Re: 2012 Mid-Atlantic Robotics FRC Region Championship
 

Would you want #MARChamps or #FRCMARCh? Since I'm mostly a techno-Luddite, I won't be twittererererering, but I think it's a neat idea, too. Anything to get the messaage of FIRST spread further.

Re: 2012 Mid-Atlantic Robotics FRC Region Championship
 

FIRST team 433 is excited to be attending MAR Champs and would like to officially invite all MAR teams (attending champs or not) to our annual Firebirds Fiesta. The fiesta is on Friday, April 13th from 7-10 at our school, which is about 30 minutes away from the event (Mount Saint Joseph Academy- 120 W. Wissahickon Avenue Flourtown, PA 19031). It's free and we'll have lots of food and a DJ (and a place for mentors to relax and socialize), so we hope to see you all there! Can't wait to see you all at the competition!

Re: 2012 Mid-Atlantic Robotics FRC Region Championship
 

The official FIRST Hashtag for MAR Championships is #FRCPA. It is used by the FMS system to report the score and by various aggregators used around the community. The point of hashtags is to organize conversations about the same subject (and track trending) so it is important unite around a single one. The PA regional code is a legacy that doesn't make much sense in its new role, similar to the GL code for FiM Championship. No slight is meant to my friends in NJ and DE, the code is just there for continuity.

Just a note: the FiM rules still prevent them from backfilling for already registered winners of the Region CA, EI and RAS awards. They can only backfill the Champion Alliance.

Also, I have heard nothing new to answer the Worlds qualified outside of MAR question, sorry.

Re: 2012 Mid-Atlantic Robotics FRC Region Championship
 

The only downside to using #frcpa is that you'll be pulling down the hundred+ FMS results that would drown out the actual tweets. The Connecticut regional piggybacked on the #omgrobots hashtag and used #omgct (or ctr, can't remember), which would be a nice way to have a standardized format for every regional while not having to sift through FMS results (omg + regional code). Still very cryptic given the somewhat random codes given to many of the regional/district event.

Rutgers got the "nj" suffix, and they already used "phl" for the chestnut hill competition, which is in greater philadelphia I suppose.

Still at 51 teams, don't know if FIRST works on the weekends, but hopefully we'll have a finalized list soon.

Re: 2012 Mid-Atlantic Robotics FRC Region Championship
 

I have to agree with scottandme. The #FRCPA hashtag would be bad to use for non-scoring purposes. The only thing the scoring system hashtags should be used for, especially on a competition weekend, is scoring system notifications, if for no other reason than to prevent FRCSpyder and other apps from having to filter out all of the spam to get the scores.

Can you imagine what the Liacouras Center would be like if Spyder crashed? :ahh:

Re: 2012 Mid-Atlantic Robotics FRC Region Championship
 

Perhaps, we should promote a hashtag for all of MAR (not just this event) to use in the future. It could become well known around FIRST and used for all MAR events. My suggestion is #MARobots (#MARobo, #MARFIRST, or#omgmar could be good, too). In order, to promote the new tag (whatever that is) to a larger audience, #omgrobots should be included in most tweets (the 2 championships are the only events next week anyway). #FRC(+ Regional Code) and #omgrobots are probably the only well known tags (internationally) in FIRST.

Maybe LibbyK can help originate a new tag for MAR. She is coming to MAR champ and didn't she originate #omgrobots?

Since Rutgers was the site of the NJ regional before 2004, I think that is why it got the NJ legacy tag. The standard format for new regional codes seems to be 2 letter postal code for state (or province) + first letter of town: (not that eveyone follows it)
NJF - New Jersey Flanders
OHC - OHio Cincinnati

Many of the FiM codes are based off of Michigan counties or their 3 legacy regionals (GL MI DT). Gull Lake district (MIGL) is the only 4 letter code. It is in Kalamazoo County so I guess they passed on KZOO :D

Re: 2012 Mid-Atlantic Robotics FRC Region Championship
 

The funny thing about OHC tag is that it could either apply to OHio Cleveland or OHio Cincinnati. For that matter, it could also apply to OHio Columbus!

Re: 2012 Mid-Atlantic Robotics FRC Region Championship
 

Even more confusing:
The 3 Washington events (all "S" towns) and the DC regional:
wa Seattle Olympic
wa2 Seattle Cascade
was Spokane (Cheney, WA)
dc Washington DC

Also, numbers are used differentiate events in the same general area. Most places use '2' for the second one but Oakland County Michigan uses '1' (prob better way for engineer/programmer to count 0,1...) :
oc Troy FiM
oc1 Waterford FiM

Re: 2012 Mid-Atlantic Robotics FRC Region Championship
 

@Brian Lucas - did you receive and email regarding the change to judging for Rookie All Star? (assuming you are one of the contacts for 4342)

Our team was extremely disappointed in the change presented to us.

I feel that this is extremely unfair to the students who, at district events, put in countless hours preparing materials for the judges to take into consideration only to have none of the same materials taken into consideration at the MAR Championship. It creates, in my opinion, a different judging criteria than it did for our district event. What do other people feel about this?

Re: 2012 Mid-Atlantic Robotics FRC Region Championship
 

Dan (4342 leader) hasn't forwarded it yet, so it is news to me.

In my opinion, the no pit interviews is an attempt to even the playing field for the EI & RAS teams that did not qualify for MAR Championship. Only 3 of MAR 10 rookies qualified for Championship, 4342, 3926 and 3974 (Double Rookie Inspiration winner). I always thought the robot was a part of the judging for the RAS at most events but I guess not.

The prepared material restriction is a little bit confusing to me, especially for EI. Are the students expected to give a speech or just answer questions? If it is a speech, it is customary to prepare for it. Also, all rookies are encouraged to create a Chairman's style essay.

I was never directly involved in the MOE's Chairman's Award Judging process, but I tried to give 4342 the best second hand advice I could. I guess writing their story will just have to be a good experience, rather than a handout.

Anyone from FiM care to share their judging process for EI and RAS?

Re: 2012 Mid-Atlantic Robotics FRC Region Championship
 

I like #omgMAR. It fits with the #omgrobots, #omgiri, #omgcmp, etc. tags.

Off-topic, but DC makes sense to me. No one from around here really calls it "Washington." Most just say "DC" or "the District," unless they actually work for the government (a lot of my friends are congressional interns), in which case they will say they intern "on the hill." For the greater Washington, DC metro area, everyone says "DMV" for DC-Maryland-Virginia.

And now back to robots with you all...

Re: 2012 Mid-Atlantic Robotics FRC Region Championship
 

Can someone post the link for where the event will be wecast? Ive looked and cant find it.

Sorry if I missed it. Im on my phone.

Re: 2012 Mid-Atlantic Robotics FRC Region Championship
 

In an e-mail sent out last Thursday, MAR was still looking for a team to volunteer to webcast the event. I'm not sure if anything has happened since then.

I'll be attending the event Friday and Saturday, so I hope there's a webcast so I can watch Thursday night's matches!

Re: 2012 Mid-Atlantic Robotics FRC Region Championship
 

Team 869 would like to announce that we will be providing the webcast for the 2012 MAR Championship! We just talked with the even coordinator today and are in the process of setting up the link! I should be posting a link within the next two days. Good Luck to everyone and see you all at the competition!

Re: 2012 Mid-Atlantic Robotics FRC Region Championship
 

Great job on the direct quote from the game animation