Elims, because the matches come fast.

Since Fridays are a slow day for RI, I usually try to watch for robot control issues (not limited to "dead bots", including mechanism malfunctions) and provide in pit advice. Most of what I saw was cut and dry cRIO and Radio reboots. Reminder: secure those radio power cables with tape or ties, it was not rated for going over the bump ;)

Re: 2012 Mid-Atlantic Robotics FRC Region Championship
 

We blew a jag, which caused our system to go batty...

My HYPOTHESIS is that since it was on our CAN network, it caused our 2CAN to go haywire, which caused it to stop responding. This caused (or something else caused) the cRio to max out its CPU cycles and stopped responding.

In the meantime, our turret (which is on a separate victor) started turning, and the system wasn't watching our potentiometer voltage go beyond its desired limit. Thus, we sheared our turret belt and the potentiometer coupling (just a piece of surgical tubing).

When 1089 goes down, it's often in a blaze of glory. We always have an issue in eliminations when it matters most. It's been affectionately referred to as "The 1089 Curse"

I do, though, want to give a huge thanks to 357 and 816 for being such awesome and understanding alliance partners. It would've been awesome to pull that triple balance off in the match.

Re: 2012 Mid-Atlantic Robotics FRC Region Championship
 

I have been following this thread with regards to the penalties or no penalties, I believe the refs made the best calls they could given the circumstances. I don't think any members of our alliance would disagree with that.

I would like to congratulate 341 again, they have built a world class robot this year. Their partners 25 and 1640 were no slouches in their respective rights, each deserving the championship they earned. Each of them brought a great set of strengths. Congrats on the first MAR championship.

I would like to thank 1218 for picking us, our whole team turned around to see who was shouting our number because we thought it was our kids for a second. We really were very surprised, when we didnt get picked in the first round but I think we as a team know and understand why, the robot really did not perform to the levels its expected to in quals, fortunately we got that fixed in elims I think. I dont think we could have asked for better partners than 1218 and 2180 to put us in the finals. The three robots really gave us a huge advantage of having 3 really solid scorers.

I would like to make a special mention to team 3929 for putting together a great team and they are definitely no rookies to be passed up as such, I was extremely happy to see them qualify for nationals with RAS.

Congrats to all the other award winners and point qualifiers, I look forward to seeing many of the teams in St.Louis.

See you all in another week.

Re: 2012 Mid-Atlantic Robotics FRC Region Championship
 

http://www.twitch.tv/powercord869/b/314953823
This video is all of Saturday, including the awards ceremony. Videos at the bottom of the page include the rest of the matches, although post match 41 are not split up.

In regards to connection issues(we lost comm a couple times during our matches, sometimes it was mysterious, one time it was a motor on fire :yikes: ), one thing an NI rep suggested to us as a potential problem was that our cRIO was running at 100% CPU usage the entire time. This even went on at the Rutgers and Lenape districts, only we never had a problem (except for one loss of comm at Rutgers). Upon doing some things to fix this, we were running much better,, but many connection problems I saw this weekend were just plain mysterious.

But on a much, much more positive note, thanks to everyone for the Dean's List congratulations, it's a truly amazing honor, and I'll be writing up a larger "thank you/congratualtions" post (hopefully) sometime tomorrow.

Re: 2012 Mid-Atlantic Robotics FRC Region Championship
 

You guys really do that that "Extreme Heat" thing seriously, dontcha? ;)

Re: 2012 Mid-Atlantic Robotics FRC Region Championship
 

When you attempt to use CAN to communicate to a blown Jag it blocks the thread until it timeout (default is 0.02sec which is 1 normal teleop cycle). I recommend running all CAN Network communications in separate threads for each mechanism and out of your main DS communication thread (so that it doesnt delay other functions waiting for a response). In Labview, this usually means placing these commands in separate loops in the Periodic Taks VI.

Re: 2012 Mid-Atlantic Robotics FRC Region Championship
 

Thank you for your very kind words.

We hold tremendous respect for 2016. You guys rock! Your robot is consistently top of class.

Re: 2012 Mid-Atlantic Robotics FRC Region Championship
 

Wow MAR championships had some exciting matches! As always thanks so much to the volunteers that make the event run smoothly.

Thanks to our partners 365 and 1626. We were very excited about having our first eliminations behind the glass with MOE. Top it off with 1626 and the ability to triple balance and there was much excitement. We only wish our shooter would have contributed more. We made big gamble installing a new shooter and just haven't had the seat time to get it working as well as our old shooter.

We played hard until the very end. 1218 2180 and 2016 clearly earned their spot in the finals.

341, 25 and 1640 congrats on your victory! I was glad to see 25 win their way to St. Louis.

What a great ending to the MAR district's 1st season.

See everyone in St. Louis...hopefully with an intelligent shooter.

Re: 2012 Mid-Atlantic Robotics FRC Region Championship
 

The inaugural MAR Championship is definitely going to go down in my mind as one of the most competitive events ever held in our Region. I believe that it proved that the District System does work as most, if not all teams were able to come out swinging and positively contribute to their alliances efforts.

Congrats to the winners 341, 25 and 1640. You guys can only be called a dream alliance. The fact that 1640 was left that late in the draft is simply astounding and the combination of 25 and 341 was just devastating. Going into MAR CMP I don't think anyone could have called you two getting together, but after seeing the results, I'd have to say it worked well.

On a more personal note, congrats to 3929 on RAS, it's been interesting watching you guys grow throughout the season, I really hope you make it to the CMP. (Especially Akash.... :P)

Finally, thanks to 341 and crew for 'adopting' me for the weekend. It was definitely a blast working with you guys, we'll have to do it again some time.

Re: 2012 Mid-Atlantic Robotics FRC Region Championship
 

The field used at Temple field was at Minnesota Week 5 and at Cincinnati Week 6.

Re: 2012 Mid-Atlantic Robotics FRC Region Championship
 

Congrats to you Akash and 3929! I forgot to mention y'all in my earlier post. Awesome job this season! See you in St Louis.

Re: 2012 Mid-Atlantic Robotics FRC Region Championship
 

So happy for Team 11!!!

They just found out that 486 will not be using their spot and they indeed will be going to Champs!

GO MORT!!!

Re: 2012 Mid-Atlantic Robotics FRC Region Championship
 

That is the best news ever. :D

Re: 2012 Mid-Atlantic Robotics FRC Region Championship
 

Team 1218 would like to congratulate every team that competed this weekend at the MAR Championship. We were extremely impressed by the high level of play. What a great precedent for the future of our new district model.

We would also like to thank our partners 2180 and 2016. The seventh alliance rarely has such great talent available and picking up 2016 in the second round was a wonderful surprise. You guys were some of the best partners I've had a chance to play with in my time in this program. Our teams worked together extremely well from the modifications to 2016's machine to facilitate a triple with 2180 to 2180's selfless willingness to play defense in the majority of matches. It was truly an alliance.

We would also like to specifically congratulate the winning alliance of 341, 25, and 1640 for their win. Three great teams that were able to work together and show everyone what MAR is capable of with 115 points and time to spare. You guys are absolutely great competitors and we hope to be next to you rather than against you at the Championship.

See you guys in St. Louis!

Re: 2012 Mid-Atlantic Robotics FRC Region Championship
 

That's great news! Congrats MORT! We're so happy to be seeing you down there!

M-O-R-T MORT MORT MORT!!!

Re: 2012 Mid-Atlantic Robotics FRC Region Championship
 

Sweet!

Team memos need work ;)

Re: 2012 Mid-Atlantic Robotics FRC Region Championship
 

Team 1923 would like to thank everyone for making their experience at the 2012 Inaugural Mid-Atlantic Robotics Championship memorable. We had a great time and even though we didn't get to play in the eliminations, we still had loads of fun in all of the qualifying events.

We would like to especially thank Team 2016 for helping us out by letting us use their tools and helping us out whenever we needed to borrow their arbor press or their drill press. We couldn't have performed as well as we did without your help. Thank you so much and we hope we can be pit buddies again in a later competition!

We would also like to thank Team 1403 for helping us acquire a hex-cross section brace from the KOP that no one else had. Our battery had almost flown out of our robot when our robot got some air after a fall, and it took out our brace and sheared two bolts into it. They promised to get it out of their shop for us the next day, and we were surprised to see that they had tapped it and cut it to length as well! We couldn't have asked for more from this gracious team. Thank you so much!

We would also like to thank Team 11 for helping us solve our programming problems. We found ourselves dead-in-the-water after hybrid in one match, and we remembered that MORT had the same problem when we were allianced with them. We rushed over to their pit to ask for help, and they gladly looked over our code and pointed out some things that would prevent it. We knew we could trust them and sure enough, we were operational in teleop the next match. Thank you MORT!

Finally, we would like to thank the teams that triple-balanced with us. It gave us a feeling about the dynamics of our robot and how easy or how hard it can be to triple balance. Off the top of my head, we attemped to triple balance with 357, 3929, 341, 2016 and 869. It was great to triple balance with you guys and even though we never got to do it in a real match, it still gave us the piece of mind that we could triple balance.

Thank you to all the volunteers who made this event possible. We really appreciated every volunteer at the event, from the the quick unbagging process with a volunteer standing by our pit at the time we walked in to the quick and efficient number-based unloading process. Thank you for volunteering your time for us!

Thank you to all the other teams who graciously provided parts and help to us. And good luck to all the teams representing Mid-Atlantic Robotics in St. Louis! We really enjoyed this year's competition and are looking forward to next year's! See you guys at the offseasons! :D

Re: 2012 Mid-Atlantic Robotics FRC Region Championship
 

Re: 2012 Mid-Atlantic Robotics FRC Region Championship
 

This may be a little late, but does anyone have video of the awards ceremony? It used to be on the twitch.tv page of 869's webcast, but the ~9 hour long video is now only 2 hours...I have some family members that wanna see it, and if anyone has it that would be much appreciated.