Re: 2014 Minne-Mini
 

Don't worry about it - we do appreciate you loaning it to us. 5542 (Buffalo) got to take our 2013 robot and play on the practice field a bit - thanks to your cable. Besides - it would be up our alley to lose something someone lent us.

Always fun being in the same competition as 2052. We know you guys bring a strong competitive spirit - as well as a team we can lean on. Congrats on the Chairman's!

Re: 2014 Minne-Mini
 

It was a great event, we managed to keep mostly on schedule and none of the robots seemed to suffer too much damage.

I look forward to being back next year.

Re: 2014 Minne-Mini
 

I too was extremely disappointed that many of the important IRI rules were not used. When I talked with the referees, they said that the event organizers decided upon the rule changes without including the referees in the discussion. The standard FMS does not allow for 4 auto balls, and the refs would have to count ASSISTs differently than they were used to, so these two key changes were not used. It sounds like this lack of communication will not happen again next year.

I'll also second all of these congratulations. The 3313, 2175, and 1816 alliance was a force to be reckoned with. Although I don't agree at all with many of the penalties in our semi-final matches against them, they certainly were a very good alliance that was worthy to advance. I would have loved to stick around for the awards ceremony, but unfortunately my team had to head out with the other St. Paul teams before they finished. Did 2052 win the Gracious Professionalism Award? I am guessing yes since Kshitij didn't congratulate another team for winning it. If so, congratulations to them, otherwise congratulations to whichever other team won.

Overall, 4536 had a great time at Minne-Mini, and will certainly plan to attend again next year. We tried a lot of new things at this event, and will hopefully be carrying over what we learned here into the official competitions.

I personally was also really glad that I finally got the chance to coach a match with 2052's primary coach, Peter Awker. It was so inspiring to be right in the thick of the action with one of my old mentors. Unfortunately our alliance didn't do quite as well as I had hoped we would, but it was still a great experience.

Re: 2014 Minne-Mini
 

Not so much the referees as the FTAs and scorekeepers. There's no way in the 2014 FMS to allow for more than 3 autonomous balls at the start of the match. If there were 4 balls on the field at the start, then cycle 1 would start after the 3rd auton ball had been cleared, lighting the pedestal which would put 2 balls on the field for the rest of tele-op.

If they'd said, well we'll just make do, then that would have put a huge burden on field reset because they're the ones who would have to get the call right about keeping a team from pulling a ball off a lit pedestal based on there being more than 4 balls at the start. You can pretty much guarantee that across 42 qualifying matches and up to 9 elimination matches there would have been quite a few more "field fault" replays than the 2 we had.

Re: 2014 Minne-Mini
 

We never did figure out what happened to the red ball on the last field fault. Did anyone see where it went?

Re: 2014 Minne-Mini
 

I appreciate the difficulties involved with having 4 balls in auto mode. At IRI, I believe the real-time scoring did not even reflect the auto scores correctly because the refs could only input 3 balls into the system in auto. The auto scores then had to be manually entered after the match to reflect the scores from the fourth ball. Altogether then, it makes sense to me that no one would want to deal with the potential issues brought on by having 4 autonomous balls. It isn't worth it to me, them, or almost anyone at the event to use these rules if it will cause appreciably more field faults (and we are a team with a reasonably consistent two ball auto).

I am more disappointed with the referees because they did not even attempt to use the IRI assist rules. These rules could easily have been implemented even with the standard FMS if the refs would just enter possessions diagonally across their possession grid instead of using the zone the robot was in. This should in fact be even less work for the referees since they wouldn't have to watch to see which zone each robot was in. This rule change would:
Make the game more fun for drivers (in my opinion)
Make the game more intuitive to the audience
Make the game less error-prone since the referees would be (assumedly) less likely to miss zone-possessions (They missed at least 1 of our zone-possessions yesterday)

This rule change absolutely could have been implemented if the referees would have changed their system just a little bit, but they were unwilling to do so.

Re: 2014 Minne-Mini
 

And when the refs mis-score matches by pressing the correct button for the zone out of habit? Most of the refs there had been at multiple events, both during the season and in the offseason since.

Rules are important, as are understanding them. During the season, making mistakes on the field can cost you points, either in fouls or in missed points (like assists in the wrong zone). IMO, taking the time now, in the offseason, to teach your drivers the importance of the rule book can only help during the season. Instead, by changing the rules to make the game easier only serves to tell them that the rules aren't really that important.

The event was run to ensure a safe, consistent environment for everyone. That includes scoring, reducing the chance for required replays, and running things as efficiently as possible.

As a state, we're adding more and more off-season events (up to three this year). I think the least we can do for all the teams involved is try to keep the rules the same across all in-state off-season events, and the last minute rule reversions ended up better matching the prior offseason events.

Re: 2014 Minne-Mini
 

I took one video (full field) of one match all day, and it was what I thought might be the final match-- but it was replayed.

I saw two red ball anomalies in the video. A red ball went into the blue low goal, and the human player was right there to retrieve it (no field reset folks involved) and he quickly in-bounded it. Near the end of the match the red pedestal did not light for about 22 seconds (finally lighting just as time ran out) -- I'm guessing that's what caused the replay.

Re: 2014 Minne-Mini
 

Here's our Minne-Mini story.

Wednesday morning: we were informed a team had cancelled and we had an opportunity to go. Our bot was partially disassembled to repair some mecanum rollers. Recruited 9 students and five mentors to go.

Wednesday night, --reassembly

Thursday night, driver practice, and broke a another mecanum roller (or two?) -- fixed it using a slightly less time consuming disassembly approach even though everyone would have rather gone home by then.

Packing stuff-- bring spare rollers? Fixing would take too long, so we'd never use them, but throw them in the box any way.

Match one: Broke a roller, started to make same disassemble/fix but given time of match two, we realized we wouldn't make it but we could re-assemble and make the match without the roller.

Match two, lost another roller on opposite wheel.

Match three, lost two more rollers, started doing carpet damage, now we had no choice.

A crowd of kids with some extra borrowed tools (drill, riveter) to get more hands working. Disassembled both the left and right side of the bot to replace rollers. Missed two matches, and lost one more roller.. .

We had a couple of other repairs as well, one fixed with velcro cable ties and zipties, which held up in the last match.

At the end of the day we had kids doing line dances and all said they had a great day, despite finishing 33rd.

That's what I love about FIRST.

Re: 2014 Minne-Mini
 

After this year, I would personally never buy this style of mecanum wheels (single plastic plate holding the rollers on) for FRC. I'm not sure if there are any robots out there that used that style and kept all of the rollers. I've picked up a handful of those rollers with the plastic snapped off at every event I have been at.

It looks like they have updated the wheels for 2015 with additional support though, so that's a good sign.

2052 has always used AndyMark's mecanum wheels, which have two metal plates holding the rollers on. We have never had a problem with the rollers breaking off.

Re: 2014 Minne-Mini
 

Sorry about being so late, but I've just had time right now to make a post. I'd really like to thank FireBears for picking us and 2169 and 3042 for being great alliance partners. It was a pretty frantic alliance selection for us. I'd also like to congratulate everyone for really competing to their best, and giving us one last time to compete with you all before our robot is dismantled. The seminars were all really great too!

I hope everyone had fun (and also that the truss eventually got fixed).

3313, 2175, 1816 - as previous alliance partners, it was especially fun to compete with you guys. You are all a force to be reckoned with.

Re: 2014 Minne-Mini
 

Yeah about that truss... Our bad :D It was a really fun event to attend and I really enjoyed it. Thanks to 2512 for picking us, it was the first time 4607 got to work with you guys in the elims and now I know what makes you such a good team. Thanks to our other alliance partners 876 and 2491. It was great to work with you.

Congratulations to the winning alliance of 2846, 3883, 2169, and 3042! You all played extremely well together and it was cool to watch. I believe 3883's performance in the elims was one of the more impressive individual robot performances I've seen all year.

Overall 4607 learned a lot and the new team is more prepared for next year, which is the ultimate goal of off-season events. So thank you 2169 for hosting!

Re: 2014 Minne-Mini
 

The previous team I was with used AM Mecanum wheels as well and had little to no problems. I'm pretty sure the Vex ones (even if re-engineered) will not be on our shopping list. Maybe after a season or two if they prove themselves with other teams.

Re: 2014 Minne-Mini
 

Anytime! It was great to work with your team in the elims and as a younger team you have a big future ahead. You team was extremely professional and pleasure to compete with! Hopefully we can compete together again in the upcoming years.

Elimination rounds by FRC Team 2512, on Flickr

Re: 2014 Minne-Mini
 

Team 4536 has uploaded all of our match videos to our brand new team youtube page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYS...T4LTl6C9vQ_2Hg

Unfortunately though, we don't have any of the final scores. I do remember that our 1st and 3rd semifinal matches were both decided by penalty points, and that the 2nd match, ignoring penalties, only had blue winning by a single point!