Best moments of Rebound Rumble
 

Now that IRI has ended, I was thinking about some of the best matches, alliances, surprises, and more that have happened throughout this season. I though I should share my thoughts here. I guess I'll make this kind of like an award show, saying what I think was the best moment, match, etc. and anyone else who wants to can share their opinion

Best Match: Archimedes F-3, this match decided the Archimedes representitive and was extremely fun to watch, by the time it got to the bridges it was anyones game. The Eh team doubled and the 2826, 67, 4143 team failed on a great triple attempt. Other notables: Newton S-1(or maybe 2) where both alliances tripled and the final score was 121-97 I believe(correct me on that), and Boston F-2 an extremely close match decided by a single basket.

Best alliance(qualification or elimination): The now famous IRI alliance of 624, 118, and 16, who scored 136 points, three of which from a shot on the bridge. Other notables: the Eh-team (1114, 2056, 4334) and Boston regional winners (341, 233, 246)

Best moment for my own team: winning the RCA at GSR, our first of hopefully many more. Other notable: making it to the finals as an 11 seed during battlecry@WPI (thanks 175 and 716!)

Best robots: Just to list some notables, 67, 341, 2056, 2826, 1114, 233, 1717, and many many more.

Best rookie team: 4334 ATA the best feeder in the game this year

Best play: 118 scoring from the bridge at IRI.

Please share your thoughts and ideas!

Re: Best moments of Rebound Rumble
 

Although I agree that they were the best rookie team this year, I think that 16 had a better feeder bot. In my opinion, 16 was almost a necessity. I was very surprised that they made it so deep into the draft at champs, and ended up being the 8th alliance captain at IRI. I think that 1114 and 2826 could have won IRI without 4334 (Not trying downplay 4334's contributions to the their IRI alliance, just my opinion).

Re: Best moments of Rebound Rumble
 

Spot on. When I want to show someone from outside of FIRST what Rebound Rumble is all about, this is the match I show them.

Re: Best moments of Rebound Rumble
 

This alliance needed 4334 in order to make a triple balance possible. One of the things that makes 4334's robot this year so great is the fact that it isn't a full sized robot.

Do you have a good video of this match? I would kill for that.

Thanks for all the support guys. In the interest of accurate discussion, 1114 and 2826 balanced with 245 on the practice field a number of times. On the other hand 341 and 2056 also balanced with 148 on a practice field, but that didn't work in competition. Just little things I thought you might like to know.

Re: Best moments of Rebound Rumble
 

Comparing 16 to 4334 is hard to do considering 16 was a completely different robot from top to bottom. You can't compare 4334's 4wd to a swerve drive that has been years in the making by a veteran team like 16. 4334 was a much smaller robot making them a much better tripling robot.

I doubt 2826 and 1114 would have won IRI without 4334. Because without 4334 they probably wouldn't have been able to triple and 4334 played some extremely tough defense against opposing robots like 148.

Back to the topic.

Cool moments of 2012 include the beautiful hybrid by 1519, 1983, and 181 in quarterfinal 2-1 on the Newton field. 5 balls scored in 3 seconds. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLo15...feature=relmfu

4334 pushing 148 back over the bridge at IRI.

118 and 1717 going head to head in Newton qual. 129 and tying 71 to 71!

Re: Best moments of Rebound Rumble
 

Here you go:

http://www.simbotics.org/media/video...finals-match-3

Re: Best moments of Rebound Rumble
 

I have to say that although I loved the archimedes Finals, there is no doubt in my mind that the Best match in 2012 was GTR-West Finals 1. The first time EVER that 1114 and 2056 were on opposite sides of the field competing for a title. Even better was 2056 got to beet the team they were made by and the team they almost always win with. 10 Regional wins together?! and now they are on opposite sides!? Like come on, that match and its history was amazing.

Here's a link to that match, Please watch Karthik's amazing/Perfect intro to it also.

Also, For my Personnel favourite event in 2012, would hands down be when we went undefeated in Smoky Mountains and won our Very First ever Regional. I couldn't have been happier. Even better was us winning the final match with 234 dead on the field so 3259 and us were the only ones on our alliance. The moment we balanced on the bridge the whole alliance driver station went crazy :D

Re: Best moments of Rebound Rumble
 

I had some highs and lows this season but one really stands out. I had a week of vacation that I needed to take back in March. Event staff was begging Dottie and I to come up to Duluth for the regional. I surprise a lot of people here when I say I am going "up north" in the middle of winter. But we went and had a great time. If I had said no and stayed home I would have missed being present to congratulate Mike Whitman (1714 More Robotics) in person on his Regional Woodie Flowers Award. His students really wrote a great nomination and it was great to see his reaction and greet him on his way down to the field. If you have never Mike, please put him on your "must meet" list.

Re: Best moments of Rebound Rumble
 

One match I notice a lot of people missing is the (literally) last second shot at the Mt. Olive District finals

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7h2Dm29WPik

You can't see the actual shot, but you can see the score go up. Those finals were some of the best MAR matches in the season.

Also, on the topic of MAR, the level of excitement in the arena after the first triple balance at MAR Championships was huge.

In regards to IRI, the 133 point match was awesome.

Re: Best moments of Rebound Rumble
 

Okay, I'll give you that. A triple would have been much more difficult without a short bot (how short were they?). However, at an event like IRI, I think that they could have been just as successful by having a shooter in those last 30 seconds. There were still quite a few good shooters left. At that point in the match, there is a wide open field, making ball collection and shooting much easier. Although these are the best robots in the world, there is too much risk involved in the triple. I saw way too many teams get eliminated because they failed to triple balance.

Hypothetically, if both were left in the draft at that point, which would you think is the better pick for 2826 and 1114?

My favorite match was the battle of the human players at IRI. It was incredibly exciting to watch.

Re: Best moments of Rebound Rumble
 

Hard to say. You can never know who 1114 is going to pick because they examine every aspect of performance to make a powerful alliance.

My guess would be 4334 because they make tripling much easier than 16 especially since there were 2 long bots already on the alliance. Plus 4334 had already been feeding 1114 in hybrid throughout Archimedes and on Einstein a few months before.

Just my guess.

Re: Best moments of Rebound Rumble
 

The moments that really stand out in my mind as the best in Rebound Rumble:

GTR west Finals match 1
Lone Star Semis 1 match 2 (AKA 2415 scoring 67 points by themselves including a 6 ball auton)
IRI Quals Match with 624, 118, and 16.
Watching 16 wreck havoc in the Galileo Eliminations
Archimedes Finals
1114's Chairman's video
MSC Finals
MAR finals
1717 v 118 Newton Quals

Re: Best moments of Rebound Rumble
 

Curie QF 4 1-3, 1986 1678 85 vs. 3528 1741 1477. The largest point difference in these 3 matches was 2.

I am also quite a big fan of 1986 and 1477. Kind of wish 1477 and 624 hadn't been "stranded" in the Curie seeding, they could have done great things if they had teamed up for a third time. Lots of good things coming out of Texas lately.

Re: Best moments of Rebound Rumble
 

I'd have to extend that to 'stands out in my mind' for all of FIRST history, ever.
That video is fantastic, and the team truly deserves their place in the Hall of Fame.

Re: Best moments of Rebound Rumble
 

I generally agree with most of what has been said, but I want to add one more vote for Best Moment:

Week 2, Waterford District, Finals Match 1:

The Original Double Triple

67, 469, 2851: 85
3098, 573, 3601: 67

Sorry for the lack of a hybrid.

Re: Best moments of Rebound Rumble
 

I have no problems with 16, in my mind they were a top team this year, and they have a world championship to for it. Now without talking about balancing, I still say 4334 is just a tad bit better of a feeder simple because of their speed and maneuverability, however 16 is definitely a tad bit better at not getting penalties (I've seen them get multiple penalties as opposed to not seeing 16 get any) Nonetheless, both are absolutely fantastic robots, and deserve to be recognized as such.

Re: Best moments of Rebound Rumble
 

No offense, but did you just say that someone has better speed and maneuverability than 16?

That caught me off guard.

Re: Best moments of Rebound Rumble
 

Ok so they're both fast:D

Re: Best moments of Rebound Rumble
 

Definitely a fun topic. But just putting it out there, that there is still a ton of Rebound Rumble yet to play. We are having 4 events, just in the MAR District this Fall. Who knows what else will happen! :)

Re: Best moments of Rebound Rumble
 

Long before alliance picking and we already decided 1114 was our #1 pick (provided they were still around by then), Karthik and I made an instantaneously simultaneous decision that 4334 had to be on our alliance (provided they were still around too)

I would have loved to have played with 16, they are definitely one of my 2012 favorites, but 4334 couldn't have been substituted.

Re: Best moments of Rebound Rumble
 

With 12 events attended so far and at least seven or eight (depending if Ramp Riot gets back to me and if Kevin's event in Milwaukee goes through) more to go including one this weekend in Austin, Texas I thought I'd chime in on my perspectives on this season so far (I don't believe in the existence of an off season):

THIS YEAR'S BESTS (so far):

BEST TIME HAD: I'd have to say Boston. Lots of good friends and I got to stay at the House of Eckhart with Kim and the Angry! as well as members of 1511 and 2168 made for an awesome time!

MOST COMPETITIVE EVENT: IRI. There is no event I can think of where the 8th seed has just as much a chance to go all the way as the number one seed as IRI, It's what makes it FIRST's top off season event. MSC would be second.

BEST RUN EVENT : Boston. Top notch crew how were on point the whole weekend through and through led by the JefFTA. Battlecry and MSC are runner ups.

MOST FUN REGIONAL: Montreal. Yes my Garmin went evil and got me terribly lost every day and I often felt like a stranger in a strange land there but boy did those folks know how to put on a party. I haven't seen that kind of energy and enthusiasm at a FIRST event since FLR 2005. It was a blast. Boston and FLR are runner ups.

BEST ROBOT: 67: I know they didn't blow up at IRI but if they had their driver from the season I think they would have been really strong at the event. 548 would be my second pick.

BEST MATCH: IRI quarterfinal three match one. A double triple and a last second two point basket by 469's inbounder snatched away a one point victory for their alliance. Pure energy. Archimedes final match three was second.

BEST VENUE: While the Gordon Field House on the RIT campus will always be my favorite I must say the Cintas Centre in Cincinatti is quite beatiful and I'm not usually a big fan of arena setups.

CRAZIEST WEATHER PHENOMENON: Surprisingly it wasn't the near tornado that happened during Einstien which was good and scary for sure. It was day one at Boston when it was 80 degrees outside and the freaky effect it had on the event. The ice under the field started to melt and unleashed a cold mist which caused all of our field tape to come loose and we had to use sidewalk chalk of all things to put down our lines for the field.


MOST HILARIOUS MOMENT: My mortal enemy MauraS(current inbounder and future X-Cat driver or coach) getting conked on the noggin' by a poof ball at FLR during the elims. She's a soccer player by trade so a poof ball is nothing but she obviously wasn't expecting it and her reaction was so classic right then and there I could care less if we didn't win another match all year my year was made!

BEST FOOD. Montreal. Three words: Red. Velvet. Cupcakes (and the eggplant with ground lamb was pretty cool too not to mention all the free passion fruit juice you could drink).

BEST HOTEL. The Hostel I stayed at in Montreal was interesting but nothing beats staying with the Eckharts. Top notch hosts.


MOST INSPIRING MOMENT: From my own team. One of the requirements of our team to qualify to travel is to give an oral presentation during a meeting. One of our students Anastasia is painfully shy. So much so that when she was brought up in front of the team to do her oral presentation all she did was break down and cry in front of the team. Everyone felt awful for her and we mentors were trying to come up with ways for her to be able to do her presentation without falling apart because she's a great hardworking kid who deserves to travel with the team to St. Louis. She solved that problem for us weeks later when she stood up during one of the meetings later in the season. Held her head up high and confidently delivered her message without even flinching. I know it's not a Blue Banner or winning a Chairman's award or anything but it's little things like that that make me well up with pride to be involved with a program like this.

BEST TRIP: The two and a half exodus from Montreal to Boston to DC. I got to hang with alot of good FIRST friends make new one (in particular an awesome group of Americorp kids at DC who had never even heard of FIRST before and were mesmerized). Going to San Antonio was pretty cool too.

BEST OVERALL EVENT: MSC Championships. Tops notch teams were served by a top notch event. Great teams. Great atmosphere. Great volunteers. Next time MSC comes up just go. You will not be disspointed if you did.

Re: Best moments of Rebound Rumble
 

I think I'll stick to talking about the Canadian events because those are the ones I payed the most attention to. I apologize in advance for my spelling of the word "favourite".

Best qualifications performance: 3161. As far as I know, no team other than 1114 or 2056 has been the first seed at a Canadian regional since 2007 (possibly even farther back). Everyone knows what happened at Toronto West, but if it hadn't been for some bad luck in their final two qualification matches they could have finished first at Waterloo too.

Favourite match: Toronto East Finals. Personally, I found the finals at Toronto East more exciting than the ones at West. 610, 188 and 3360 put up 100 points in the quarters and were triple balancing easily. It was the first time I thought that the dynamic duo (featuring 1219) looked beatable. Overall I was impressed by how much the second tier of Canadian teams improved this season. It made things exciting to watch.

Favourite alliance: The Eh team. I've never had so much national pride before, not even during the Vancouver Olympics.

Personal favourites: When one of our students won a Dean's List Finalist award in Waterloo. When our human player hit a basket to win the Queen City regional (although the alliance would have won on the penalty tiebreaker anyway).

Re: Best moments of Rebound Rumble
 

Most of my favorite moments have been already mentioned, but one of my favorite plays from this year was at the Buckeye Regional when 1551, while defending 1241, literally shot a ball out of the air with another ball. It was the biggest "Wait, did that actually just happen!?" for me. I'll look for video of it.

Edit: It's at the 45 second mark here http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/21334084

Also, on a personal note, winning 2 regionals in my senior year was a great experience, as well as interacting with the elite teams at champs.

Re: Best moments of Rebound Rumble
 

One of my particularly enjoyable moment happened during the Peachtree Regional. More specificaly, it was match 89, which also happened to be one of the more important qualifying matches of the event.

Simply put if 1771 won this match, then they were going to win the event. I'm not sure how people knew that, but in my mind, it was all but set. So, the match was going OK, when 1771 and a partner make their way over to the bridge where 1683 is waiting for them. The level of defense played by 1683 in those 30 seconds was beyond anything I've ever seen. They held their ground against 1771+Partner and won the match.

Although it appears that even if they had pulled off the double balance, it wouldn't have mattered, but in that moment, it was particularly awesome to watch.

- Sunny G.

Re: Best moments of Rebound Rumble
 

Bests from events that I attended.

Best moment: New York City Regional, I can't remember what quarterfinal match it was but when 1635, 125, and 522 pulled off their triple with two longs and without stingers. "Wait is that a triple. There's no way they can do that again. Wait, what did they just do it again"

Best alliance: I loved 624, 118, and 16 together.

Best Robot: 341, they're sexy and they know it:cool: Every match they played in this year was ridiculous. Triple balance in the first match at IRI, and number one seed at five competitions including IRI.

Best Match: Too many to list.

Best Event: Without any doubts Battlecry. The burning motors, broken parts, even a bent stinger. All the carnage from fighting over the Co-op bridge made every match in eliminations exciting. Watching 3467 actually tip the co-op bridge down and push another robot off of it. I can only imagine what would have happened if they kept the full value for the triple balance and added point values to the co-op bridge at IRI.

IMHO Rebound Rumble>>>Logomotion

Re: Best moments of Rebound Rumble
 

I was legitimately shocked when I saw Bomb Squad driving around. It was absolutely incredible. I wouldn't put a single other robot on their level, not even the same class. I don't know the details of 4334's drive train, but come on, nobody moves like 16 does.

Re: Best moments of Rebound Rumble
 

Best Match Archimedes F1-3. Enough has been said on that, but it was just incredible. Our team was watching the webcast and were on our feet cheering the entire match, were heartbroken when we saw 1114 dead on the field, and then when crazy 2826's alliance failed the triple balance, putting the 'Eh' team through to Einstein. In fact, the other two finals matches were also astounding. GTR West F1-1 definitely comes in at a close second though.

Best Alliance In my opinion, any alliance that didn't incude team 16 can't be considered the best alliance. Watching them in person for the first time at IRI left me awestruck. Their speed combined with their superb manoeuvrability and their drivers that know how to push their robot the to limits made a formidable opponent. 118 was hitting up a storm all season, and 624 had an amazing turnout at IRI. Add them together and what do you get? The best alliance of this year, which I would maintain even if they hadn't surpassed the world record.

Best Moment for my own Team GTR East SF1-1. Not only was it our highest scoring match of that regional, our first semi-final win ever (and my first FRC regional ever), it was the first time since 2009 that 1114 and 2056 lost together during an elimination match. These two teams have been dominating the Canadian regionals together since 2056's inception, and winning against them was truly an awe-inspiring moment. To be able to repeat against 2056 twice at GTR West was an added bonus.

Best Moment Personally Competing with Wildstang was one of my personal favourite moments of the season. They were my favourite team to work with, even if it was just for one qualification match. I didn't enjoy them because of their tie-dye shirts, their superiority on the field, or their legacy, but for their upmost respect for whomever they encounter (read: me). When their drive team approached us prior to our qualification match at IRI together, they were nothing but courteous. They had a match strategy before approaching us, but were willing to listen to our's as well. From my limited person exposure to them and the many stories I've heard about them, they are the epitome of Gracious Professionalism.

Best Robots I'm going to stay away from this, because it wouldn't matter how many I list, I'd be sure to miss some.

Best Rookie Team 4334. RAS, Division winners, and an IRI win. Enough said, or shall I go on? Hit up a storm at championships as part of the 'Eh' team, the only rookie on Einstein, and they are starting a regional in an area with only 2 FRC teams. In regards to FIRST, clearly they "get it."

Best Play First triple balance at the Alamo regional. I was watching it over the stream, and it was simply astounding. You can even see the referee screaming and cheering as it transpired. :rolleyes:

Re: Best moments of Rebound Rumble
 

Yeah, this whole year has been odd around here. There were maybe 7 winter-ish days this year, 4 of which were in the spring (and a further 2 in the summer almost qualified:ahh: ) When we arrived in Boston,the back 10 inches of our pit was covered in condensation due to the ice water evaporating and rising out of the gap between the floor and the wall. That said, it was a great event, probably the best I've ever been too (ooh, the post is on-topic now :D ). My favorite part was double awesome. First, I watched the 2958, 1350, 121 from the driver's station, the I looked at photos from the event and saw how excited the crowd was and that reminded me of how awesome it was, and that was awesome. And that was just one of many things that made it such a good regional this year.

Re: Best moments of Rebound Rumble
 

My personal favorite moment:

Overhearing some guy on the St. Louis subway talking about "All these great highschool students from around the world doing this robotics competition, and their all so nice!"

Then he noticed my shirt, asked if I was with them, and it ended up with the guy getting off at our stop and we gave him a tour of the pits/arena

Re: Best moments of Rebound Rumble
 

This moment was one of my personal favorites for the year. We became so close with team 103 throughout the build season (We worked hand in hand in their machine shop building our robots and practiced for countless hours on their practice field) and became such close friends throughout the season in general (We even pranked their pits at that competition :P). So, when we found ourselves against each other in the finals of MT Olive, each fully loaded, each lined up to shoot, each with a double balance and separated by only one point, it was crazy. It wasn't the highest scoring match or most glorious and insane play, but it was just one of those awesome moments.

Plus getting that last second buzzerbeater to beat them did give us something to poke fun at them with :P

Re: Best moments of Rebound Rumble
 

My favorite part of Rebound Rumble started way before the competitions. The transition from student to mentor was such a honorable and great experience. The fact that I could take what I had learned from my previous years on my high school team and transfer what I could over was just inspiring for myself. Those skills don't just include the technical but life aspects as well. I know it's unordinary for some to think that this was the greatest moment for me in Rebound Rumble but it surely was the best. I think seeing the smiles in the students at our first competition had me really going haha.

If I did have to choose robot moments, 118 had everyone else beat. They wowed me continuously week after week. You guys are a team that is surely knows how to take risks and set the bar.

Re: Best moments of Rebound Rumble
 

Speaking of 118, I must say that, though not necessarily the best moment when FIRST declared their side balance mechanism illegal, it did lead to some quite interesting discussion on ChiefDelphi and a great example of what it means to be Gracious Professionals with their explanation post on here.

Re: Best moments of Rebound Rumble
 

Favorite Event Attended - CVR. Despite the airline mess and flying over easter and walking off the plane home and going to work this was still the most awesome event I did this year. So many awesome teams and I loved working with everyone there. Also staying with RC and the gang was pretty cool.

Favorite Moment - The look of surprise when our shooter motors burned out and we only had time to replace one yet still made shots in auton. Our students were quite happy about that. Runner Up: When I see a cluster of my programming students helping other teams. For anyone at events 79 is at that needs programming help (pick a language, they are familiar with all three) find someone in a 79 shirt, we're doing this again cuz they had a ton of fun.

Favorite Moment - Talking to all the awesome FLL students from across the globe. I think I've found my new favorite volunteer position and it has nothing to do with the big robots. (Though it does require a ton of hand sanitizer)

Favorite Play - For attending 4 regionals and championship I watched surprisingly few matches.

Favorite Robot - 1717. I lucked out and had the opportunity to FORCE them to give me a really in depth tour of their robot. I then got another tour at championship where they recognized me and wanted to show me all the awesome new stuff.

Re: Best moments of Rebound Rumble
 

I don't know how I forgot that moment! That was one of the most exciting moments behind the glass as a member of 3467! For those who don't know at Battlecry four 5 points dots were placed on the coop bridge. Two side by side in the middle of the bridge and one on each end. During elims a battle would ensue to get those 10 points in the middle. During our first eighth finals match (seed 9 in blue vs 8 in red) 839 gets up on the bridge halfway through the match and covers the 10 points. Our driver starts harassing the bridge to at least keep 839 from covering a dot and takes advantage of a moment when the bridge tips to our side. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUJLo...2&feature=plcp

Best event was by far Mayhem In Merrimack. Our team got to use some new drivers who went all the way to the finals. Losing to our good friends on 1519! There we also played some more boss bridge defense as any robot balanced on the coop bridge was worth 20 points. In one tight match the score was 20 to 11 going for the bridges. Our partner did a single balance and we kept the bridge up winning the match 21 to 20.

Photo courtesy of Jess Boucher!

Re: Best moments of Rebound Rumble
 

Battlecry was by far my favorite event of this season. The competition was tough, the social night was fun, and the eliminations were extremely competitive. Here is a video of the intro to finals match 1, which still gives me goose bumps. (thanks to 2168) http://m.youtube.com/index?desktop_u...?v=scXFnEawC7Q