Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

I looked on MSHSL, and found a link to buy DVDs from prep45.com. I can only find the 2012 State Championship here though, which makes me wonder if the 2013 one exists.

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

Since we're only a week out and teams are starting to use their robot access period, this is a good time to remind everyone of the new rules this year - 3 unbag periods allowed, minimum of 30 mins per period, and max of 6 hours total unbag time. Log it all on the robot access form, and BRING THE FORM WITH YOU. If you have any questions or concerns, let me know!

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

It was for sale last year - I waited too long and it was gone sometime when school started this last September. It would be nice to get a copy of one!

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

Since the question was asked...

FRC Team 3313 replaced 4 of our 6 HiGrip wheels. They took a beating during the Week Zero, 2 Regionals, and Champs. We already did this and it took about an hour.

At Champs, we fully replaced all of the gears in both Mini-CIM gearboxes on our drive train as well. We won't be hobbled like in the Finals at 10K.

We will spend the rest of our out of bag time working on a 5 second autonomous and hopefully getting some kind of hot goal detection through Cheesy Vision or Kinect.

Otherwise, we're continuing to make replacement grippers just in case something happens.

Lastly, we're jumping into a lake today (thanks 3018 for nominating us). https://twitter.com/NordicStorm3018/...94429381701632

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

We plan to un-bag this Saturday for 6 hours of work. (live stream?) One thing will be fixing the encoder that made the last auto shot not fire (11 of 12), and we have a cim not running on one side of our drive train, it was cold to the touch during elims. Other then that driver practice and maybe 2 ball auto testing (we may need a second ball). Its going to be a great competition.

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

Does anyone know if any teams that made the cut declined. There are 2 or 3 teams who just missed the cut that I hope made it in.

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

We decided we liked our robot from last year so much we'd just upgrade it and bring it to State ;)
https://twitter.com/Team2052/status/...001728/photo/1

We'll be using our unbag time on Saturday to fine tune our shooter, get our 2 ball auto up and running, and hope to have 2 ball both hot by State (I may be a little optimistic). Although if everyone is as fantastic as I'm imagining we may never even need to use it!

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

Note to self: personally inspect 2052's robot at states!

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

Hey, that's not fair, I helped to build Dragonfish!

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

I'm curious, what is the rationale behind requiring teams to keep their robot in the bag for months to attend what is effectively an off season competition?

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

Level playing field for teams competing. We don't want to trigger another build season.

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

The event is recognized by the Minnesota State High School League and is treated like any other State Championship for any other sport. I believe the reasoning for keeping the robot bagged is to treat it like an official FIRST competition.

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

That must be really inspiring for the teams that have to keep their robot bagged for 5 weeks because they didn't go to champs.

6 hours over that time isn't much. Effectively rewards teams substantially for making practice bots.

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

It's both an off-season event and a real competition event. The State Tournament is sponsored by the Minnesota State High School League, and is a big part of the recognition we get from the state. Having the tournament comes hand in hand with being recognized as an official MSHSL activity, lettering, and event with school recognition/compensation for coaches (just like other MSHSL activities).

To keep the competition fair for everyone, we need to have a basic set of rules. That includes everything FIRST thinks of for the FRC competition, including schedule constraints. Everyone has the same build season, and we give everyone the same amount of time before the competition to work on their robot. Otherwise, how fair would it be for a team that has to pack their robot in a crate after week 2 to send it to Champs, and doesn't get it back in their build space until a week before the State Tournament? Another team could have had 2 full months of improvements and practice with their robots in their build space!

Ideally, I think most of us would like to have the State Tournament before Champs - it would be great to have it during the real season, it would fit in with team schedules a little better (by mid-may seniors are checking out, teams are wrapping things up, and no one has energy for robotics anymore!), and it just makes more sense to have a State Tournament before a World Championship. However, that doesn't work due to the Bag and Tag and shipping rules we have to follow for Champs. We hold the State tournament as early as possible, but we have to allow a couple of weeks after champs for teams to get their robots back!

And please note - normal bag and tag rules apply, which means teams can take their robots out for display/demo purposes prior to States!

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

Thanks for the explanation. I can definitely see reasoning behind both sides of the issue.