Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

We are one of those teams that has qualified to the State Championship but didn't qualify for worlds. . . 6 hours is definitely not that much time and I'm extremely glad 4607 built a practice robot this year. The system really does penalize a team that doesn't have the funding to build a practice robot but as Jon Stratis said it is already held as early as possible.

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

This makes me curious, how many MN teams build full practice bots? 2052 doesn't, or Dragonfish wouldn't exist, I'm pretty sure 2169, 3018, 2175, 2177, and 3313 didn't this year. 2512 maybe?

My bet would be that there are more Iowa teams with practice bots than MN teams with practice bots. :yikes:

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

2175, does in fact build a practice bott (Greg :) ). He is currently dismantled though from taking parts for spares at champs. We hope to have him up and running for offseason events to train in new members with. At our week zero we were actually using our practice bot since the competition bot (Atlas) was not quiet fully operational yet. In our reveal video you can tell which shots are Greg since he doesn't have any of the lightning holes in the arm or shooter frame.

We also also modified our 2013 robot with one of our passive assisters we gave out to teams to practice with.

I believe 2220 may build a practice bot and I know 3130 did for the first time this year.

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

3883 sadly did not build a practice bot either. :(

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

2220 always intends to build two full robots, but this year we ran into issues manufacturing our arm and could only make one of them, so we practiced with a "full" robot, but it was the same manipulator we used on our competition robot.

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

Sir Lancer Bots just missed the cut :( but we are sending a couple volunteers (myself included) to help out.

Yes, the time from Duluth to State last year was a long time with only 6 hours of unbag time, but we were so excited to qualify that it didn't matter.

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

I didn't know practice robots were such a rare thing in Minnesota! Maybe next year with the Roborio coming out teams will have 2 control systems available and practice robots will become more common. Having a practice robot advanced our team so much further than I thought possible. It allowed a lot of our younger students to troubleshoot problems that they probably wouldn't encounter on the actual robot. I'm hopeful that other teams can have that opportunity next year!

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

It's not a question of having multiple control systems... We have our Break Away, Rebound Rumble, Ultimate Ascent, and of course Aerial Assist all up and running. The issue we have is one of time/woman-power - We just don't have the desire and time during the build season to build two identical robots. This would probably change if we spent more time on CAD and had a shop cut the parts for us... but at least thus far our robots have been almost entirely hand-made - very little CNC.

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

I understand your point. . . We did spend pretty much every day after school from build season until now working and tweaking the practice bot. . . It was worth it though :D

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

We(2512) didn't make a practice robot.

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

There are only six Iowa teams total. We (525) have never had a practice bot. 967 did have a practice bot this year, not sure about the others. (967 was the only team to bring a practice bot to our week 0 scrimmage and all six teams were there.)

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

Try two months... for some. Of course, many people feel that bagging is necessary between build and regular season (I am not among them). If this is the case, since people want to treat this as a regular season event (which it is not) to crown a MN state champion, bagging is still required.

But bagging and the build deadline really need to be ditched altogether. It's a broken system modeled off an outdated competition structure. We no longer have a logistical, real-life ship deadline to get all our machines to the same event. All other teams at our events necessarily have had the same time since kickoff to work on their machine, unless they've invented time travel. As it is, the higher resource teams will still be able to practice when their bot is in the bag, while those with less are out of luck. But all of this has been said before...

I'm sort of confused about the MSHSL sponsorship too. Schools already had complete freedom to award robotics letters, compensate coaches, and the whole deal (we did). I struggle to see how MSHSL involvement is anything but limiting, introducing a plethora of rules about funding, district association, student membership, transportation, and plenty of other nonsense that teams are far better off dealing with themselves. The event operation has also been rather closed off in the past, at times charging entry fees, as well as the exhorbitant prices one might expect for any photos, merchandise, and match recordings from the event.

I look forward to official district status, since this will make qualification for any state championship event make a lot more sense, and hopefully give us more freedom to run these events.

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

I am aware that there are only 6 Iowa teams. I had assumed that 525, 967, and 3928 all built practice robots, and it turns out I was wrong on at least one count, still not sure about Neutrino. My point was that there are incredibly few MN teams that made practice robots.

But I lose my own bet.

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

MSHSL association gives us something very important: legitimacy. I've talked to teams that were only able to continue existing with their school because they were a part of the MSHSL. Sure, FIRST has been around for 20+ years, is certified as a legitimate activity nationally, et cetera, but being recognized as an official high school competition gives us a local legitimacy-- something we can point to: "See, we have a state championship just like football or hockey, and we have more teams!"

In short, being a part of the MSHSL has helped us expand into every high school in the state with more than 400 students, has kept teams around that would otherwise have faded, and gives us another selling point for sponsors.

As far as I know, the only way 2220 has changed our operations since the MSHSL move is adding the required $50 fee (which is covered as a team scholarship as necessary). We already had most of the rules-- regarding GPA and substance abuse, etc-- before the move, so those weren't added. What changes have you had to make because of the switch?

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

Sure, things were great for your team before MSHSL, but that's not true for everyone. Many teams across the state struggled to get any sort of real recognition before MSHSL. Having MSHSL on board makes it much easier for every team to get what your team took for granted. We don't have a perfect system yet, but it's a lot better for 90% of the teams in the state than it was before MSHSL got involved.