Re: New Central Illinois Regional Looking Good!
 

1986 has quite the streak of wins I might add:

1 2010 Minnesota North Star Regional
2 2011 Colorado Regional
3 2012 Greater Kansas City Regional
4 2012 St. Louis Regional
5 2013 Hub City Regional
6 2013 Greater Kansas City Regional
7 2013 Oklahoma Regional
8 2014 Central Illinois Regional

The secret is out, they are good!

Re: New Central Illinois Regional Looking Good!
 

Thanks. I look forward to the day that we get to play together too.

Actually, this was our 2nd. We won Chairman's back in 2009 before we ever won a tournament. That always reminds me of the value of building a strong foundation before reaching for on-field victories.

It didn't look entirely premeditated. They led with their non-intake side initially but when we spun around they pursued with what ever side of the robot was most convenient. Just glad it was at the end of the match and not the beginning. We were the only functional scorer at that point.

Re: New Central Illinois Regional Looking Good!
 

Regarding 4296's "Tippability", we entire agree with a lot of it, and noticed it early into friday and qualifications, sadly I had only a few minutes (Yes, minutes =/ ) worth of practice driving during the season and we had not noticed the massive problems with it. Since then, we have already planned a lot of changes, and are in the process of planning out the changes to make when we get to our second regional in Wisconsin... so don't worry Wisconsin, we hopefully won't tip as much there haha.

1986 brings up another thing that was "fun" with our last 2 matches in the finals and completely forced us into quickly changing our strategy... 1986 really was our only robot capable of shooting in the last 2 matches. 525 had a problem with their bands (all I know, didn't really ask specifics as I wasn't entirely sure how the shooter worked in the first place) resulting in their inability to shoot.
Our shooting, albeit slow/inaccurate in the qualifiers, was impossible in the finals because of an axle inside of our gear box that acted as a stop for the winch broke and we could not actually tension the bands anymore... Thankfully a little duct tape allowed us to push our shooter arms out of the way or we wouldn't of even been able to drop our intake during the finals(Which really only mattered when we were right side up haha)

Re: New Central Illinois Regional Looking Good!
 

Halfway through the timeout between F2 and F3 we realized the problem was the nut on the pot that sensed the main ball pickup arm position loosened so we lost the calibration. The arm was then too close to the ball and partially blocked the ball's path when shooting. There was not enough time to tighten and reset the calibration before F3.

Including practice matches, we had run over 20 matches before this with no problem. Unfortunately it came loose at a very bad time.

The pot body will be hot glued in place and the nut Loctited at Queen City. We usually do not Loctite the pot nuts but this may convince us to do so.

Re: New Central Illinois Regional Looking Good!
 

One could argue that in Finals-2 blue was not awarded the correct assists points on the first cycle.

Re: New Central Illinois Regional Looking Good!
 

525 is also on quite a tear over the past several years having won 7 of their last 9 events since 2010. Between 525 and 1986 there are 15 regional wins in the past 5 years.

1. 2010 Greater Kansas City
2. 2010 10,000 Lakes Finalists
3. 2011 Greater Kansas City
4. 2011 10,000 Lakes
5. 2012 Greater Kansas City Semi-Finals
6. 2012 10,000 Lakes
7. 2013 Northern Lights
8. 2013 10,000 Lakes
9. 2014 Central Illinois

I'm looking forward to seeing how 525 does with the rest of their season. I had a blast working with them in 2012. A great group of people and a very solid program. Good luck with the rest of your season Swartdogs!

Re: New Central Illinois Regional Looking Good!
 

There was certainly a lot of that going around for everyone. Scoring errors in virtually any match you care to pick. If you watch F-3 you will find that Red was not awarded their full autonomous points (15 vs. 35). Fortunately it did not affect the outcome.

Re: New Central Illinois Regional Looking Good!
 

Mr. Shoff, I think our alliance did not get awarded the full assist points because Rockford never possessed the ball with the robot entirely in the white zone.

As for the finals, they were very exciting and intense. There were many potential outcomes. Teamwork, chance, and strategy all took a part in the outcome. It was awesome getting that far as a 3rd year team.

-In match 3, it did look like 171 pushed 4296 over deliberately, but that was after a pushing fight.
-Us (4143) got pushed over at the 7 second mark in teleop. 4296 was heading towards us at the beginning, but 1986 and 171 got in their way. They went around them, lined up ~15 feet away and went straight for us. They were in contact for 3 seconds and pushed us back ~7 feet.
-To me, this seems like a pre-planned strategy: take out their main scorer in the beginning before they get any points (and 1 less robot defending). With assists from our teammates, we could score +80 points in tele-op, so a 50 point penalty would not compensate for the flip. The other alliance would "gain" points even with a technical foul.

-(in my opinion with no offense or accusations to any teams. It's just hard for me to imagine an accident like this early in the match)

So was it an accident or a pre-planned action? It's been greatly bothering me since the regional. Thoughts?

Re: New Central Illinois Regional Looking Good!
 

Here is the link to the recap video that was shown just before the Awards Ceremony on Saturday. We thought you might want to see it one last time and share it with friends and family who might not have been able to make the trip with you.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoMz...m-upload_owner


Thanks to all the Teams, families, volunteers, event staff for working together to make the Central Illinois Regional happen. We hope to work together in the future and even see you throughout this season as well. Good luck to all!

Re: New Central Illinois Regional Looking Good!
 

So now that I have stepped back and taken a more objective look at what happened, I want to offer my perspective of what occurred in the finals matches, as well as some of my conclusions.

First off, we did not do enough to back off after hitting 4296. They start to go up, but rather than backing off immediately to let them down, we continue pushing. This was not a result of malicious intent, but lack of driver experience, and poor coaching on my part. This was the first competition for our driver, and he did not react when he saw them going over. I needed to pull him aside after the first match and make sure he was aware that he needs to back off immediately in those situations, but I was too caught up repairing the robot and getting it ready to go back out between matches for that to occur to me. It has been said by several others that 4296 was a rather "tippy" robot. While they did show a certain instability, and I think that it was not terribly erroneous not to call a penalty after the first flip, I do believe we should have been penalized after the second time we flipped them because it was becoming repetitive, and by some definitions, a strategy. I'm going to try to work with our driver between now and Wisconsin to improve his recognition of this types of situations, and improve his ability to react and pull away from robots that have begun to tip over.

Regarding the hit on 1986 at the end of match 2. As Nemo said, our intake cylinders were already wrecked from a previous hit earlier in the match, and we had no way to raise the intake. That being said, G28 would seem to apply regardless of intent if the contact was damaging, but I will leave sorting out the enforcement problems with that particular rule to another thread.

Despite what it looked like to spectators, we did not ever enter the field with the intent of flipping a robot, nor did we ever construct a match strategy around flipping any member of the opposing alliance. I got angry when I saw what I believed to be people on Chief Delphi characterizing our team and the way we behave based upon what occurred on field. I apologize for that, and I hope this will help everyone understand what went on behind our driver's station during those three matches. I would never want to win a regional in that way, and I have nothing but the utmost respect for 525, 1986, and 4296.

To our alliance partners 4143 and 2039, you guys were awesome. It was amazing to play on an alliance with so much strategic flexibility and I think that was one of our greatest assets. I look forward to playing with both of you at Wisconsin.

Despite what happened, I think this year is a very good game, with lots of ways for alliances to approach it. There are some issues with enforcing penalties, and I know we had some issues with the pedestal not lighting up, but I believe those issues can be addressed. I would like to thank all those involved in making the Central Illinois Regional happen. I thought it was a very well run event, especially considering this was its inaugural year, and a week 1 event no less. I would absolutely come back to play in the "Snow Globe" next year.