Florida Invitational
 

Hey all well congrads to all the people at nationals. I watched all the webcast and it was great. Now my question to you, who would go to a Florida Invitational in Ft. Lauderdale? I am just trying to see if anyone is interested. We would like to hold one for all the teams that wanted to particpate. We would have it in my schools gym. There is a Marriot Hotel right there that is no joke 300 yards away from are gym. We would like to have this years competiton maybe in the end of may. I have had alot of request from south Florida's teams to hold one. I would like to hold one to because of all the seniors that are done, maybe have it there last stand. So please reply to this thread or im me at Sirminnyme. If we get a enough interest this will be a go. We are just waiting on you guys, so talk to your teams and get them interested

We talked about it at the team meeting today and decided we'd like to go. Post a date when you know it.

I'll bring it up with our mentors.

I'll ask the powers that be.

Note to Warren/Dillard/Eric: Can we go? Please?? :D

Yea Eric, come on lol, I mean now your autonomous and ours works so we all can have good matches now lol ;)

Hooah, that surprised me at first Ryan ... half gave me an ulcer again.. but then I was like " wow that is one sweet idea "

Hopefully we can make it happen if we have enough interest.. and its 5 minutes from the beach so just think of it as a trip to the beach for most everyone lol

Dan

yes well i got a ulcer thinking about it. It will be very exciting look for threads or even this thread for more information. It wont be till next week till more information due to we are on spring break but whenw e get back i will have a meeting with the principal on hosting this. This past year is when are adminstration has gotten really excited about robotics. They loved the tapes from regionals., so its looking good

YAHOO!!!!!
 

Team 1077 "All Stars" Would love to go! Just lets us know when!!!

I'd absolutely love to. But it all goes to the mentors. & in response to BBFIRSTCHICK's sig: why yes we do.

I'll run it by the higher ups of HeatWave.....

Team 212 from Dr. Michael Krop H.S. Miami will participate in the South Florida Invitatitonal.

Thanks

I would love to go to this regional...but I have to talk about it with my team. I think it would be a really good opportunity for the seniors to go to their last regional...it all ended so suddenly, like the build season went by so fast as with the regionals! :( Im sad its over! I miss it and cant wait unill next year!! (oh, and this is .stephan1e. off of team 79...*KrUnCh ThIs!*):D

Ill run it by the upper people form SigmaC@ats (when we get back form spring break), I'm almost positive they would because its so close. If you guys need help planning it or need volunteers, I'd love to help. If you do, you can PM or send me an instant message: linkinman8.

need help?
 

Ya!
Ryan, if you need any help or anything, im sure me and a few of my team mates would be more then willing to lend a hand! Just let me know!

yeay, it looks as if i may have another round at driving the robot before shipping off to college after all... whoopee

If it happens, you can count team 168 in!!

Team 267 'Demolition Squad' says YES!
 

Team 267 is ready, willing and able!

You can count us in!

http://www.team267.org

....hmmmmm We'll have to see what we can do about our RC....we managed to convince IFI to give us a loaner at Houston, after we spent Thursday "chasing ghosts", again -

UCF went like this:
power up...pwm's 1-5 are out - toggle power...pwm's 1-5 are OK...pwm's 12-15 are out...toggle again...everything OK for 3/4 of a match...then do it all over again....AHHHHHHHHH! :ahh: ...and how many times did we re-cal the Victors?

...anyway, we were going to ship it back to IFI for testing...so we need to get the team together after spring break and discuss our options...

Wow I'm so freakin confused.. but what I got is.. your not sure, but if we do this thing ( have to wait to get confirmation on space availabilty ) you'll try to come

Wow I'm so freakin confused.. but what I got is.. your not sure, but if we do this thing ( have to wait to get confirmation on space availabilty ) you'll try to come

have any clue when you guys are gonna get the final word??

Ughh Yeah.. see ryan wasn't really supposed to post about it, it was supposed to be hush hush, not to get peoples hopes up.. ( he's just a driver not the pr guy lol... ) but some people get overanxious

We've been on spring break for a while so we havn't been able to contact school officials. But when we tell them how much interest we have in one, they'll jump all over it is my bet. We'll know this week and hopefully, If we can't have it in our gym we'll prob. start looking for convention centers in the area. LoL we are persistent.

My guess is soon hopefully later this week.

Dan

yes we are trying hard for this. I was over anxious, but i wanted people to start thinking abou it and seeing if there team would let them attend. We should have some idea next week if are school will let us.

Team 1083 - Orlando, FL
 

Hi:

I am one of the "powers that be" for team 1083 at University HS in Orlando. We would love to come, but need to know when it would be. We are out of school the weekend of Memorial day, and have exams before that. That does not mean we would not be able to make it, but it would be BEST if it was not over Memorial day weekend. A lot of people have travel plans.

Thanks!
Nathan Pell

Hi,

Team 179 might be up to it. I'm sure some of our students are. I'll bring it up at a meeting tommorow night and let ya know. I'll push extra hard if you promise to have a match where only the mentors get to drive!! I heard they used to do that at Mayhem in Miami :D Team 168's Robot Rodeo in Orlando last year was excellent! We had a lot of new students get to experience a competition "before" the build period. Which was a great primer!

That was team 186's rodeo, not 168.

This is a great idea. And maybe if we can't get the go-ahead at Westminster, we might be able to do it at Pine Crest (which is 5 minutes away from WA). But i think the WA kids have more support at their school than we do (just some odd feeling I get every once in a while when asking for something from our school)

South Florida will have the advantage in a competition in South Florida.(Humidity).

Yes well i like the idea of having mentor matches. WE have off school tommorow so earliest time we can talk to adminstration is tuesday. we have many other possiblites if are school doesnt let us do a invitional

My apologies 186, numerical dyslexia... BTW are you guys (186) planning to have another rodeo? I think it was in November???

I just thought of the best/worst idea.... have you ever seen a robot bowl before? Heheheh, why don't we all meet at a bowling alley and have to code an autonomous mode to push the bowling ball down and get a strike ;) Lol. Sorry, just a wacky idea, but it would be fun to do.

oops, I didn't mean for it to drive all the way down there and hit all the pins... But hey it's a bunch of FIRST teams, we can bend the rules a little ;)
Hmm, 13lb ball and a 12" diameter air canon, 120psi (no regulator). Do we have to pay for broken pins? Ever seen pumpkin chuckin competitions? Thats a trip!

If you are not able to get it in your school what do you have in Mind? A place like we did a few years back for Mayhem in Miami? If anything im pretty sure a few of the teams can get together and help you get something going! Im sure a lot of us really want this to happen! :D

Well other ideas are, Pinecrest school, war memorial auditoruim. There is one possiblity to, My dad owns a factory and we are in the process of moving it and if we can a early enough date the old factory is pretty big. Any other south florida teams have ideas where we could hold it

emmm... FIU would be otta the window no? short on time and money! Im gonna talk to some of my other team mates to see if they have anything in mind!

and it would be nice if we could find somewhere in Ft.L. I mean, not have it to far North, and to far south. Its gonna be asking alot for the really Northern teams to drive all the way down! Just a thought!

Tis quite alright. I'm not sure though... I havn't heard any mention of it, but then again I may have and forgot, or maybe they don't say anything about it when I'm around. I don't see why we wouldn't... I'll find out within the next couple of days and let y'all know.

On a side note... it was in Kissimmee, not Orlando. Though it could possibly be in Orlando this year...

George... is what you told me true or just a rumor?

Yeah another Idea.. is nova southeastern.. they have a nice gym and auditorium.. there is a million and one places here to hold it..

you hold it at our school tho.. we might be able to arrange a social hehe.. we have beaches 5 min. and bowling allie and an ice sk8in rink within 10... so I don't know.. lol not as important.. but if we do this we want to do it right

Getting space field and date are #1 priorities tho ( in that order )

so we'll see soon hopefully

list of things need to be done
 

1. get place to hold invitational
2. set a date for it
3. contact first on getting a field
4. get teams register and help them find places here to stay
5. find volunteers and judges
6. build field and hold competition

This is the order that me and dan are working in. number 1 should be done by this week and if one goes to plan then number 2 should be done this week and so on and so on. We are back to school by tommorow so we will set up a meeting with adminstration and facilties to get approval and get them interested. Stay tune to this thread for more updates as they come along.

Still looking for suggestions on who to ask to be referees

Re: list of things need to be done
 

Just so you don't set a date and get people pumped for it and have the possibility of cancelling.... you should probably contact FIRST first, just so everyone doesn't get upset if something does happen and you can't hold it cause you can't get a field, plus you have to plan around FIRST since I'm sure they may loan fields to many other offseason competitions, and you might not be able to get it on a set date, so probably wisest to go through them first.

we Don't plan on posting date up untill all that stuff is finished don't worry

I'll make sure ryan/powers/abe/pete/myself doesn't get all hyper about it and post prematurely lol

...yeah ...sorry for the rambling... We have to get SPAM together and talk about it....best I can say is a definite maybe

Well if it all goes according to planned, it would be a sad day if spam could not attend.

Yes it would be sad if we didnt see spam there

Where to hold it!
 

I think we could do it in a school that has a large enough gym (like the mini-rodeo at orlando at the begining of this year.. there were quite a few teams there and the room was sufficient.). Our school has a relatively large gym so i could talk to the team leaders about it (we have a team meeting tomorrow so ill talk to them about it then). Hopefully we'll get something going.. i know that on 212 were all sad the year with robotics is over because most of the team is graduating - so one last event would be AWESOME!

*ashz*

i do believe WA has a big enough facility, of course, that all depends on how many teams there are in attendance or course

as far as i know, it's a fact. University High will be hosting the Rodeo in October. but, as they say, we can jump off that bridge when we get to it.

for now, let's just concentrate on making this the best ever Mayhem in... er... Ft. Lauderdale?

PS: needs work on the name, don't ya think?

yahoo
 

Mayhem?? So we are going to have it in May? lol.... More like Junehem....lol stupid yes I know... dont ask! well find out soon!! My team just got our bot back from Huston...they kindda "lost" it.... but its back now.... yahoo!!!

update
 

WE have had a meeting with facitlites today and it went good. We will be contacting first to find out about cost i will be putting another update later tongiht and dan will be posting updates to.

Yes we have more than enough space I hope lol.. more information to follow soon hopefully

Also yah lol.. George name needs work.. we are deff. not Mayhem in Miami, nor did we even attend it lol

Infact we've never attended a unofficial FIRST event ( no pre or post season comps ) lol so this will be a learning experience but it will be fun none the less

First Ideas are something like Assault on the Atlantic but I don't know.. mayb best idea wins a shirt?

to get some cash you guys should by a few shirts and sell them, you might be able to make some profit off em! =)

Update
 

Here is the latest of today Tuesday 4/22

We had a meeting with are teacher mentor and he took us to facilities office. They ok'ed a date (wont be released till we are certain we will have on, dont want to get anyones hopes up) They papers are with adminstration now. They will sign of tommorow on them. ARe next move with which we should be done by the end of the week is laying out floor plans for are gym. Seeing how many teams we can fit and the best way to set up the field and where to put it. WE are in the process of talking to first to get us a field. After all of this is complete and shure it will happen thats when we will announce the date of event and number of openings and we will move on from there.

If you have questions or comments you can email me at Ryanteam710@aol.com or im me at Sirminnyme or just pm me

The people that are ahead of this are me (ryan) and dan (stud man dan) so you can alose contact him.

*NOTE*: Please do not ask about dates of event or anything related it will not be answered untill we are ready to tell.

fill free to suggest names for this meet

oh wow!! your shirts rule! ok, if i'm gonna get something for it i can think of a few ideas:

Clash on the Coast
South Florida Frenzy <--- my personal favorite
Broward County Robot Bash

more to come later, maybe...

Eric: can you guys use Fluffy's brain on Twitch? if not, could ya just bring Fluffy, then? a competition without SPAM isn't one worth goin to! =-[

Last year's robot brain works on this years. We used last years to test autonomous after shipping. It works just as well, everything's the same. So just take it out of Fluffy. So the WomBBATs will be representing as well lol.

Really?...I thought there was a firmware change in the RC that negated using last years? ...but if you've already tried it successfully...it's a non-issue. I was also thinking of using our ISAAC16 with a few mods to the code...or an old RC and having to skip aitonomous :(

either way, we haven't had a team meeting since Nats, so we'll bring it up as soon as we do.....I've already e-mailed Warren to give him a heads up.

...for a T-shirt,
I've been trying to come up with an "L" word ie.
"The "L" in Lauderdale"....but so far it just turns out silly, wierd or nasty :D

except, maybe, for Legends in Lauderdale
(sounds like a Sr. PGA tournament)

As long as we are suggesting things....

Ft. Lauderdale Face-off
Seaside Squabble

Oh and SPAM I would call InnovationFIRST and see how much a replacement for just the one component, for the whole Control System Bundle costs $1145, but I would imagine if you only bought part of it the control system it would be a lot cheaper.

update
 

update wed 4/23

Well we are still in the process of talking to FIRST we have left emails and messages for them so they should reply soon. Look for a post by dan to tell about FIRST, he is the one in contact with him. I didnt get to talk to the school mentor but i am pretty shure the papers where signed off today for using are gym for the Invitational. We where worried about alot of interference at are school due to radio's used by employees and are church that is 500 feet to the south of us has there own radio station that they are broadcasting from righ there. We were worried aobut interference we we ran are robot all around and couldnt find one place where we could get inteference, so we are good dthere. Next thing we are checking on is the load that the plus in are gym can hold. We will be talking to maintmence tommorow and hopefully finding out if we can hold everthing. We should be able to. ON another not we have been passing names around are team and we came up with one that we liked CHOAS ON THE COAST . How do you like that? We will still appreciate names from you. Keep bringing them in

No offense, but all the names everyones suggesting sound the same as all the other names suggested. Is alliteration really a must? This is the age of alliteration, sure... but get more creative.

Oh I have ideas alright. I just don't feel like thinking of them right now.

coming from the team who hosted the " Robot Rodeo " last year...


lol

Isn't it Ironic.. don't you think
We never said our ideas were ne good.. we just said best one wins a shirt

hummmm...

Robotic Pandemonium

:p

Well... I can't think of much good... but I mean there's a shirt involved... so I'll throw in my suggestion!

It should be called: "I named our offseason competition and won a shirt yay"

You guys like it? :)

OMG INOOCAWASY!!!!

PURE GENIUS.

Sounds like an idea to me Use mikes idea.

lol aight mayb an award for orginality

but can you fit into extra small? hehe

Even if I can't... hehe I'll make it fit ;)

...even sounds "Florida"

:D

omg who let the new yorker in!!! hehe :-P

j/p

Go Red Sox mayb

update
 

Thursday 24

Not to update much today. I didnt have time to talk to many people today due to leaving town tommorow and trying to get all my school work done. FIRST should contact us by tommorow, hopefully. I wont be posting over the weekend till i get back like Sunday at 7 p.m. I hope you all have a good weekend i will try to post one more time tommorow.

Re: update
 

But don't worry.. Dan will be here to hold up the fort woot woot

:: flexes muscles :: ... :: tears shirt ::... " Dangit that always happens "


:: rolls eyes ::

back to reality, yeah as soon as we hear from FIRST and its the answer we want to hear we should be announcing date... hopefully.. crosses fingures

Dan

ohh PS... IF ANYONE! knows who's got the carpet from UCF.. supposedly they gave it away.. hopefully didn't through it away

BUt IF ne one knows please let us know, so we can talk to them about borrowing it, so that way we don't have to buy it

DAn i am so glad you will be here i dont know what i would do without you and i wish i had muscles so i could rip my shirt...well what am i thinking ia am a robotics geek

After hours and hours of putting my noggin to work, I have thought of a few good names for this FL invitational, in hopes of winning myself a T-shirt and having my creative juices diplayed for all and immortalized at the invitational.

-Lay Down the Law-derdale

-It's Hotter in Lauderdale

-The Slammy near Miami

-The Slaughter in Lauderdale

-Da Party in Ft. Laudy

(Also, while in the creative process, I thought of some pretty humorously bad names...such as "Lauderchipanddale", "Latitude and Lauderdale", and "Welcome Back Kotter in Lauderdale")

Enjoy

More like 20 minutes in English class.

But nonetheless, word to that post.

/me likes that one :)

cool! im sure SPAM members would want to go- especially the seniors, mainly the one missed nats

update
 

update 4/29

I just came back from a robotics meeting, the subject of the day was of course this Invitational.

This what was accomplished:
1. date
2. Price
3. NAME (and it was picked from one of the ones you sent in)

We have secured the place to hold this competiton and the fields so we decided on announcing the date. The date will be June 13,14 2003. The 13th will be set up date of the field. 14th will be a full day of competiton. Now this brings me to my next point. We need volunteers anyway we can get them. If you have friends that would like to volunteer any of those days or you would just pm me with your team number, name, evening phone number and you will be added to the volunteer list.

Next order of business is the price. The price for shipping this field down to us is reallly really expensive. There are twelve crates that weigh a total of 3 tons. :ahh: When talking to are mentors they told me and dan to tell you guys between 300-600 dollars for registration fees. Me and Dan did some math on the phone and we figured that if we have 16 teams commit we can have the price down to 300 or 350. Tell your teams the price

WE have set up a diagram of the field in are gym and the max number of teams we will be able to hold is 16. This is with reducing the size of the pit space. The size of each teams pit will be 8 feet long by 8 1/2 inches.

WE HAVE COME UP WITH A NAME ARE YOU GUYS READY FOR THIS?

THE NAME IS.......
Seaside Squabble

That was sent in by

Stephen Kowski

of heatwave

So now its your turn

WE need to find volunteers.
TAlk to your teams about the regirstration fee and pm me with any questions and pm if your team is still interest all you ahve to do is type TEAM BLA BLA BLA IS INTERESTED.

Well thats all for now

there it all is.. Except one big error, the competition is on the 14th

the 13th is irrelevant to the majority of you other than being a set up day for us which we need larges amount of help with so if you wish to help email me or ryan

also keep in mind.. the way our mentors work is kinda backwards like they don't want to give a set cost. But basically right now we are trying to break even with a semi we have to ship from manchester to ft. lauderdale and everything else

So the more teams that sign up.. the less everyone has to pay, so get those teams to sign up fast quick and in a hurry

or if any team wants to help out w/ cost or just general set up .. contact me or ryan

I've been corresponding with the Think Pink 233 coordinator and he says that he is more than willing to come and offer volunteers. I'm going to PM you the info Ryan including his email.

Seaside squabble has been canceled due to not enough final committment

Contact me for any questions

That's really ashame. I had a bunch of people who seemed interested in trying to do as much as we could to help prepare. If there were money issues, you could just have brought the prices up to what you originally said with like $350-$400, and not the $150 you were saying, cause then things would work better... and I'm sure teams would be willing to pay. Maybe, try waiting another week and getting more people to "commit" and it could still work out I think. If there is anything I can do, I'd be willing to do it.

thats the thing... teams wouldn't pay at the higher price. But thats not the main issue.. ughh please don't be upset with team 710, its not the team really... just kinda the hierarchy or the " triumverant " as we like to call them.. I think most of you get the point, I've done all I can and I'm extremely dissapointed.

I feel as I've been played and have done all this prelim work for nothing. So as much as you feel like you guys have been had. Just think of all the work that me and ryan have done and got semi-backstabbed by our own mentors.

But no more venting I don't plan on going in depth its a Team Problem and will stay within the team, I'm sorry that it dragged other teams into it the people on this board never intended to be misleading or upsetting please do not hold this against us in the future.

*applaud for you and ryan* You guys worked your butts off, and for that I'm sure teams will have much respect for you in the future. Problems happen, not your fault... there's always another time hopefully. Good try though guys.

ya guys i am sorry that this isnt gonna happen. It was sad that are mentor stabbed us in the back. I think it was more he is mad at me for some stuff that was done. I am sorry for the disappointment, but like are mentors where pessemisstic from the beggining especially the engineers so they got the other mentors on there side and thats what happen so me and dan arent to happy with them right now

Thanks
 

Dan and Ryan on behalf of 1077 thanks for everything. You did everything that you can, and we thank you for that! At least you guys took the initiative to get something off the ground. That was more then enough. Hopefully next year. :D

What a shame
 

We over here at 1083 were all really excited about coming down. If there is anything that we might be able to do, let me know. Thanks again for trying to put everything together.

Nathan Pell

see we know we could get everything done, Just the lead engineer didnt like the idea from teh begining and basically brought everyone else done, Just its a team problem basically yaday yada yada

Hey, I was just thinking... for the most part... everything is planned out for this competition. Maybe another team could host it, and people can just move their plans to there, and they could still get the field and all, they'd just have to get facilities. I wish I could say we could do that, but we're having troubles, and I know we couldn't this year. But maybe another team could?

btw:
 

That would be cool if another team could take it up, but the main problem would be funding.... maybe teams could get together.... and figure it out??

Re: btw:
 

I'd be willing to do whatever to help, I just know we can't host.

I would be willing to help and I know a few of my team mates would also... just cant host... if we had the money.... would be diff

Who needs a host? Who needs money? Everyone bring your robots and all your extra controllers to my backyard. Next weekend. Yes.

Shame it was cancelled. I was looking foward to going. At least I didn't convince my team to go yet.... I was going to though.

:( I am so sad its not going to happen...but I can get over it! I just want to give Ryan and Dan mad props for putting all the work into it. Guys, (Ryan and Dan), I know you guys worked your boot-ees off, stressing out about time, place, whos going, whos not...ThAnK YoU!! You guys are awesome and I'm sure it would have been awesome if it would have happend. I know that since the price went down, there were 3 or 4 other teams that said they could have gone because it was only $100. I never really talked to Ryan, but Dan I know put alot of hard work, thinking, and stress into this!
:) I think it would be great if another team sponsored this regional. Maybe even like 2 or 3 teams getting together and hosting it. I know that would bring the cost of hosting down and so that the one team didnt have to pay for it ALL! It would be split and cheaper. POSSIBLY making it cheaper for other teams to come also...HmMm! That would be cool too! Just an idea...:)
Well thank you guys again for all the hard work for nothing...it is a shame it didnt happen, but I guess things happen sometimes that we cant control.


.stephan1e.

What can i say Guys, you earned it...