2016 Bayou Regional
 

It's that time of the year again... time for Bayou!

As ususal, we've got the whole crew of Louisiana and Mississippi teams attending. There's a few newcomers as well and some old friends that have attended in years past.

364 is really excited for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. We hope the competition is fierce and the event runs smoothly this week.

I want to give a special good luck to our rookies: 5819, 5829, 5863, 5864, 5872, 5953, 5965, 5971, 5997, and 6103.

See you all on Thursday!

Re: 2016 Bayou Regional
 

Spectrum is happy to be returning to Bayou, we have a few of our good friends from Texas (2587, 4063, & 5829) coming along as well. Looking forward to playing with all our Bayou region friends plus teams from SC, FL and more. Should be a very good event.

Re: 2016 Bayou Regional
 

The Devastators are excited about going to the Bayou Regional for the first time. Are there any places to eat that you guys recommend to check out?

Re: 2016 Bayou Regional
 

We are looking forward to visiting Cafe Du Monde for Beignets again :) :) :)

Re: 2016 Bayou Regional
 

Along with Cafe Du Monde, you could also try Cafe Maspero which is right down the street in the French Quarter. For as many times as I've been to New Orleans with my family, we have almost always eaten there.

Re: 2016 Bayou Regional
 

See you all Thursday!

You can hardly go wrong with local restaurants in the New Orleans area. If they're outside the tourist areas and they've been open more than a year, the food is good - or they won't stay open. Williams Boulevard (the road from I-10 to the Pontchartrain center) has a number of good restaurants, but the mother lode in the vicinity is on Veterans Blvd. From the Pontchartrain Center, go down Williams, past I-10, and turn left at the next light. More retail area per linear mile than just about anywhere, practically all of it is on the ground floor, and much of it is restaurants.

If you want to try genuine beignets and cafe au lait but don't want to go the whole way down to the Vieux Carre, I recommend the Morning Call near Lakeside Shopping Center in Metairie (pronounced "MET uh Ree" or simply "METry", please not muh TAIR ee). Even though indoors, it somehow captures the distinctive feel and aroma of the real CDM in ways that the airport and strip mall venues bearing the CDM name do not.

On more practical matters, there is a TruValue hardware store about a mile down Williams from the convention center on the right (heading away). Another couple of blocks farther on the left is a strip mall with both an Office Depot and a Party City. WalMart is another block down, and another block yields an Auto Zone for electrical needs. To get to a home center, you need to go past I-10 to Veterans, turn left and go about a half a mile to Home Depot. The nearest Lowe's is another couple of miles down Vets.

OBTW, there is nothing much in short walking distance from the Pontchartrain Center except Lake Pontchartrain and some apartment complexes. For food and drink, plan to pack it in, buy it there, or drive. The Pontchartrain Center does not allow outside food and drink, so "packing it in" means to the parking lot. They don't mind you taking a picnic lunch on the levee, but last year they asked us not to eat outside food in the shadow of the building.

One of the distinctive traditions of Bayou is the annual "second line" parade on Saturday. Prizes for the best dancer in the parade (a 3946 alumnus won in his senior and first college years, 2013 and 2014). Bring stuff to throw to the judges and audience - that's a New Orleans area parade tradition going back about 100 years. Probably not buttons with pins, but things like wrist bands and beads and 3d-printed logos are fan favorites. (Also, the usual ban on musical instruments has traditionally been relaxed for the second line. Appropriately enough, the music played for this is the song "Second Line".

Don't worry about door width - once inside, there are no doors, just passageways to navigate. Pits are the full 10'x10' that you would expect, or so close that we've never noticed the difference.

Re: 2016 Bayou Regional
 

It looks like I10 may be closing due to flooding near the Texas/Louisiana border. The recommended alternate route is via Shreveport, a 240 mile/4 hour detour for those coming from the Houston area.

http://www.khou.com/story/news/traff...ater/81793574/

Re: 2016 Bayou Regional
 

I-59 and I-10 at the LA/MS borders were expected to close due to flooding on the Pearl River, but they're both open now and the river appears to have crested. There are plenty of local roads innundated, and several stretches of US-90 between New Orleans and Lafayette, but the Interstates are open.

Re: 2016 Bayou Regional
 

Hopefully Interstate 10 re-opens soon !

(link to press release) posted on March 15th

Re: 2016 Bayou Regional
 

So the Awtybots have been looking for some different routes to avoid I10 (though we hope it gets cleared up by tomorrow before we leave) and we found this route.

https://goo.gl/maps/4CRXidXBi4D2

It triples the time but it's the fastest route we could find. If anyone knows of a faster route, please let us know. The school is allowing us to leave at 1 pm so it's not a huge problem but we would like to load in on Wednesday.

Re: 2016 Bayou Regional
 

On the Houston news tonight, they said that I-10 might be closed for a week. EEEKK!!! :eek: Good luck and safe travels to the teams that are attending Bayou.

Re: 2016 Bayou Regional
 

Has anyone gotten a pit-map or schedule yet? I don't believe we have received an email.

Re: 2016 Bayou Regional
 

The schedule is posted at http://frcbayouregional.com/event-info/

They are finalizing pit assignments tonight, official email should be coming soon.

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Google Maps still shows this route open: https://goo.gl/maps/z2fDuuRMmCM2 crossing the state line at South Toledo Bend.

Re: 2016 Bayou Regional
 

Thanks!! We've been looking for routes all day. We'll definitely check that one out tomorrow before we head out.

Re: 2016 Bayou Regional
 

Y'all be careful driving over. I can't wait to see all of our Bayou family again.

Re: 2016 Bayou Regional
 

Google Maps is showing an alternate route from Houston that goes south along the coast. One would exit I10 at Winnie, take 73 to Port Arthur, take 82 to Holly Beach then take 27 to rejoin I10 at Sulphur. The Beaumont police have just said this route is open but not recommended since it is a small road with many vehicles on it.

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Hous...31!2d30.039321


A longer alternative route is to go up Hwy 59 to Luffkin, take 103 then 21 through the Sabine National Forest to Many LA, take 45 to Opelousas, then 190 to Baton rouge where you will rejoin I10. The Sabine County Sheriffs Office said that route is open. This route is significantly shorter than going through Shreveport.

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Hous...d30.039321!3e0

Re: 2016 Bayou Regional
 

There appears to be 2 possible wildcards at Bayou.

233 - Winner @ Orlando
3039 - Wildcard @ Arkansas

Re: 2016 Bayou Regional
 

I've taken this route before. Under normal circumstances, it isn't a bad way to go.

However, the roads aren't real wide so bring plenty of patience.

I expect it would be faster than the "advised" route of going through Shreveport.

Re: 2016 Bayou Regional
 

Just arrived in Lake Charles via the southern route. It added about an hour to the travel time. Just a few minutes delay where 82 meets 27 and at the 2 traffic lights in Carlys.

Cafe Du Monde, here we come!!!

Re: 2016 Bayou Regional
 

Bayou was great again this year. We would like to congratulate teams 233, 4063, and 4087 for bringing home the win. Also a huge congrats to the EI winner 3847, and the Chairman's winner 2080.

Huge thanks to 456 for picking us up again after last year. I love playing with y'all. Thank you to our rookie alliance member, 5997, for showing some awesome defense in quarters!

Thank you to all of the volunteers and as always thanks to Chris for being an awesome emcee!

We're ready for Rocket City after getting a whole bunch of kinks ironed out. We broke some gear teeth on our scaler and that prevented us from scaling in our last two matches. When we got our first scale in our last qual match, we loved the crowd's reaction and were super pumped after that. We've got a whole new drive team this year and I think Bayou was good for them to get ready for the super stacked regional in Huntsville.

Does anyone know if there will be an archived video of the stream or match videos from the stands?

See you all next year!

Re: 2016 Bayou Regional
 

It looks like Spectrum made a playlist of the matches

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We'll get the rest of videos up when we get back to Houston tomorrow, they cut the internet connection at the event before we could upload them.

Re: 2016 Bayou Regional
 

Hey everyone!!

We just wanted to say thanks to everyone at the Bayou Regional. It personally wasn't my first time there, and I always enjoy being a there, but it was the Awtybots first time and my team really enjoyed their first ever official FRC regional. We had a rough start with our shooter not working and we had some electrical issues (even lost a battery one match) but everyone was great and understanding. Special thanks to the FTA crew for being patient with us and our vision/Smart Dashboard issues. Thanks to them, we were able to finally get our shooter going just in time for us to help our alliance in the quarterfinals.

Thanks to the DiscoBots(2587) and Tigerbots(2183). We made up the "bots" alliance for the eliminations and we had a great time. We knew if we could get our shooter going, we would be able to help any alliance with scoring. After not getting a single shot made through all of qualifications, you guys still took a chance on us and we're just glad we got the chance to get it right and make some shots to help win the quarterfinals against a really strong alliance of Fusion(364), Siege(456) and Knightling Blotz(5997).

Also, we wanted to say congrats to WiredCats(5872) on their Rookie All-Star win. We are honored to win Rookie Inspiration and after talking to you guys, we can see why you were deserving of the award. You guys will definitely be a great example of what an FRC team is and how it should be for the community and I'm sure you guys will a few Chairman's in the future.

The Awtybots are glad we went to Bayou and enjoyed ourselves. We can't wait to see a few of you guys at Lone Star in a few weeks and hope to be back next year!!

Re: 2016 Bayou Regional
 

This was our first time at the Bayou Regional, and it was a blast! Despite half our scouting team and robot operator catching the flu, we still had a great time (well, most of us did anyway. Not too sure about those who were sent home with 100+ fevers:( ). I'd like to give a big shoutout to teams 3847 Spectrum and 5819 Mecha Makos for being awesome alliance partners and helping us get 3 points away from a regional win. Congratulations to teams 4063, 233, and 4087 on your win. Y'all were super fun to play against in the finals, and I hope we see you at Worlds. Congrats to all award winners, and thanks for a great regional!

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I still cannot believe how close every game of that final series was! It was unfortunate to have the last two games decided by penalties, but that is only a testament to how close these two teams were and how exciting each match was. Being on the field waiting for all of those final scores to come up was incredibly tense. You guys played it extremely well and things were decided by some razor thin margins.

We are extremely grateful to both 233 and 4063 for asking us to be apart of the #1 seeded alliance. I can't tell you elated we were to be able to be a part of an alliance that skilled.

I heard a rumor that 4087 was actually the first team to win the Bayou regional from New Orleans proper. Being a transplant (for the last 4 years from St. Louis) I cannot verify this but if it is true it is a big step forward for those teams in New Orleans and hopefully the start of many more excellent showings to come from the city.

Lastly, I wanted to thank all the teams that helped 4805 get running. There were many setbacks in our build process and we wouldn't have been able to get the robot moving without the constant help of volunteers, parts, and advice from many other teams. Those that come to mind are 3481, 1818, and 2587 but I know there were many more.

Re: 2016 Bayou Regional
 

Thank you for posting Bayou videos on Youtube !

Does anyone want to link the videos to the Bayou TBA ?

Just click the "add Videos" button when you click the match you want to link video.

Re: 2016 Bayou Regional
 

Any chance of getting match 73?

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It is true! It was great to see them succeed at Bayou!

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Not sure about the stream video. We also have full video from the stands for most of the matches as well that we will get uploaded soon.

Re: 2016 Bayou Regional
 

1818 appreciates the help you provided with LabView programming we had a much better robot for it.

Re: 2016 Bayou Regional
 

Done!

Re: 2016 Bayou Regional
 

Thank You
I'm a little late with my Thank You post but better late than never.

First off thank you to the entire Bayou Volunteer team. Eddy, Chuck, Amy, Stephen, and everyone else that makes Bayou awesome. Spectrum loves coming to see so many friendly faces. Also thanks to Greg and Tom from NI for helping us try to track down our weird RoboRIO issues.

Bayou was another great event everyone was a joy to work with and setup match strategies with.

Thank you to our alliance captains the 3481 Bronc Botz for selecting us to be on your alliance. It was great working with you all and we look forward to playing with you again in the off-season or at champs. Thanks to Team 5819, Mecha Makos, for being an awesome 3rd robot at your first event ever. The eliminations were stressful but you all handled it very well. I'm excited to see what the future holds for you all and let us know we can help in anyway. You're welcome to come to Texas any time.

Thank you and congratulations to team 4063 on the regional win, safety award, GP award, and Innovation in Control Award. It was fun being across from you in the pits. You all do more at events then anyone realizes and I'm not sure how these things would function if you didn't volunteer so many of your students, happy to see all your hard work being recognized.

Congratulations to the rest of the champion alliance #4087 - Falcon Robotics and #233, The Pink Team, we'll see you guys at Lone Star in a few weeks. Pink is always getting better so I'm sure their have an even more impressive robot at Lone Star.

Congratulations to the the 2016 Bayou Regional Chairman's winners #2080 Torbotics. The Bayou region has a strong group of teams doing great things in their communities and 2080 is one of the best. Their spirit and enthusiasm for spreading STEM and improving their community is unrivaled. We'll see you all at Lone Star as well.

A huge congratulations to Daniel Eiland for winning the Woodie Flowers Finalist Award. Daniel has transformed #3337 into a program that anyone would be proud of and that teams should emulate. His efforts to spread FIRST have done wonders to strengthen the Bayou region.

It's been a week so I'm probably forgetting a lot of teams/people.

Spectrum Compilation/Highlight Video
One of our students put together a compilation video of our time at the Bayou Regional.


Match video from the Stands
We also have a large portion of the matches recorded from the stands as well that we use for scouting. Those are almost finished being posted in this playlist.

Re: 2016 Bayou Regional
 

Nice video. And thanks for keeping the defense off of us @1:20 :D ! Great counter-defense