2013 Hub City Regional
 

Time to get an official thread going for this new and potentially fantastic regional. Earlier discussions can be found here.

As of today FIRST is showing 29 registered and 15 slots open for anyone wanting to join us week 1 in Lubbock, Texas.

• 6 rookies (so far)
• 8 different States plus Mexico are represented
• 10 of the 29 teams have won a regional or been finalists in the last 3 years.
• 8 of the 29 teams have won a technical award for their robot in the last 3 years. (Engineering Excellence, Industrial Design, Innovation in Control, Creativity)
• 5 teams have been awarded a Regional Chairman's, or Engineering Inspiration award in the last 3 years, or are a World Chairman's Award Winner.
• 1 team is a defending World Champion

Being a new regional what can people tell me about:
...the venue.
...things to see in Lubbock if we have some time Thursday night.
...great places to eat.
...Will there be a webcast?

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

Head mentor of Team 1817 (Lubbock FRC Team) reporting in.
I can answer a few questions:

The venue is the City Bank Coliseum, it is located on the Texas Tech campus.
It's a decent size, should be sufficient for a new regional.

Lubbock is a college city. Texas Tech has a huge beautiful campus (one, if not the biggest college campus excluding Air Force and their runways.) There are a few museums and cool things to see on campus. The Lubbock area doesn't have anything to really brag about other than Tech however.

For food, I for one recommend One Guy From Italy Pizza, best in LBK in my opinion. There are a few chains like Texas Roadhouse and that are always good. There is a phenomenal steak house named Cagel's located near the limits of town, (conveniently located close to our workshop), it's pricey but worth it.

Not sure on a webcast yet, but I don't see why not.

Team 1817 is very excited to compete on our home field, and bring FRC to West Texas.

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

There is a lot to see in Lubbock. And it all looks like red dust. :rolleyes:

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

At least the prairie dogs are cute!

And I think they have a tornado generator there.

We're looking forward to taking on this new Texas regional. Great to see some good competition in the making.

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

New registrations have been steadily coming in and Hub City is now at 33 teams with 11 slots remaining. Hopefully we are on the way to a full compliment of teams for a fine new event. This regional is shaping up to be an interesting mix of teams from all directions (Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Texas, & Mexico) and a wide range of young and old teams, from hall-of-fame Bomb Squad to several new home-town rookie teams. A blend of teams the majority of which will all be meeting for the first time, so that should be fun. We're excited to help christen this new regional a look forward to helping the event staff and all the new teams in any way we can.

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

Any word on a webcast for this regional? We've got a lot of friends and family back home that can't make the trip with us, but are anxious to root us on from afar. :cool:

Another snowstorm is sweeping through the area here, but the charter bus says they'll drive regardless of the weather. :eek:

Looking forward to making some new friends down in Texas and catching up with some old ones.

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

I emailed today asking but have not received any information in return. If I do, I will post here.

Good luck to you guys coming down. Safe travels.

2468 is looking forward to competing with you guys and seeing your machine up close.

Norman

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

Does anyone know if this regional has a webcast?

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

Tried to set one up. No internet available for it. Our only hope is someone letting us set up a hot spot with their unlimited data plan phone. Not likely.

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

:ahh: This is outrageous! This is probably one of the regionals most in FIRST wanted to see and now no one will be able to. *cries*

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

Awwww man. A lot of people were looking forward to it.

Can you at least see if someone can record matches for later viewing?

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

No internet mean no live twitter feed of scores either. That's really surprising. I figured that was a minimum requirement for a full on regional.

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

This is actually an extremely interesting situation. Most regionals at the very least have a DSL or T1 line.

So I'm assuming that match results will only update on FIRST's website after the event is over? Or at least daily?

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

IIRC, FIRST standards only call for 2 internet drops...one for scorer's table and one for the event facilitators.

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

@FRCFMS appears to be tweeting practice match scores for #FRCTXLU.

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

correct which means the statement was in reference to an optional at extra cost a third internet line for a live video feed. Don't even ask what our internet bill is for Alamo with two live feeds for FRC and then FTC on Friday with FLL on Saturday... :yikes:

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

i just search that from de @FRCFMS and it appears to be doing well, but what happen with the webcast, its a hard to situation not to have it right?

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

any news for the webcast??

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

Broadcast tomorrow? :( :(

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

apparently theres no broadcast :(

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

No internet = no broadcast. Unfortunately, that's how Chuck Norris wired the internet.

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

do you believe theres a possibility??

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

Sadly, there is no chance of a webcast. Several teams are attempting to film matches and should have some up on YouTube each night. Hopefully they'll post in this thread when they do.

Overall first impressions:

• The regional is very friendly. Great to see multiple teams collaborating to help others pass inspection.
• About 12 of the 41 robots are still trying to pass inspection.
• 2468 seems like the only legitamate full court shooter based on our conversations. Unfortunatly we have to play against them out of the box in our 1st match. (#5 overall).
• The low pyramid bar seems a little lower than we expected. The top of the bar is about 30 1/16th inches above the carpet. Several teams (including us) are making adjustments to accomidate.
• Inspectors are forcing all high speed shooting wheels to be covered.
• It is a blessing to have several NI/Labview experts here. Our programmers got to spend an hour with Greg McKaskle minimizing the lag in our code and picking up some pointers.
• We are slated for 11 qualification matches, on more than one occasion with only 2 matches in between. :eek:
• More successful 10 point climbs than discs being scored.

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

There is internet for the field, just not an extra drop for a webcast. Sorry I was quick posting on my phone and not clear.

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

So the pole is not 30 inches to the middle as the field drawings indicated?

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

Just looked at 610's video of a practice match they were in, and a red robot ran into the red pyramid and tilted the whole thing dramatically. Did you notice that happening in any matches you observed?

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

The field drawings have a tolerance.

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

Nothing worse than an intolerant field:D

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

Thank God our hanger has a 4 inch up/down stroke play to accomodate that tolerance.

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

I have a feeling like a lot of teams that utilize a passive climber are going to have issues with that tolerance.

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

Great point. Ouch!

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

It's clearly stated in the manual.

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

Hopefully teams will have noticed that and taken it into account although I highly doubt many did.

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

What's the tolerance supposed to be on these heights? The only thing I remember reading is this section.

That would lead me to believe that the pyramids at Hub City are out of tolerance but I might be wrong.

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

We've always designed to a 1" total variance. I thought that was what the manual used to state, but it's 1/4" back to 2011.

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

We are working on broadcasting from a hot spot. No promises but keep watching CD.

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

any news??? the competition just begun

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

Try bit.ly/hubcitystream

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

What happened to the FMS in Lubbox? As far as Twitter goes, it's just #FRCTXLU and only on Match 5...

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

What happened to the Awards page on usfirst.org? Hub City is missing the entry for WFFA. Inquiring minds want to know who won it up there.

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

The WFFA winner will be announced Saturday morning. The BAE Granite City Regional winner was announced this morning. The tradition of announcing WFFAs at the award ceremony on Friday seems to have ended.

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

Well, we now know why WFFA it was delayed until this morning. Woodie Flowers himself on hand for the award presentation.

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

Hub City was a blast, thanks for hosting such a great event. It was awesome to meet Woodie Flowers and we look forward to seeing y'all next year. Be ready for the invasion of the bunnies!!!

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

The folks that ran Hub City should be proud. The tournament went smoothly; we had normal week 1 issues but those had nothing to do with the tournament organization. It was fun to get to a tournament in a region to which we've never been; we made a number of new friends and worked with some great teams.

It was great to see all of the teams helping each other. I was in the pits most of the tournament and saw many, many different folks working on robots that didn't belong to them. It'd be nice to say this was unique to Lubbock, but sorry folks; it was FRC business as usual. ;) I hate to single out teams because they weren't the only ones doing this, but you can see why 1108 & 2468 are Chairman's teams -- sometimes I wondered how they were able to staff their own pits; they had so many people in other teams'.

And as a volunteer, I must add that the volunteer meals were AWESOME! Whatever you do next year, keep the caterer.

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

I agree that kudos should be sent out to those that ran the Hub City Regional but it would not have have been so successful without Team Titanium. It was a pleasure to play with and against ya'll.

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

Thanks, and right back at you. You guys have a nice bot; good auto & teleop shooting, fast, and you drive smart. I must admit that I thought that using bunny ears as your pyramid contact device was hilarious, but it is a great way to tie your robot into your whole team image. Good luck at Alamo.

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

Says the team with an antenna to touch the pyramid...:rolleyes: Surprised you didn't just put the Titanium Eyes on both your static hooks

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

Antennas? Those were high tech zip ties. :-)

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

Uh, no. Zip ties are very low-tech. Those are very sophisticated, high-tech, Titanium's Tetrapod-Touching Ties.

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

OH GOD NOT THIS AGAIN :ahh:

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

FRC 2789 had a blast at the regional and would like to thank the event staff and all the teams at the event, in particular Bomb Squad & TRikzR4kiDz for selecting us and helping us get to the finals for the first time in our team's history! Congrats to the winning alliance, I was impressed with your robots, and I was equally impressed by the people on your respective teams.

We'd also particularly like to thank all the teams that helped us at the regional with our robot, especially Team Appreciate (Congrats on the Chairman's & the WFFA, Coach Norm!), Bomb Squad & Full Metal Jacket.

Good luck to everyone on the rest of the season, and we look forward to seeing some of the teams again at Lone Star & Alamo!

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

I was able to catch the finals and like to tell Team 1986 and their alliance congratulation on winning the regional. absolutely an amazing job, and congrats to Team 16 and making the finals, fantastic job on both alliances

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

First off, a big thank you to the regional director and all the volunteers who put on the Hub City Regional. Putting on a new event is tough enough. Combine that with being week 1 and all the undiscovered challenges of this particular season... Well done! It was a smooth running event.

It was a pleasure to work with the Cockadoodle Dominators (FRC 3931). Your consistency in the auto, teleop and climbing phases of the game caught our attention, and your performance in the elimination rounds was everything we had hoped it would be. You guys just don't miss! Looking forward to meeting up again in Oklahoma in week 5.

Hard to imagine how 1801 (The Dapper Dans) fell to us with the last pick in the draft. Those still scouting Saturday morning found you playing penalty free defense, hitting the occasional autonomous shot, and hanging for 10. The drivetrain was immovable and hit like a ton of bricks when the occasion arose. Part of our defensive ranking included a "we don't want to play against these guys" factor, and you headlined that list.

Overall the 42 point autonomous proved to be a major weapon and generally kept us from needing to use the 30 point climber. In spite of our success this weekend, we are not done improving. ;)

It was fun to see all the different strategies that we've been hearing about on CD. 2468 has a lovely full court shooter and when they add a slot feed that removes their need to move between loading and shooting watch out. 1296 proved that having a fast slot load and hitting consistent teleop shots is enough to make the difference in most matches. 4063 was the complete package and mecanum wheels with a top notch driver do a great job of avoiding defense, especially when you are short enough to slide through a pyramid. 16 showed off the 30 point hang, 20 point dump attempt, and went higher up the pyramid that anyone else at the regional. Can't wait to see their next iteration.

Congrats to 2468 on the Chairman's Award. It was a pleasure working with your team and 1108 trying to make sure every robot passed inspection. A daunting task in some cases.

932 (EI) and 4499 (RAS) also earned their way to champs this weekend and were outstanding teams to work with as well. 932 I've worked with before many times, and it was a pleasure to get to meet 4499.

We were honored to receive the Entrepreneurship Award and Quality Award at the regional. That is the first time we have won either of those awards. Kudos to the students for the hard work they put into the business plan and robot design. It is our 4th consecutive year having a student earn a Dean's List Finalist Award, and Jay Urban is a fine example of the wonderful students I get to work with on Team Titanium.

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

Just found a YouTube video featuring some action from Lubbock featuring 2848.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spyRub7z1Bw

Thanks for posting.

Edit: Also found a nice little piece by channel 11 in Lubbock on the tournament.

http://www.kcbd.com/story/21445177/l...cs-competition

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

Nice video of our 20 point climb, courtesy of 1108.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vXHEqIEAlE

And a video of us loading.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23B8teKf0do

They have some more match footage of Hub City on their YouTube site.

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

3310 has a match video up as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLYNnz5ktpk

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

I much prefer this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfXP3yKdm0c

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

It was good meeting you Team 1986, you definitely know how to make a really cool robot. Your robot was very impressive with how you managed to score so high in autonomous, that is one great shooter. We saw your robot reveal video and your climber is quite impressive as well. You are an awesome team and we learned a lot from your team. The Lubbock tournament taught us a lot and we are striving to improve for our Colorado regional. We plan to see you at the championship!

Re: 2013 Hub City Regional
 

Thanks to everyone who posted links to videos on youtube.
I linked up the youtube videos to the blue alliance hub city page.

Does anyone have more video they can upload of Hub City ?