Props and Slops of the Granite State Regionals
 

Opinion only, everyone can comment and add some.

Props:

All teams the teams, amazing three days, amazing competition.

Teams 236 (Techno Ticks) and 175 (Buzz), for being the best alliance we could have ever picked.

1073 for being with us twice in practice and just being a cool bunch of people, congrats on winning the rookie award, you deserve it.

811, for winning the sportsmanship award, and being okay with being flipped twice by us.

BAE Systems for the sponsorship, and for the incredible amount of volunteers. Also for TRYING to create a one way walking system that may have worked.

The scoring on the fly system, coolest thing to come out of recent years.

236 for doing the tick dance all the way through finals.

And 121 for scaring me all day long with the wedge bot, the autonomous was awesome when it worked, and the wedge was something to drive AWAY from.

Slops:

The venue, for not allowing food or drinks second day, then closing down the food stands, luckily they weren't checking bags very well.

The music, the horn, because they were way too loud, making it difficult to concentrate on field and in the pits.

I think the judges need a better way to define a "flipping" rule, because if you're a wedge, and you drive at a robot that's sitting still, and they end up on there back, isn't that militious?

That's all that I can think of off the top of my head, it's also really early and I have to get to work, I should have a day off or something, I've been working these past three days.

Except for the food situation this was a great venue. I understand that the Verizon enter wanted to make money on food but $3 for a bottle of water that is over priced at $1? And those "breakfast sandwiches?" They make the dried out ones at the school cafe look good even if the ones at the cafe were not half the price. Several days just about our whole team went out for lunch.

Teams were great though. I don't think there was a mean bone in the place. What a great spirit in this event.

I thought the volunteers did a great job. The VC staff could be a little uptight at times but the volunteers maintained order with politeness and courtesy.

And there were Segway rides. And I got a ride. Made my day.

BAE Regional in Manchester a BIG HIT!
 

It really was a great regional.

Yea, the food was poor, expensive, and the lines were long....and searching of bags for half eaten candy bars got a old very quickly every morning.....but other than those small potatos.....I have nothing but praise for the entire operation.

Did practice seem a little "rougher" this year? I was surprised at the amount of contact and roughness. no one seemed the least bit concerned with damage, and very few practice drills.....it was just like a competition!

As for Team 58 knocking us down twice....that's all in the game, and I know for a fact that the 2nd time was our fault because our box flipping appendage got "hooked" on a part of your robot. Heck....a Team 58 member even came over and apologized to us after the 2nd time...that was really great sportsmanship right there!

It was all great fun.....and I look forward to another BAE regional at Verizon next year! (But first, the Nationals in a few weeks)

-Quentin

:D

Yeah the food situation was bad but they never checked my bag... I brought so much food in and they didn't check it... They asked me if I had any food and I said no... My team went out everyday too, I didn't mind it but when you walk around the city wearing full tie-dye and you have on over 200 buttons people start to look at you funny... It was funny though because I got my picture taken like 50 times...

I was a volunteer, heres my thoughts:

food was poor, lines to long, and stands closed too early

music was way to loud (my friends and I all had headaches after being in the pit for 8 hours

segway demos: awesome

the one way walk system helped

otherwise it was great, seating was awesome, you almost couldnt find a bad seat.

Re: BAE Regional in Manchester a BIG HIT!
 

I agree, but I also liked this, to a point. It gave everyone a chance to iron out automation problems, as well as get a feel for the competition. The problem I have is that some teams probably needed to try things out, and really couldn't, because they're were getting beat up, which is never good. I do think it was a better idea though.

Re: Re: BAE Regional in Manchester a BIG HIT!
 

I'm beginning to think that this might be why the stackers didn't.....perhaps the "tone" of the whole event was set when the shoving matches started.....and if you have motors and can move, you can join right in. (and forget about your stacking ability)

-Quentin

Re: Props and Slops of the Granite State Regionals
 

Thanks man!

Props to you for having one hella cool robot. That's what we were trying to make our like...only it didn't come out quite perfectly :D But yours did.

Props to the Techno Ticks too for their amazing robot AND the tick boogie.

Congrats on winning it all!

--Petey

Re: Re: Re: BAE Regional in Manchester a BIG HIT!
 

I disagree, the stackers didn't because a lot couldn't, or didn't have time. This competition was set in a certain direction from day one, if you were going to stack it had to be incredibly fast, because you didn't have time, 1:45 is no time at all. Notice finals, and the lack of stackers, main function stackers were nowhere, but second function stackers (all three teams in the winning alliance), could stack 1 or two boxes.

Props to 213 Keene High School for being the best stacker at the competition.

Props to all the BAE teams that made the finals, 166, 151, 1058, 131, 501, 1073.

Props to all the teams that are going to UTC after attending BAE, because you guys all looked great. 126, 166, 176, 175, 236, 287, 296,

Chris
BAE Regional Volunteer
Team 229

Re: Props and Slops of the Granite State Regionals
 

its funny cause we were afraid of your consistant automode too. How it always hit the stack fast and hard. And discussing strategy everyone told us you guys couldn't be flipped. cant wait to compete with and against you guys in houston.

My biggest complaint was the sound system (especially the buzzer and bugle). They didn't have any short throw speakers, so in order to make the game sounds audible on the field, they were painfully loud in the stands. I was talking to a guy in the stands who was recording the audio of the competition, and the decible meter on his tape deck was reading143dB during the buzzers (for comparison, an air raid siren is 135 dB, and a gun shot can range from 130 to 190dB, depending on weapon). According to NIOSH, exposure of just 150 milliseconds of sound at this level can result in perminant hearing loss.

Re: Re: Props and Slops of the Granite State Regionals
 

The only reason we couldn't was because of the driving, and knowing when to back off, and when to go for it, there were a couple times where we were close, but it was very difficult. If you look at our robot there's blue paint all along the 80/20, you left your mark on us. The lexan on the front has both blue and red, I believe you were the only team with blue and red paint.


No Houston for us, not this year at least :( No money, and we didn't qualify. If anyone wants to lobby to FIRST to let us go down, I wouldn't mind.

I can recall the '01 season, a team won there regional, but didn't have the money to go so the alliance partner sponsored them to go down, and lobbied to FIRST to let them, I thought that was pretty cool.

Re: Re: Re: Props and Slops of the Granite State Regionals
 

By winning the regional, you just qualified for nationals this year. You just need to somehow find the money.

see http://www.usfirst.org/robotics/res_art9.htm for more details.

Re: Re: Re: Re: BAE Regional in Manchester a BIG HIT!
 

i dissagree about stackers not being good thing. the dirty birds to me were probably the biggest help to our team, Gael Force, in that competition. they helped us score 225 QP by making a 6 stack.
u have to addmit that is good.

This really more a bash on the game then anything else...

The final match at the BAE regional consisisted of one alliances robot being tipped over withing the first 30 seconds never to recover. The match was a two on one for the vast majority of the 2 minutes. Yet, the hindered alliance still won. Shouldn't this shed some light on the game? And that maybe there is just too much dumb luck involved in it.

There is a bit more luck involved then I would like but that is somewaht unavoidable.

As for robots getting flipped. It happened to us at least three times. Mostly it's our fault. We should have designed better. I think that most teams did not anticipate how easy it would be to get flipped on the ramps. We have no one to blame for that but ourselves. Oh sure there were robots who helped others flip but that's all in the game.

We thought that flipping over was going to happen, thats why we made our arm able to flip us over at any angle.

We on 562 had some great matches, most notably with 213 and 358. In one of our last matches, 213 stole a stack of 4 (created by an opponent human player) and we owned the ramp, finishing us up with 216 QP's. :)

We finished 9 out of our 10 matches on top of the ramp, which was our primary goal this year.. and we seeded 18th out of 44. We can't believe we didn't get drafted for the finals! There's always Battlecry and Mayhem on the Merrimack...

when buzz flipped in that match we really thoght we had a chance. Going into the last match, us on 121 had only one working side of a drive train. 241 only had 3 motors working on theirs. it was literally 236 vs. 3/4 of team 241. if all teams in the last allaince were at 100% i think it would have been an extremely exciting match to watch.

Sadly, we don't have the money and didn't send our robot to be shipped, and I don't think FIRST would let us ship now. This kills me, not having the money, if I had the money I'd pay for it, but alas I am only a student.

In response to the thing about finals at BAE:

In the first match of the finals team 58 broke it's right drive coming down the bridge, then broke it's torque boost gear box at the bottom, the announcer claimed 58 was playing "defensive" when it was really that we couldn't move, the ticks still overpowered that match. This was the reason you didn't see 58 in the final match.

58: Thanks again for bringing us into your alliance -- great job seeding #1 !! Awesome autonomous mode!

As far as Houston goes.... this is the fourth time that Buzz has won a regional with a team that could not afford to get to Nationals... and in all other cases, the team ended up there...... so here's some advice:

1) Do not touch/fix/repair/drive your robot -- all the other teams will trust your Gracious Professionalism to ship your robot in the exact state it was in when you left Manchester, if you get to go.

2) Houston is four weeks away... that is a long time -- a well organized fund-raising campaign can get you there -- you just need to start right now. You may not be able to get the whole team there, but the robot, drive team and human player is all that you need to win a National Championship! FIRST will be accomodating to any Regional Champion needing to get there... even if it is down to the wire.

3) Lastly -- Call FIRST Tuesday (before they head out to the next regionals) -- they may have some sponsors with cash who are looking to get involved and would send a Regional Champion to the Championship -- it has happened before!

Keep in touch and let us know how it's going -- if you need any details on fundraising ideas, don't hesitate to give a shout!

Houston won't be the same without ya!

:)

Here's the current deal:

We don't have the money, and we have roughly a week to aquire the money (somewhere close to 15k).

Yeah it sucks we can't go, but some sort of devine intervention could get us there, I don't know how, but maybe, somehow.

You can always dream