Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

I am excited to return for my 9th year as Game Announcer.
We've got Ted Creech from 2 years ago as MC.

Both Ted and I are fighting sore throats this week and might not last the competition, but we are going to give it all we've got.

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

That's what you have my sister for. ;)

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

So there is no misundertanding.... John's sister pulls my "Cheat sheet cards" before every match so I can spout out all kinds of trivia and items of interest for each team introduction. With 65 teams I need all the help I can get.

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

HELLOOOOooooooo :D
Well we made it and now its time for the fun to start.. You will hear and see us with out a problem and with TJ's eyes it will see you....TO :ahh: Hope to met new teams that we have never played with before. Good luck to all I think this will be a fun reg. Lets have a FIRST great time what a HOOTTTT this will be.
TEAM 88 TJ2 oh yeah???? OH YEAH !!!!
MOE TYE-DYE for ever ::rtm::

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

What a day, what a day. We've worked through more electrical problems than we've seen in a long time today (our cRIO kept losing power and rebooting), but we're pretty sure those problems are behind us. Hopefully we can do a little more convincing tomorrow and get the threepeat!

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

i appreciate all the support i got from the teams with remedies for my hoarseness. Mints, hi\ugs, candy, water, fruit punch, cough drops, etc.

i have had a cold all week and i finally caught up with me.
Ted and Jack did a great job with the MC and Game Announcer jobs.

As of 9:30 pm Friday I can talk again and plan to rest my voice to be ready to do the elims on Saturday afternoon.

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

Just cozy up to whoever ends up in 1st seed tomorrow. That strategy seems to work. :p

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

Don't worry, we're saving that seat nice and warm for you guys :P

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

Well, seeing that first backup team is looking highly unlikely... ;)

Hopefully we'll give y'all a show in our three matches today.

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

Congratulations to all the teams this weekend! Everybody was fantastic and it was a pleasure to work with every team we were aligned with.

I love this new venue. This was one of the greatest events I've ever been to.

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

Aside from the regular congratulations, BIG congrats to 4451 for being such an excellent rookie team. What an awesome machine and strategy. Glad that you are qualified for St. Louis.

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

It's a special kind of awesome to see the team that helped shaped you go out and perform at the top of their game. Congrats to my home team, MORT, for battling the demons and pulling out an impressive victory!!

Kudos to 11s partners as well. As we all know, these events are won as a team and that's exactly what you guys pulled off.


GO MORT!

-Brando

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

I'm proud of my team in that we ended as the first seed, but it seems that our luck had to run out at some time. The winning alliance (and even the finalists) were truly brilliant and the cream of the crop at the event.

Now, for the usual thank yous:

@2363: Thanks for joining our alliance. I had hoped we could put up the same numbers as our qualification run, but alas it was not to be so. On a slightly separate note, you guys are one of the nicest teams I've had the honor to work with. Good luck at Virginia.

@539: Thanks for joining our alliance and trying to fix your errors. It takes a lot to admit that you're not going to hold up and take a seat.

@2914: You guys are truly an exceptional defensive team. It was an honor to play against and with you guys.

@11: Thanks for being up front with us about alliance selections. I suppose if we had taken your advice, this post would have a slightly different tone, but I hate to dwell on what could have been.

- Sunny G.

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

I just have to share my favourite moment from Palmetto. It's our last match of the qualifying and we (281) are playing with 1598, and 4748 against teams 435/3140/3506. It's a tough match for us (final seedings: 24th/30th/64th vs 4th/46th/21th). We play some tough defense on 435, 1598 does our scoring, and I have no clue what 4748 did. As the match ends, the unofficial score shows 25-14 our favor.

We get a bit excited to have done so well against 435 and one of the kids on 4748 (I think he was acting as coach) starts asking "did we win? did we win?" We start to calm him down by saying we don't know yet and it really looks like the opposing teams has three 10 point hangs, so probably not. The refs come out to inspect the hangs, we watch, and the thumbs go down for all three hangs. They are all touching the ground, so we start to cheer a bit more. The kids asks again "did we win? did we win?" and we say, yes it looks like we did.

He goes crazy with joy. He starts jumping around "we won!!, we won!". It's like he just won the finals on Einstein!! His team mates are trying to unplug their drivers station and he jumps up on their back, "we won, we won". By this time, I heading to retrieve our cart; but I can't stand to watch this kid not get any love back. So I hold out my arms for a hug. He takes a couple of steps towards me and JUMPS into my arms. I have my arms wrapped around his waist and his legs are wrapped around my waist. I think there were some more "we won"s in there too. It's a good thing he was a bean pole, because if he had any mass to him, we would have been on the floor.

A second or so later, he's down and I'm on my way to get the cart. I start talking to his team mate who also has cart duty, and I start to put 2 & 2 together. This is one of those over-whelmed rookie teams. Any veteran team recognizes them. A drivable plywood base, with poles on the corners which held plastic meshing block discs. No dumper, no climbing, and the drivers are still figuring out how to drive it because it's only been running since practice day. They were 0-7. They had lost a couple of close matches, but had also lost a few blow outs. This was their last match of the season and they had WON IT!! The kid had won on Einstein!

I doubt anyone from 4748 reads Chief Delphi regularly, and I still don't know his name. But the joy in this kid just brought tears to my eyes as I read this to my wife, and it has made my season.

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

I saw this as I was posting up to film one of 2815's matches, and I wish I was filming! I've seen that raw enthusiasm on just a few occasions, most of them involving the finals. (I recall a kid from the long-defunct 803 back in 2006, who happened to walk by inspection right as 1293 nipped its weight problems. He was just as psyched as I was.)

2815's performance at Palmetto was not to our expectations. We came in wanting to kick butt and get our third straight Palmetto title, but our problems were just too much to merit being picked. Our laundry list for South Florida is already underway--we've got a lot to do to punch our ticket to St. Louis.

I'd like to give thanks to all the teams that gave us help and pointers as we worked through our problems.

Shoutout to MORT for beating us to a third win at Palmetto. We'll race you to four. :)

Additional shootout to ROBOTZ Garage for their Rookie All-Star win and their comeback from that terrifying fall in SF2-1. A lot of teams would've thrown it in after that, but these guys took a timeout and parked that robot right back up on Level 3. Orlando had better watch out.

Time to lick our wounds and make our plans for South Florida. See some of you there, see some more of you at SCRIW!

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

To comment purely on the venue,

It was excellent to say the least. With 65 teams, seating was plentiful, the pits were nice and open, and I really cannot think of a major complaint.

One thing that was extremely off-putting was the single doorway between the stands and the pits. Not entirely what the rationale behind that was, but it was frustrating to say the least. Not to mention that I almost ran into someone going the other way a few times.

- Sunny G.

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

There were two! One was a direct doorway, the other was out the pit entrance and through the hallway. The latter was much quicker for us.

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

Myrtle Beach Convention Center is an awesome venue. Bring it back next year!

All the teams were great and we had an amazing time! There was some awesome action all weekend long. My favorite 836 match was #51 and the dual-bot blockade (4582 and 3976) on 836 and our under-the-pyramid blockade running. You guys made for some awesome action!

Also, thanks to the honest person who turned my iPad camera adapter in to Pit Admin/Lost and Found :)

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

I suppose that depends on which side of the pits/stands you were camped on.

But even a two-door passage on the direct doorway would've been infinitely better.

- Sunny G.

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

Team 3824 would like to thank the RoboBees for the opportunity to play with them and the Hokie Guard in the elims. Our team had a blast! The RoboBees are a top notch organization.

One moment that impressed me from off the playing field...
With all three of our teams being large, by the time the last of our kids made their way down to get the Finalist medal, the venue had run out of the medals. A little while later after we were all back up in the stands, one of the RoboBees came up with an armful of medals for those kids on our team that did not get one. Not sure who all gave up theirs so our kids could have one, but that was very classy.

Big Congrats also to the RoboBees for winning Chairman's and good luck at Nationals!

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

What a great event this was!

I would like to first thank Mr. Jack Moore and the Palmetto Regional Committee for such a great event! We look forward to heading south again!

Thank you to the dedicated volunteers, judges and referees! There will always be "week one" issues that pop up, but you handled those issues quickly and efficiently! This was one of the smoothest events I've ever attended!

I want to congratulate the winning alliance 11, 245, and 2187 - You showed everyone how this game is played! I was thrilled we made it to the finals to face off on opposites of the glass - but hope someday we will be on the same side of the glass with you all!

To our alliance partners - 3284 (RoHAWKtics!) and 401 (Hokie Guard!) - you were both amazing partners and did everything we asked of you! We fell a bit short, but it was a blast to play alongside of you! We were honored to have you!

One last shout out to 4451 - ROBOTZ Garage! I know that you will climb higher and higher in years to come!

For those of you who have additional competitions - Good luck!

See you in St. Louis!!!

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

Nice! Here is the latest FRC blog post on the subject of medals and pins at events. http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...s-and-trophies

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

I was so proud of our kids! When they found out that there were not enough medals for our alliance partner, almost every single one of them pulled theirs off to give it to them! In the end, we had enough to give them from just the mentors, so all the kids were able to keep theirs.

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

Of course the first thing I'd like to do is thank 2059 (The Hitchhikers), and 3196 (Team Spork) for being such great alliance partners. We enjoyed the run with you guys!

Secondly I'd like to thank the Palmetto Regional planning committee because out of my 5 years in the FRC program this has been the best regional venue I've seen.

Of course team 1102 will be considering highly attending SCRIW III this year with an upgraded version of our robot. It has been one of our most successful competitions to date with our very first top 8 seeding finish after qualifications. It is unfortunate that we can not afford another FRC regional this season because if we followed our past chain of success we could have done even better at our second regional.

I'll still take the fact that we were the only team scoring all 3 frisbees in the high goal autonomously during qualifications match 1. :)

Well, I'm off to work with FTC 3864 to prepare them for the South Carolina FTC Championship in 3 weeks, and you might see me around at Peachtree Week 3. That isn't confirmed yet, but it might happen.

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

Our team got back to Massachusetts in the early hours of Sunday after an exciting time in South Carolina.

Firstly I'd like to join the voices applauding the choice of Myrtle Beach convention center. It was an outstanding venue: the pits were very spacious, the separate entrances for red & blue alliances made for easy flow of robots onto and off of the field, and proper seating in the stands made life much more comfortable for our scouts.

I'd also like to give a shout out to all the volunteers, especially the inspectors who did an awesome job with a maximum field of 65 teams in a week 1 regional and the practice field staff who were exceptional at keeping it both a safe and productive space.

Congratulations to all teams who performed well, especially 836, 4451 and the winning alliance of 11, 245 & 2187. It was a pleasure to be located between both Mort & Adambots in the pits and to see up close how well you prepare for each match. It's not a coincidence that the results reflected this.

Our robot did not perform as well as we hoped or expected, but our drive team did get plenty of practice removing a tenuously balanced robot from the top of the pyramid as we discovered that gravity is shockingly similar in South Carolina and New England. We worked out most of the gremlins from our machine and should have a very reliable climber ready for the Boston campaign.
Finally, despite our best efforts we proved to ourselves that it's hard to trip the main breaker just by adding more and more
colored lights:D

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

Well written.
This is why i volunteer as well. Try to make 1 person at a time create a memory and inspiration.

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

This was 1610's first trip to Palmetto and we thoroughly enjoyed it. The Myrtle Beach Convention Center is an excellent venue with great seating and allowed for spacious pits.

Thanks to 1772 The Brazilian Trailblazers for picking us to be on your alliance and to 1287 Aluminum Assault for completing an awesome alliance. Together we were able to win some close quarterfinal matches and defeat the #1 seed. Good luck to 1772 in Orlando and Western Canada, and to 1287 in North Carolina.

To 1648, 2363, 539, and 2914, what a set of quarterfinal matches! They couldn't have been any closer. Thanks for the great competition.

Congratulations to 11, 245, and 2187 on the regional win. 11 and 245 has two of the best shooters in Palmetto and made a great alliance. 2187 was a great 2nd pick to help the #3 alliance go undefeated.

Special thanks to everyone who offered assistance after our problems in SF 2-2. Turns our that our Digital Sidecar failed near the beginning of the match. We were able to get it replaced and get everything back working before bagging up. We look forward to competing in Richmond in two weeks.

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

Congrats to all the teams that traveled near and far to the Palmetto Regional. I had a great 3 days working with the teams getting them inspected (finding spare parts and paint for some) and out on the floor.

To the Mentors, Students and Parents: Keep working hard and having fun doing what you do. The end result will be an enriched life for everyone involved.

Michael D. St.John
Palmetto Regional Robot Inspector 2012, 2013
CTO and Tech Fellow, SAIC

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

Recorded some videos of 1648's matches. Enjoy:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...Y2OnGABzIyCjUT

Team 1648 had a blast and is looking at improving so we can have another attempt at a blue banner at peachtree!

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

This was a fun macth for us to watch from the stands. We had written this one off to a loss, but thanks to your tough defense our guys were able to score enough to pull out an upset. We have made enough improvements now that we should be a contender at the VA Regional.

I am posting video of this match from the prospective of our loader -- he scored two this match :)

http://youtu.be/5VRJMKfxOwY

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

2914 had a good time down south at Palmetto. We took our arm off Thursday when we realized it had a fundamental flaw, and put on a ten point hanger, and managed to implement a 4 point autonomous by Saturday. When we took our arm off on Thursday, we thought we were sunk as we were at that point a box on wheels, but the students dug in and got to work. We are much more prepared now for the DC regional.

1648, 2363, sorry we couldn't do just that little bit more to break the tie and move on.

1610 thanks for sharing your scouting system with us, we look forward to implementing it at DC.

Wetzel

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

Wetzel,

The moment I saw 2914's robot on Friday, I knew it was going to be the top defender in the regional. Your drivetrain was one that was simple, yet very effective. I still recall the extremely defensive match where your robot stopped our robot in its tracks. You guys were number 1 on my personal pick list for the serpentine round of the draft. Your defense in the last match was one of the reasons we were able to tie in the first place. I wish you guys the best of luck at DC, and hopefully your defensive ability and effective drivetrain will be valued extremely high up there.

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

The Platypi had an awesome time at Palmetto! It was our first time attending the event and we absolutely loved it. And of course with every great regional, there are plenty of people to thank.

3196 - For being super awesome and picking up our robot when we fell from level two. That was extremely gracious of you.

281 - You guys are always a pleasure to compete with! The Platypi are such huge fans of yours and it was great to be at another regional with you all.

There's at least one other team that lent us parts after our robot fell but I can't for the life of me remember who. But thank you so much!

Huge congratulations to the RoboBees on Chairman's! I had the pleasure of talking with a couple of you and I hope to see you all in St. Louis!

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

Thanks very much. We love you guys. You are doing some amazing things up there and fully deserved the Engineering Inspiration Award. Congratulations and good luck in St. Louis.

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

Thanks! Congratulations on the EI award! We look forward to seeing you in St. Louis!

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

WOW, what a Regional!

The venue and southern hospitality were amazing. I don't think I have ever been to a week 1 Regional that was run as smoothly as Palmetto. I met a lot of new friends on and off the field, especially all of the volunteers. I was given the opportunity to fill in as a referee, and became really good friends with many of the volunteers.

The FTA's, field reset crew, and everybody else really did a phenomenal job keeping everything running smoothly. Yeah there were a few minor hiccups, but I have seen worse delays in later parts of the season.

Now on to the teams:
11 - you have an amazing robot and team. I wish you well in your future competitions. Hopefully you can figure out your climbing mechanism; that would make for a really deadly combo. Congrats on the well deserved win, and see you at Championships!

245 - I am glad you were able to work out the bugs in the robot. By the time eliminations came around you had one fine tuned shooter. You were shooting lights out all Saturday. Good luck in FiM. I think you guys will do well and have great success.

2187 - a midst a pair of great shooters was another great shooter. You were nearly 100% during elims and couldn't be stopped. Congrats for making showing the world that the 2 pt goal is actually a worthwhile strategy.

2655 - you are an amazing team that continue to great and big things. Keep up the good work. You really are a role model team.

To our alliance members 3824 and 401: It was a fun ride through eliminations. Sorry we couldn't go all the way and win, but I hope you had as much fun as we did. Good luck to both of you in your future competitions. You both will do great!

4451 - you have really made a splash in FIRST. Your robot was amazing, I had a hard time believing it was built by a rookie team. It is amazing that you were able to overcome ~7ft free fall and 20 minutes later climb to the top again. You had one of (if not THE) most consistent robot at the Regional. I hope to see you guys again at Championships.

Thanks everybody for making the event fun and entertaining! Hopefully we return to Palmetto next year; can't wait.

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

Triple Helix, Team 2363, enjoyed our time at the Palmetto Regional. The venue was fantastic -- much better than we expected for a regional at a convention center. As noted elsewhere, getting to the pits was difficult at times due to the single door access to the one side of the pits. The queueing schedule was also a bit overdone, as they often had two matches queued inside the field area and two queued outside. During one set of matches that we had that were five matches apart they were calling us to queue as we left the field. Beyond that it was a great experience.

We would like to thank the following:

- All of the volunteers and judges who put on such a great regional
- Team 1648, Grady Gearbox Gangstaz, for selecting us to compete with you in the elimination matches. We're sorry that that didn't work out better than it did. We knew you were counting on us to perform, and we had the worst three matches you could possibly imagine.
- Team 539, The Titans, for rounding out our elimination match alliance.
- Team 2915, Tiger Pride, for filling in when the Titan's climbing mechanism could not be repaired.
- Teams 1772, 1610, and 1287 for sticking it to us in the quarterfinals. We have plenty of things to work on before we get to Virginia.
- Team 1610, B.O.T., for sharing the us ride down from Virginia with us. It was fun getting to know you guys better.
- Teams 11, 245, and 2187 for proving that good shooters can readily take down good climbers. Your performance validated our own analysis of the game, and you did an admirable job of setting the bar for weeks 2 through 7.

Congratulations to the winning alliance and to all teams that won awards at Palmetto!

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

ROBOTZ Garage had a great time at our first regional! We send a huge thank you to Frank Lanford and the Regional Steering Committee on organizing an excellent event. The Myrtle Beach Convention Center held all 65 teams without issue.

Congratulations to the RoboBees for winning the Regional Chairman’s Award. Definitely a class act team with a great program. Thank you for giving me a personal tour of your automated scouting application. I hope to use it in the future as our program grows.

Also, congratulations to 11, 245, and 2187 for winning the regional. MORT has been to South Carolina several years and achieved a well deserved win to go with your 2006 Palmetto title. I thoroughly enjoyed working with your team and appreciate all the help you gave us. Our first 129 point match with you and 1398, the Robo-Raiders, is now a permanent part of our team’s history. That was a huge confidence builder.

Thanks to our Alliance Captain 3490, Vyper Drive, and team 1539, Blue Eagle Robotics, on memorable elimination matches. We went down gunning (literally) to the eventual champions and there is no shame in that. We look forward to playing with you again at SCRIW III.

Our team definitely enjoyed meeting the in-state and great variety of out-of-state teams. South Carolina puts on a great event, and we hope to see teams travel to visit next year.

Special thanks to 11, 245, 2187, and all the other teams that came to our aid after our semi-final accident. You definitely showed our students what FIRST is about!

Orlando is next. See you Thursday.

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

Thanks for the great story mandrews28. I was coaching 435 during that match and for some reason a disk got stuck in the shooter. Now I am wondering if someone from above was holding it :)

Our driver said she saw and congratulated them when she went to get the cart but did not know the entire story till now.
Congrats and great job to not only the alliance but all the teams that helped get them there.

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

There is video of this match from our loaders head and two others from our GoPro here.

http://www.youtube.com/user/teamtalon1598

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

do you have any video of your climbs, and do you have one of the fall?

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

Barry,
I'll see if we can find some good video of several matches. One of the parents posted our first qualification match with MORT. We were a little slow at the wall and the first pyramid bar, but managed to finish in time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8c4R3nOAakU

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

Here's the playlist of 836 matches: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...nFbgBEG8UqpKSS

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

Did anybody else at the regional have drivers complain about some control lag? We suspect we were exceeding our bandwidth limit because our second camera was shutting off, but wanted to check with other teams to see if they had any problems also.

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

Check the logs on your driver station, there is useful information there.

The FTAs told us during our last match that our Dashboard program was exceeding the bandwidth and we had to shut it off. I don't believe that for a second. I'd also love for someone to explain to me with today's technology why teams are limited to only 8Mbs connection anyway. Even the world's crappiest router/switch can give me at least 10Mbs.

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

I don't know if you were using C++ but it looks like the mandated C++ update that was just released addresses several network usage/bandwidth bugs.

As to why the bandwidth is limited, each robot is running on a separate VLAN which shares bandwidth with other robots, so I assume we're really working under a 42Mbs limit. Your question might be answered in the FMS Whitepaper

I use Java, and SmartDashboard.

I'll read into that document. Thanks.

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

We had one match where the driver indicated there was a lag in control loop. I do not know if this was field related, but the datalog showed the robot control system was responding appropriately to the input.

We did not use a Kinect during this regional, so our bandwidth should have been very low.

Which match did you have issue with?

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

OK so we had a little help on the defense :).

I also noticed this in the team updates from yesterday:

I guess I shouldn't have mentioned the part about it being a good things he was a bean pole or we'd have ended up on the floor. Even so, with it all happening so fast, I guess I would have gotten the yellow card, and I still think it would have been worth it.

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

Just posted videos of all quarterfinals except 1.3. We had cameras pointed at the blue and red sides of the field, so I combined both cameras into each video. Somehow, we missed the red side of QF 1.3, so I didn't post that match.

More to follow.

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

Most of Team 11's matches are up on our youtube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/MORTTeam11?feature=mhee

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

Where else is team 11 competing this season? After seeing your team's robot code I'm really excited to see if the real climber works out. I obviously only saw the code and the drawing of the real climber, but if it works. That will be the coolest climber yet.

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

We will be competing at the Mount Olive District Event, the Bridgewater district event, MAR championships(if we qualify), and at World Championships.

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

From Frank's FIRST Blog:
:D Thanks for the clarification Frank. :D

Re: The Palmetto Regional's New Location
 

Our team seemed to experience some amount of control lag in most matches, but there was at least one match in which the driver told me afterwards that the robot was almost uncontrollable because there was so much lag. The driving was erratic that match -- running into the pyramid, spinning in place way past the desired stopping point, etc. They were told by field personnel during a different match that they should close down the smart dashboard, which they did. It wasn't clear to the drive team that this made any difference in the control lag. With the control loop being the highest priority task in the robot code, it's not entirely clear to us why this is an issue.