China Robotics Challenge 2016
 

We (525) are leaving in a few hours (2:30 AM) to head for Chicago and then the flight to Shanghai.

It looks like there will be about 26 Chinese teams there - mostly pre-rookies.

The international teams going are:

16 Mountain Home, Arkansas - Bomb Squad
148 Greenville, Texas - Robowranglers
341 Ambler, Pennsylvania - Miss Daisy
359 Waialua, Hawaii - Hawaiian Kids
525 Cedar Falls, Iowa - Swartdogs
694 New York, New York - StuyPulse
987 Las Vegas, Nevada - High Rollers
1538 San Diego, California - The Holy Cows
1595 Spokane, Washington - The Dragons
1690 Binyamina, HaZafon, Israel - Orbit
1772 Gravatai, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil - The Brazilian Trail Blazers
2468 Austin, Texas - Team Appreciate
4334 Calgary, Alberta, Canada - Alberta Tech Alliance (ATA)
4613 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia - Barker Redbacks
5800 Florianopolis, Santa Catarina, Brazil - Magic Island Robotics

There will be 2 workshop days (the 6th and 7th), the international teams are going sightseeing for 2 days while the pre-rookie teams finish their robots, the scrimmage is the 10th through the 13th.

Some teams (at least 525, 1538 and 2468) are going sightseeing in Beijing before returning home.

This will be my 4th trip to China with 525 and I always have a great time!

Re: China Robotics Challenge 2016
 

Wow! Great to see a lot of inspirational teams on this list! Enjoy China, and enjoy the scrimmage!

Re: China Robotics Challenge 2016
 

The AndyMark contingent left yesterday morning and eventually got in the air. Have fun, y'all!

Re: China Robotics Challenge 2016
 

that is so cool... what's your team budget for a trip like this?

Is there any grant or invitation to participate?

Re: China Robotics Challenge 2016
 

We just got to our hotel - total travel time was about 26 hours for us. We met 4334 at the airport and rode a bus with them to the hotel.

I don't have exact details on cost so I probably shouldn't comment.

Here's a view out my hotel room window.

Re: China Robotics Challenge 2016
 

Make sure to visit the Shanghai Centre Tower! I was in Shanghai two weeks ago seeing family, and we were unlucky when we went up because the weather was bad, but the view from the top of the tower is incredible on a good day.

They also have a ton of exhibits underneath the tower that talk about design challenges they faced and how they solved them, as well as cool features.

Re: China Robotics Challenge 2016
 

Our team got an invitation last year and subsequently this year.
This is truly a great experience for us as we work with the Chinese teams. They are enthusiastic and eager to learn and work.
The support and hosting by the CUYRA organization is phenomenal.

We also look forward to visiting several cities after the event in Xian and Bejjing, then Korea afterwards.

Re: China Robotics Challenge 2016
 

Is there going to be a stream? This looks like it'll be pretty competitive.

Re: China Robotics Challenge 2016
 

I would highly doubt it. Livestream/Twitch are iffy at best in China if not banned outright, and even if they find a website that they can stream from (billibilli and panda.tv come to mind), data coming through the Great Firewall tends to be a lot slower coming through, so resolution will probably suffer.

Re: China Robotics Challenge 2016
 

Well, if the competition is in the "Shanghai Free Trade Zone" they could potentially stream through Facebook or Periscope or even Twitch- the Chinese government relaxes the Great Firewall in the Free Trade Zone.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/chin...zone-1.1866688

Re: China Robotics Challenge 2016
 

We have not made plans to stream the event.

Re: China Robotics Challenge 2016
 

We just got back from a 2 days of sightseeing while the new teams continued to work on their robots. Here's a pic I took at 4:30 AM yesterday from an overlook near our hotel.

Today most of us will go back to the workshop and help the new teams finish their robots. The key volunteers are going to the venue to help field setup.

The international teams unpack their robots starting at 7:00 PM tonight and practice day is tomorrow.

Re: China Robotics Challenge 2016
 

Here's a pic of the hotel we stayed at while sightseeing. I took this pic from an overlook yesterday morning shortly after the sun rose.

Re: China Robotics Challenge 2016
 

Where are most of the Chinese teams attending from?

I'm assuming they'll mostly be from around the Shanghai area, but when 610 went to Beijing in November last year, teams came from all throughout China, and it was great to hear about their differing experiences as pre-rookies.

Re: China Robotics Challenge 2016
 

http://feibei.tv/live/wxauthorizeCallback/10216?code=041QTag42SxhGI0PGxi42Hhag42QTag6&state= 321

There will be a webcast.

Re: China Robotics Challenge 2016
 

Thank you!

Re: China Robotics Challenge 2016
 

Thank you for sharing, I'm glad I can watch some of this awesome event.

I also didn't think I'd ever be able to watch live FRC at 3 am in August.

Re: China Robotics Challenge 2016
 

Same.

Does anyone know if they will be posting results afterward and are they using a modified rule set?

Re: China Robotics Challenge 2016
 

I'll post results.

We did not modify any rules - since they are trying to get their own regional, we felt it was important for it to be as much like a real event as possible.

Tomorrow is a second full day of qualifying. There will be two rounds of playoffs the next day. The first round will be for all teams, the second round is just for the Chinese teams.

Re: China Robotics Challenge 2016
 

1) 4334 1538 9025
2) 1690 148 9037
3) 359 987 9030
4) 1772 1595 5516
5) 2468 341 9043
6) 694 16 5308
7) 9035 4613 5800
8) 5839 525 5823

1690 declined 4334

Playoffs start in the morning. The afternoon will be all Chinese team playoffs.

Re: China Robotics Challenge 2016
 

WVROX?

Re: China Robotics Challenge 2016
 

Wow. Those alliances are pretty strong. Best of luck to all competing!

Re: China Robotics Challenge 2016
 

I'll try to get a list.

EDIT: These are the returning teams that are here - I don't have the pre-rookies yet.

5306 Chongquing, China
5308 Wuhan, China
5445 Kunming, China
5449 Beijing, China
5451 Beijing, China
5452 Quanzhou, China
5453 Shenzhen, China
5515 Shanghai, China
5516 Shenzhen, China
5522 Shenzhen, China
5823 Shenzhen, China
5824 Shanghai, China
5831 Macau, China
5839 Nanjing, China

Re: China Robotics Challenge 2016
 

I heard of and then saw proof of a more or less complete 118 knock-off at the tournament!

The pictures I saw of it were incredible. The amount of time they must have poured into replicating each piece is amazing.

Very flattering.

Re: China Robotics Challenge 2016
 

International tournament results:

1) 4334 1538 9025* 5522 (W)
2) 1690 148 9037 (F)
3) 359 987 9030 (SF)
4) 1772 1595 5516 (QF)
5) 2468 341 9043 (SF)
6) 694 16 5308 (QF)
7) 9035 4613 5800 (QF)
8) 5839 525 5823 (QF)

1690 declined 4334.
5522 was a backup for 9025.

Chinese tournament results:

1) 9035 9030 9037 (SF)
2) 5839 9031 9036 (SF)
3) 5823 5308 5445 (W)
4) 5306 9043 9022 (QF)
5) 5522 5849 5449 (F)
6) 9049 5451 5451 (QF)
7) 9048 5516 9013 (QF)
8) 4952 5453 9047 (QF)

I didn't watch alliance selection so I have no idea about declines.

Re: China Robotics Challenge 2016
 

Also, they announced that China is getting it's own regional next year. Week 2 in Shenzhen. We're pretty excited about that - it's what we've worked for since champs in 2012.

Re: China Robotics Challenge 2016
 

(inb4 China district megathread)

All joking aside, this is huge. Teams tend to sprout up a lot more when they don't have to travel across oceans* to compete. I can't wait to see how this develops.

*or fly 16 and a half hours across seven countries, same diff

Re: China Robotics Challenge 2016
 

Do you have a picture?

Re: China Robotics Challenge 2016
 

Possibly this one - I took this pic while they were still putting it together. This was a pre-rookie team.

Sorry, I can't get the pic uploaded from the hotel here in Shanghai. I'll try again later today when we get to Beijing.

Re: China Robotics Challenge 2016
 

Attached!

Re: China Robotics Challenge 2016
 

Interesting...

Also... what's covering those bumpers and why?

Re: China Robotics Challenge 2016
 

Was there eventually a catapult attached?

Re: China Robotics Challenge 2016
 

Not sure.

I did see an image of the "hand." The component that cradles the boulder. They milled one from aluminum. We 3D printed ours.

Don't know if it made it on the bot.

Re: China Robotics Challenge 2016
 

Are those Vex EDR mecanums with a special hub? That's a pretty good idea to save $10 per wheel.

Re: China Robotics Challenge 2016
 

Here's a pic with the bot under construction. (Had to greatly reduce the image resolution to get it to upload.)

Re: China Robotics Challenge 2016
 

They're likely just EDR wheels drilled out and hex broached.

125 and others have done this with good results.

Re: China Robotics Challenge 2016
 

We'll be leaving the hotel in a couple of hours to start the journey back to Cedar Falls. Our flight leaves Beijing at around 10:00 am and we arrive in Chicago at around 10:00 am. (13 hour flight, 13 hour time difference.) Get through the airport and a 5 hour drive to Cedar Falls - should be back home around 5:00 pm or so.

It's been another fantastic trip to China - I always enjoy these trips. They've been very well organized, they plan a good mix of workshop time, sightseeing and competition. It's a great chance to make friends we wouldn't meet and spend time with in a traditional FRC event.

It's back to work tomorrow and back to the daily routine - the last two weeks have been an awesome vacation. I'm already looking forward to the next chance we have to come over.

Re: China Robotics Challenge 2016
 

FRC Team 16 made it home at 11:00 pm Central last night after about a 30 hour trip. We had an unbelievable time in China and at the workshops and China Robotics Challenge. Here is a photo gallery if anyone is interested: https://meredith.smugmug.com/FIRST-R...on/2016-China-

Please consider attending the 2017 China Regional. Let me know if you have any questions.


.

Re: China Robotics Challenge 2016
 

Not that I think it's in the cards for us yet but... Just wondering out loud - what's it like getting your robot to/from? Any delays or hiccups?

Re: China Robotics Challenge 2016
 

Floodie Wowerz wannabe?

Re: China Robotics Challenge 2016
 

No idea how they will handle regular season robot shipping. Months of turn around for the CRC. Obviously regional robots from other countries would need to be handled differently.

Re: China Robotics Challenge 2016
 

First of all FedEx can cover the cost of shipping a robot crate to one regional/in-season event via the Transport Exemption system( thanks FedEx it’s really helpful). This system works for shipping a crate to North American events and back again for us takes a long time on the return trip.

It says on the robot transportation part of the FIRST website that:

I suspect it would be similar to that, so teams would most likely have to organise (and also pay for) the shipping of their robot to the regional in China if they have other Regionals (which probably all attending International teams would have).

For CRC this year we removed the shooting mechanism and intake from our robot, bubble wrapped it and simply checked it in at the Airport as excess baggage. Team 3132 also did this for their robot during the official season. Obviously this system wouldn’t be very effective in seasons with tall robots like 2015 unless the robot was designed to be disassembled into small pieces. In 2015 we had to cut about a foot off the top of our robot after we qualified for CMP, in order to be able to utilise the FedEx transport exemption system( ie fit it in the crate).

We designed a lightweight folding pit structure in the 2015 off-season, and have got quite good at competing at events with a minimum amount of tools in order to minimise transport costs. We put the large bulky items in the crate, and bring tools and spares as check in luggage.

The bringing of robot batteries to the regional would most likely be a no go, international teams get two provided at events normally (which isn’t usually enough depending on the game), but International teams were lent 3 each at CRC this year. Shipping blocks of lead across the Pacific isn’t exactly very efficient either. I think the Regional Organiser would most likely organise for more batteries than usually given to International Teams. Typically at the Australia Regional, teams with large stockpiles of batteries (through KOP or purchase) lend more batteries to International teams otherwise it would be very difficult to compete especially during Eliminations (especially as sometimes the batteries provided by FIRST aren’t in the best shape). There probably aren’t very many Chinese teams with big stockpiles of batteries to lend out either.

Re: China Robotics Challenge 2016
 

For international teams FIRST will contact you asking to fill out some preliminary information such as your crate size and weight as well as a shipping address. Later, we were contacted to fill out a customs declaration and a Shippers Letter of Instruction. While it may sound complicated the people I worked with at United Pacific and Patent International Logistics last year were very helpful.

There is information in the Admin Manual about shipping such as max size and weight. When I was contacted I also got a notice to international teams that robots will be held in the US in case a team is qualified for the World Championship. You can still request to have your robot shipped back earlier by contacting FIRST and forgo championship. With 2 Champs coming along they may do it differently, but it has worked pretty well so far.

Re: China Robotics Challenge 2016
 

It was packing tape. I tried to advise them that this was not legal but they said that their fabric kept tearing so they had to tape all of them.

Re: China Robotics Challenge 2016
 

Team 341 is safely home in Ambler, PA.

Our team would like to thank Min Zhang, Katie Yang, Kenton Swartley as well as the incredible mentors and students of Team 525. Thank you also to CUYRA, CRC, and all of the event volunteers. It was great working with the international teams and getting to know them a little better. Working with old friends like 987, 1538, 694, and 359, as well as making new friends like 2468 was so rewarding.

But most importantly we had the chance to work with so many wonderful Chinese students and their mentors. We hope our team aided the growth of the Chinese FRC program in some small way this summer and that the Chinese pre-rookies feel encouraged to press on with forming a team for 2017.

We also wanted to thank Team 2468 for selecting us in the draft and 9043 for being a great partner.
What a great experience this has been for all of the students and mentors involved in CRC 2016.
Good Luck with the Regional in 2017!

Re: China Robotics Challenge 2016
 

Thanks for the kind words - it was great to spend time with your team.

On the plane home, I sat next to a student that was heading to Philadelphia to start college at Temple. She made the mistake of asking about one of the pictures I was looking at on my laptop - I made her look at about 700 pics and listen to stories about CRC and FRC.