2014 MN State Championship
 

The MSHSL Robotics Championship is on its way so let's start talking about it! It looks to be a highly competitive event with a ton of great teams in the field.

2175
3018
2052
3313*
5172
4778
2502
4536
4539
3038
2512
4656
2181
3926
3277
5290
3102
3202
2498
4009
3293
4607
2227
3007
4624
3883
2530
4845
1816*
2169*

*Chairman's Winner

In my opinion the top teams in this field are: 2175, 2052, 2512, and 3883 in no particular order. All of them are elite level scorers and should be big factors in the elimination rounds.

There seems to be a lot of balance in the field with about the same number of robots specializing in the three primary positions (Inbounder, midfield, and Scorer).

There are a ton of young teams represented this year with 8 of the 30 teams being first or second year teams. Don't let their age fool you though. There are some elite robots in this group that will undoubtedly have an impact on the elimination rounds.

5 of the 6 finalists of the 2013 MN State Championship have qualified again this year including all three Champions (2052, 2175, 4607). These teams hope to repeat their success again this year.

The 2014 MN State Championship will definitely be a fun event and great opportunity to spread the message of FIRST in Minnesota!

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

For the MN teams that made it to the Championships - Congrats! Give them all they can handle - we will be rooting for you!

For our Minnesota Brethren - if you were fortunate enough to make it to the Championships and qualify for the MSHSL Tourney take a page from our playbook.

After the Championships, DO NOT pack your robot in the crate. Send the crate back home empty. Last year we asked about shipping early on and they told us that our crate would not be back in time for the MSHSL Tourney. So we made room on our bus. Thank God we did.

For All MN teams - Bring your robot back with you! There are upwards of 400 teams that will be shipping their robot back - You have no control when and where your robot will be in the shipping line.

IF NEED BE - LEAVE A KID BEHIND! OK, I joke a little. Put your robot on a car/van/bus that will make it back to your school.

Have fun!

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

Im glad our team made it this year. After missing it by 4 slots last year it was nice to make it back. Our robot made a huge improvement shooting wise from LSR to North Star. 11 out of 12 aton shots. Would have been 12 if the encoder had not failed in the last match. With all the teams it should be a great time. I was a senior the first year of state and was also the driver. No better way to end the senior year with the first ever robotics state champions seeding first. Maybe the new team can do it again, but with this game who knows what teams will pull out the win. Its always nice to get an extra competition in the season. Cant wait to see all the teams there, its going to be a great time!

Let the good times roll. :D

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

It's sad not to see our friends from team 2705 not on the list. Especially considering they had the highest OPR in the 10,000 lakes regional. It's unfortunate that their performance in their first regional didn't earn them a spot, because they definitely deserve to be there.

If only we had more volunteers in Minnesota we could make the switch over to districts. There are definitely enough teams in the state at this point, it's the volunteers that's getting us stuck. We probably had around 10 people from our team (both parents and students) volunteer at 10,000 lakes regional in anything from field reset to queuing.

Either that, or I think we should make a change to how the qualifying teams are selected to reward teams that show improvement from one regional to the next.

Oh and BTW, my power alliance is 2502, 2175, 3018. But that would never in a million years come together.:D

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

We filed a Robot Removal Request with FRC Logistics (FRCLogistics@usfirst.org), and they have given us permission to take our robot out of the pits with us. We will have to do so with our own equipment and without access to the loading dock (shouldn't be a problem).

Also, though we asked if we could send the crate home empty, we will be required to take that with us as well. We're not entirely sure yet if it's going to fit in our trailer... The FedEx donation is a good deal of money, so I'm sure FIRST would like to cut back on it when they can.

I would get in contact with FRC Logistics sooner rather than later, since it looks like Pit Admin etc. will want a copy of the approval letter they send.

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

It's very difficult to balance fairness to all teams - Teams that improve over the course of multiple regionals are great and should be rewarded for doing so (and often are rewarded with spots in St. Louis), but at the same time we need to recognize that most teams in MN don't have the opportunity to do multiple events and show that improvement. Based on my count, 29 of 186 teams did 2 events, which means 157 teams did not have the opportunity to improve between regionals.

That said, since you mentioned 2705... Their first regional was scored at 4 (per the official numbers) and by my rough math their second regional scored around 54. With the cutoff this year being at 35 points, they would make it if we took the best score (which definitely isn't fair for those 157 teams!), but would not if we took their average score (29).

Another note from personal experience... last year, my team made it to states based on our performance at Lake Superior, earning (I think) 39 points. We only would have earned (I think) 19 points North Star... if you average those, we would not have made it to states last year. This year we did not, as we only got 30 points at Lake Superior. We would have gotten (I think) 51 points at North Star, and the average would have been enough for states.

It's very difficult to rank every team in the state in a fair and consistent manner. At least so far, the planning committee has decided that only counting the first event is as fair as we can be. If you have specific suggestions for alternative methods and why they would be fair, please PM them to me here, over e-mail, or on Twitter and I'll make sure the committee hears them... although there are no promises that any changes will actually be made. Sometimes our most vocal individuals, and the ones most likely to push for change, are those coming from teams that do multiple events, and we need to make sure that the other 157 teams also get heard.

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

We may have room in our trailer if you don't think you have enough room. Since we did not qualify for state, we will be sending our robot back in the crate.

I will stop by your pit and ask for you, or feel free to stop by 3042's pit and ask for Mike.

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

Hey, that would be great! I'll shoot you a PM. Thanks!

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

If that falls through come see us at champs (you're more than welcome to come see us anyway haha). I know we're getting a bigger trailer than last year so I bet we could make some space.

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

Just a little taste of what our team hopes to do again at state. 11 out of 12 autonomous shots at North Star. Would have been 12 if the encoder did not fail in our last match. Any way here is every autonomous shot from North Star all at once. Who knows what will happen with 6 extra hours of build. Hot goal detection?
Every Auto Shot at Once

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

Here is a scouting spreadsheet for the MN State Championship.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...MvY/edit#gid=0

OPR data is from Team 27's scouting spreadsheet.
Good luck to everyone going to State!

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

Do you want to make it an open source scouting spreadsheet so teams can enter their own data? That system seems to work well for the World Champions scouting sheets.

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

Just so you know, Connecticut is holding it's Championship that same day, and our Regional Director and the teams are working with FIRST to make sure our teams attending Champs and CT Champs will have their shipping expedited so the robots make it back in time. So it would be worth letting HQ know, THIS WEEKEND, before your crate gets handed over to Shepard on Saturday, to see if there's anything they can do.

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

I changed it to public access. I thought that the link would allow anyone who had it to add information. Hopefully it works now.

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

Thanks!

Edit: I tried to edit our teams data but it still wouldn't allow me to. It says that the spreadsheet can be accessed by anybody on the web, however, it still says editing is private.

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

I finally figured out how to get anyone to edit it. Hopefully it works now.

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

It works now and I added 4607's data. I'm not sure what teams are represented on CD so I will hold off on adding data for other teams. . .

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

Just added 3883's data, and also added a section for the robots name.:D

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

There are still some teams that need to fill in their data.
1816
2052
2169
2181
2227
2498
3007
3102
3202
3277
3293
3926
4009
4536
4539
4624
4656
4778
4845
5172
5290

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

Most of them :p

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

Forget prom. I'm coming to cheer on my fellow Minnesnowtans.

Good luck to everyone! Should be a fun weekend! :) :) :) :)

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

Does the tournament need any more volunteers? I know some seniors that would love to be doing something robotics related that Saturday...

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

Send an e-mail to Laurie, our Volunteer Coordinator, for anyone who is interested in volunteering. volunteer@mnfirst.org

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

I'm guessing that at this point most of the positions are filled. Not only are we running half of the number of events that we typically run in a weekend (thus theoretically doubling the volunteer pool), we are also running only a single day event with half the number of teams (all of whom have competed at least once).

That being said, our volunteer coordinator always welcomes new faces to the MN volunteer crew. Use the email Jon posted above and let her know how many people are interested and what their background is!

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

Will do, thanks.

We're going to be there anyways, might as well make ourselves useful (and some of us will be sticking around to volunteer next year most likely).

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

Time to revive this thread?

I'm curious to know what teams will be working on during their 6 hours. On 4536, we will be largely working on improving Onyx's durability (champs was absolutely brutal). This means going back and redoing as many of the unsoldered electrical connections as we can. Also, we will be even more powerful at state when we upgrade our 3-CIM drive into a 4-CIM drive (turns out one motor wasn't running throughout the entirety of 10K, and half of championships :ahh:). Hopefully we'll be pushing 2052 around now, not the other way around.

Unfortunately, I will only be able to stay until lunch. Somebody please please please record the elimination matches and post them (quals would be nice as well, but definitely the elims).

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

The elims were recorded last year by the State and were available to purchase for $25 or so. I'm not sure if they're doing that again this year but I'm not sure why they wouldn't. 4607 has shrunk the diameter of its winch and tests on the practice bot have definitely shown some "far" improvements. We also plan to reconfigure our drive from 2 driven wheels to 4 driven wheels. The potential strategies that could emerge given the field of competition is really exciting! I'm really looking forward to the competition, it should be awesome!

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

Really, I never knew that. Where were they available for purchase?

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

We are working on hot goal detection for autonomous. Hopefully by tomorrow we should have it working.

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

I'll figure it out and let you know by tomorrow. I don't know off the top of my head and I'm cramming for a test right now :p

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.

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.

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

Neutrino built a practice robot. We actually brought our practice bot to the scrimmage and left our comp bot at home. The practice bot was nice to have as we redesigned our arm for North Star.

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

I've entered data into the scouting database for teams who had no information. I put question marks by any of the data I wasn't absolutely sure of. There is still missing data and my school blocks TBA so I can't do any more research right now.

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

3042 built a second bot this year. It was expensive from a time (labor) and budget standpoint, but we went into the build season knowing we had enough resources to do it. We were able to make improvements while the main bot was bagged and then bring the updated assembly with us to our tournaments. This was the first year we had the ability to build two bots.

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

That is awesome! Minnesota teams are doing more than I give them credit for. Too bad you guys won't be at the state championship, I would have loved to get a better look at your robot.

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

They're one of at least 2 regional winning teams not attending the state championship.

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

One of 4607's major concerns after last year's season was to make the next big leap and not just rest on the idea that we were 'just a second year team'.

The overwhelming response from the kids was that we needed to build a practice bot. It proved be very intensive and costly, but it really did push our team's talents and skills to the next level.

We had some issues right off at North Star (See the first few matches, but once we got the Superstructure correctly mounted on 'Gumdrop' (our competition Robot), we did pretty well.

No doubt that we will continue building practice bots in the upcoming years.

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

I am not certain how 'limiting' the MSHSL has been with FIRST - at Becker we structured our team just as any other Athletic/Activity team would do.

However, BHS does not fund any part of 4607 CIS - we have to cover all of our expenses ourselves. The kids fundraise the crap out of the off-season and we knock on a lot of doors.

I agree with C&Cookies - MSHSL Tournament brought legitimacy to the sport. I remember leaving the Marriucci to go get some lunch and I found myself behind a kid form M&SA with a letter jacket on - and the patch on the back was "2013 State Champion -FIRST Robotics".

I thought that was pretty cool.

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

In case anyone is still trying to figure out which MN teams build practice bots I just remembered that 2491, 3018 and 2502 all do.

That brings the count to 8 I believe, putting it above the total number of teams in Iowa.

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

Yep, 2502 has built a practice bot for the last few years, and it is so, so nice to have. We have made a ton of modifications and improvements over our original design, and without a practice robot we would have gone into competition without any of those things tested.

If there are any teams out there who want to be more competitive in competition, you gotta find the time and money to build a practice bot.

Just today we made a modification to our shooter to lower the shot angle and increase our shooting range from about 2 feet to 10 feet! No joke, the simple addition of a few pegs at the back of our shooter made all the difference and now we're just a little disappointed we didn't think of it earlier. Expect high goals for days at state!

Plus building a practice robot is great for us because we have a pretty large team. It helps keep everyone busy thought the season with construction, testing, and mods.

In short. BUILD A PRACTICE ROBOT NEXT YEAR!

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

2470 built a practice chassis this year. After bagging we used the practice chassis for sizing of new parts and creation of bumper mounts. Next year we will be building a full practice robot.

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

At the start of the build season 3883 had plans to make a second practice bot but never got around to actually doing it. Mainly becuae of the new kit chassis this year. The team still managed to build a great robot. Yes practice bots are very useful but does not mean teams cant build robots that work well.

Anyways back to the topic of state. With the 6 hour unbag period the team within 2.5 hours had a double ball auto working. Its really tight on time but is under 10 seconds. The Data Bits now have a 2 ball auto for state and wont be afraid to use it (hopefully). Here is the video of the testing. The first ball is 2 bag and tag bags stuffed inside. Had no second ball and it was more about picking up the second ball and getting that one shot. Hope to show it off at state.
2 ball auto working

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

Great job guys! We've got a 2 ball auto now too :D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxmvlomrtR0

We also increased our sweet spot quite a bit with a nice flat trajectory

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

Looks like some great improvements have been done on machines for the weekend. We have made some upgrades as well. At Lake Superior we had issues with the ball popping off our bot when hit from the front. That is fixed and the ball DOESNT come out now. Also the ball jostled around during auto because it was not secure. The fix solved this too.

We had robot displays for our sponsors and during this time realized our front bar on our chassis was cracked so we had to replace that too.

Finally our wings were too "floppy" and did not allow for easy and quick opening and closing because we used a window motor to open and close them. Now we replaced this with pneumatic cylinders and it opens and closes in a snap.

All this plus changing tread on wheels and replacing broken bumper boards and we are now ready! Should be a great time and we are looking forward to a fast paced weekend. Good luck to all!

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

Now that we are within a week of the competition does anybody have some bold predictions they want to share?

Here are mine:

- There will be >0 matches over 300 points

- The innovative strategies used in elims at Champs will be common throughout the tournament

- There will be few if any 2 assist cycle strategies going into a match

- The winning alliance will be the smarter alliance rather than the alliance with the best robots

- Fouls will not play a major role

- (Shot in the dark) 2052 will seed first and select 2175 as their first pick.

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

My bold predictions are as follows:

-There will be a mainly strategies involving HP in assists

-Finals matches will have score differences under 20

-Our driver won't be in a wheelchair (otherwise we'll need a booster seat)

-Free corndogs??? Free ice cream??? Free chipotle??? We just don't know.

-Robots will fall over. A lot. (SATURDAY SATURdAY SATURDAY ROBO CARNAGE AT WILLIAMS ARENA BE THERE BE THERE BE THERE)

Also, does anyone know if any teams declined? Rumour has it a few did.

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

I hope not... :ahh:

Are there any other bots that have this problem? I know we do...

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

We've been pulled down a couple times by a robot getting on our stingers and pulling us down.

What's that saying, "Fall down 6 times, get up 7."

Another Team 3313 update, we got our auto to be under 5 seconds and have added Cheesy Vision for hot goal detection. We'll have a video up tomorrow or Wednesday I believe. It was super easy and we barely had to have the robot unbagged. Did 95% of it just on the driver station.

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

I hope nobody does actually! (I was just kidding.) I always try to take pictures when they do, but I don't think we've ever fallen over.

3313 - So cool. I'm not on drive or programming but I really wanted to get CheezyVision or Kinect implemented. Not many people on our team knew about it, though. :( Hopefully we get a hot goal since we can shoot two balls during autonomous.

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

This was just sent to my email from Mark Lawrence:

"Team leaders, here are some final details.
We did not purchase Game Balls, so please bring balls with you to use for the competition. Make sure that your team number is on the ball.
No one volunteered to bring carpet or field elements, so there will not be a practice field.
The national anthem choir, made up of team members, will meet at Pit Admin at 7:45am for practice. Dean Diers, Team 3840, will be the director.
There will a driver’s meeting on field at 7:45am.
The event will be webcast on www.Prep45.com.
Trailer parking is in Lot 37 located on 5th St. SE north of Mariucci Arena. Buses can park on 6th St. SE which is east of TCF Stadium (see http://www1.umn.edu/pts/maps/Library/pdf/EBank.pdf).
I look forward to seeing you on Friday
Mark Lawrence
Chairman, MN FIRST Regional Planning Committee"

Bummer that there will be no practice field. It would be nice to work a few kinks out. Also, I hope we get our ball back after the competition...unpopped!

See you in a few days!

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

Yeah it would have been nice to see get a practice field. Who knows maybe some team can still work on getting one in with the new news. Our team only has one ball so dont go breaking it :D . Still cant wait to see all the other teams there! I have seen a photo of 2175 with 3 balls around their robot with a second intake arm, we'll have to see what thats all about.

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

This just in...

"Team Leaders, there will be a practice area at the Championship. Rochester (team 2530) will be bring a high goal (half length), low goal, and short plywood truss. Nevis (team 3102) will bring a piece of carpet.

Thank you Rochester and Nevis!

Regards, Mark"

Sweet!

Thanks 2530, and 3102!

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

We now have video proof of our 3 ball auto.

See you all at State!

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

By far the most impressive 3 ball autonomous I've seen :D I'm looking forward to seeing it in person.

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

Gosh, that looks so cool. Is the third (blue) ball for low goal?
Also, where did you get 3? We had to make a second ball out of the game piece shell and Bag and Tag bags. It looked dead.

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

A little late to the party but team 2169 does make a practice robot almost every year (did not last year.) We are really excited to compete! Here our some BOLD predictions
There will be balls
Our robot will be able to *move*
Williams arena WON'T be Minnesota's largest sauna (unlike years previous)
I will be wearing gold pants
many a G40 violations will be called


whoo, exciting right? Hope to see ya'll there!

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

Did you try holding up the dead ball placard? The head ref should replace that for you ;)

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

Good luck to all the teams going to the Minnesota State Championship and have fun out there! !!!:D

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

That was by far the BEST 3 ball auto I have seen. Our team might have to steal some of that code for a 3rd ball auto. Though it might get lost in translation between C++ and LabView.:D
Anyways its going to be a great competition. We only have 1 member on the team that was on the team in 2012 for the first state championship. So lets see if the new members can repeat seeding first and taking the championship. Who knows whats going to happen.

My bold predictions
2175s 3 ball may not be as affective as they think
Terrible "High Speed Ramming" calls wont be made
No replayed matches in the eliminations
Everyone will have fun!
3883 will go to Chipotle after the competition for the Victory meal. (winning or not it will still be a victory meal)

Thats all I got. See you at the competition!

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

According to my records, there are only 5 teams that will have attended all 3 consecutive MSHSL State Championships: 1816, 2052, 2169, 3277, and 3747. I think that this is a testament to just how competitive it is to get in, with 180+ MN teams, any given team has just roughly a 1/6 chance to make it in. Given that there were fewer teams in 2012 than there are now, it is still incredible to see these teams making it in times in a row. Congrats to all of these great teams!

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

No, the third ball (and the second arm) were just for show :P
We actually have 4 balls (2 of them ours and 2 of them are 3130's and we got them from AndyMark.

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

Technically, 3747 is paired with 3018 this year, so you can give us a sort of asterisk on that one as we are under the 3018 number.

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

3018 did have a practice bot this year. It worked pretty well for quite some time, but alas, it had some pretty significant issues before we left for St. Louis - our new frame wasn't the same as the old one. The teams that came to our week zero event were able to see both of them - it was also on our release video at times. Currently, we are using our 6 hours of extra time to drive around the competition bot among other things, so the practice bot has not been seen too much lately.

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

Will Elims be 3 (regional) or 4 (champs/IRI) team alliances?

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

There aren't enough teams for 8 alliances of 4 teams.

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

We are only having 4 alliances, so I didn't know which style we are going with.
Source: http://mnfirst.org/docs/2014/2014_MSHSL.pdf

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

Good luck to all teams this weekend! Please remember to bring your gracious professionalism!

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

Congrats to team 2175 The Fighting Calculators, 2052 KnightKrawler and 4778 Stormbot for winning the MN State Championship this year! A second year in a row for 2052 and 2175 winning state together!

Thank you! We had a great time thanks to 2175 and 2052. Great job to all teams involved!

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

State was a lot of fun! I'm glad we finally got the opportunity to be an alliance captain. Thank you 2530 and 3018 you guys were awesome to work with in elims and we gave it our best! Thanks to 2052 and 4778 for being great opponents. A special thanks to 2175 for helping advance our team so much further than I thought possible.

Re: 2014 MN State Championship
 

Me(and our team 2512 ) want to thank Team 4009, The Denfield DNA, and 3313, Mechatronics, for the great time in the elimination matches. We lost them but we had a great time working with you guys.