Manchester, NH Regional
 

Hey, I'm Charlotte, Team #1350 Newbies from Providence Rhode Island.


We're going to the Manchester meet, and we had been told from a team from Kansas that some teams make pins (or buttons) to trade with the other teams.

Does this happen at all regionals? Or, if you do go to the Manchester regional, is there anything else we should know that is not in the rules.

Thanks!

Re: Manchester, NH Regional
 

Most teams have some sort of item to trade with other teams. Buttons are very common to find around at regionals, however they are not a nessesity.

Re: Manchester, NH Regional
 

Over last several years, the trading tradition has gotten pretty big. Buttons have been the most popular trading item. Teams have really expanded on this a lot over the years by doing pens, keychains, magnets, candy... pretty much whatever. With the no trading candy this year thats going to set some limitations, but that wont have any effect on trading.

Re: Manchester, NH Regional
 

Buttons are very common, and a good way to get your name out too! VCU had a button competiton last year for a $50 Circut City gift card. Not too shabby! I think buttons or some sort of hand out is a requirment to get your name out into the public. If you don't want to do buttons, some other teams have done those static cling window things with the FIRST logo on it, frissbies, and other cool items.

But there is also now a second tier of team trading, almost an elit form of it. This is where team members trade über rare and precious items for others. This is the where MOE Sticks, Sparky Carabeeners, and other stuff gets passed around.

Re: Manchester, NH Regional
 

You guys are sooooo dope!

Thanks so much, We feel alot more comfertable now, we were so worked up in getting the robot to move that we had forgotten more minor things, like, getting to the regional and where to stay.

But we have most of that figured out now.

Good luck, and thanks for the help.

Charlotte.

Re: Manchester, NH Regional
 

i am A dope ;) lol see you guys at regionals!

Re: Manchester, NH Regional
 

As far as buttons go, how many should we have made? There will be about 55 teams at our regional.

Re: Manchester, NH Regional
 

As much as possable. Everyone will want a button from you, I would recomend 700 buttons or more.

Re: Manchester, NH Regional
 

t-minus 2 days!

Re: Manchester, NH Regional
 

Just out of curiosity, in which hotels are people staying while attending the Granite State Regional? I'm hoping that our lodgings will coincide with those of other FIRST teams to increase the chances of silliness and tomfoolery.

Re: Manchester, NH Regional
 

hey all, im not staying in manchvegas, but if theres a first function, ill be there!

I'll be the guy in the pembroke shirt on 134 hunkered over the laptop on thursday - sat. doing the scouting. stop by, remove me from my work and say 'ello!

Re: Manchester, NH Regional
 

I know people say that buttons are not needed......this is certainly true. Our rookie yeear, we did not have any give-aways....and we learned how fun it was and went full force the next year making buttons.

Buttons are the "trading captal" between teams. I would suggest you go out and grab a button maker and crankout a few hundred to give away.

Like they said, it is NOT required, but it adds another dimension to the day.

We are Team 811.....come by our pit, and say hello. We are from Nashua, NH, and would love to meet you all.

It is a great regional event.....you will enjoy it!

-Quentin

Re: Manchester, NH Regional
 

we are staying at the econolodge w00t!!! see you all tomoorow morning =D

Re: Manchester, NH Regional
 

Obscure Econolodge Reference...

In 2000, my team went down to New Brunswick to scout the New Jersey competition. We stayed at the Econolodge, and oh boy was it crazy. First thing we noticed were the hourly rate rooms with no windows. Second was the pool that was filled with this dark black sludge! We got into our room and noticed that the fire alarm was ripped out of the cieling and thrown into the top drawer of the dresser. Next, when trying to figure out why our cable TV was so fuzzy, we found that the coaxial cable that connects the tv to the outside cable line was just a long piece of cable, stripped at both ends and jammed into the wall! We wont even get into the spiders comming out of the drain in the shower and the half eaten continental breakfast. Needless to say, me and my buddies splurged and stayed at the Hilton the following year down in Jersey ;)

Good Luck!
Andy Grady

Yes most teams make pins. We didnt have enough time so we are making stickers (very cool stickers though)


wow, I didnt know our millenium team had registered CD members. Make sure you come say hi to #350 in Manchester, we'd love to meet you!

Re: Manchester, NH Regional
 

I'll be going up to check out the BAE regional on my own just to check things out so I'll be driving up friday after school so I can aleast see Saturday's competition. But anyways I am not allowed to trade (nor even disclose) our trade item this year until UTC. So on Saturday a few lucky people (10ish thats about all I got left) will be able to recieve 521 tapemeasures/levels from a couple years ago for the right price ;) I cannot wait it should be an absolute blast! and best of luck to all your teams :D

Warning about the Balls at BAE
 

Off the subject of Pins, but on the subject of the Balls

I was at the Verizon Center setting up today, and had to wonderful task of inflating the 5 point balls.

*WARNING*

They are extremely slippery, it like some one took them all and sprayed them with PAM or something. This is due to the oil they use to remove the balls from the injection molding. I dont not know if through out the day they will get better or worse, so I just though I would let everybody know. Again Extremely slippery balls, your team should consider wrapping rollers in something to grap at balls better.

-Aaron

Field Reset BAE Regional

Re: Manchester, NH Regional
 

Looks like good news for the simple pusher bots and others worried about riding up on them. Hopefully the will slide a little better on carpet. It would help a lot of teams.

Re: Manchester, NH Regional
 

DOH! thats going to make it a little bit tricky for HP for a little while... but you figure it will rub off as the tourney goes on... or at least i hope =/

Re: Manchester, NH Regional
 

BAE was a great time :)..../falls down after exhaustion has set in...seriously they must have something in the air, cuz nothing went right today :( lets hope for some better tries tommorow :/

Re: Manchester, NH Regional
 

I WANT YOUR HATS.

Er, yes.
*waves*
I'm a friend of Maggie's from her old school. Human player, webmaster, senior Strategy and Gaming member from Team Force (1073). Y'know. The orange ones.

Anyway...Manchvegas was great today. Saw a lot of spectacular robots, and it was great to finally work in conjunction with our teams robot, even if we did have a few hairy moments out there.

Team Hyper members...our two teams are a match made in Dean Kamen's engineering lab.

Psyched up for tomorrow. You'll all see us: we'll be wearing orange and banging on many drums.

Toodles.

--Petey

Re: Warning about the Balls at BAE
 

So that slippery sensation wasn't from the French Fries from Greg's Place.

Yeah, I definitely noticed that. Compared to the balls we practiced with, the balls we had today were like greased water balloons.

Thankfully, this is better for our robot, because now there isn't as much friction between the balls. And us human players seem to have adjusted well enough.

--Petey

Re: Manchester, NH Regional
 

Balls popped on Thursday

5 point Purple Balls - 3

2X Balls - 5

...I hate filling up 2X balls

*Edit*

How does everybody think field reset did on either thursday or Today(friday)?

*Edit*

-Aaron

Re: Manchester, NH Regional
 

Balls popped

5 Point - 4

2X Balls - 2

Tomorrow is the last day!

Good luck with the rest of qualifications and finals everybody!

-Aaron

Re: Manchester, NH Regional
 

Field reset went well, but I already told you that. :P


I did think it was pretty stupid that they messed up the winch thing for raising/lowering the bar so much, though. Second match on Thursday, and then for like fifteen minutes yesterday... Dean had to go out and fix it because none of the refs could figure it out? What was with that??

Re: Manchester, NH Regional
 

ya Dean had to come out and help figure out what was wrong a couple of times

Re: Manchester, NH Regional
 

There were 5-point balls popped? I didn't notice that happen at all. And I thought it was rather entertaining that Dean had to go fix the field.

But I thought most of the time, field reset went very quickly and smothly.

Re: Manchester, NH Regional
 

Yeah, I definetly know some 5 point balls got popped. 501 somehow popped one, and I'm still not sure how.

When did a 2X ball get popped?

Re: Manchester, NH Regional
 

yep!!! and i got one =D i guess one of our other students was walking by and was given one, then the drive team coach stole it from him =P and then gave it to me (me being HP) THANK YOU RICK!!! and whalley... stop whinnning i gave you money for it =P

Re: Manchester, NH Regional
 

We popped a couple of 5 pt balls by riding completely up on top of them and then having them hit our wheel mounts - the refs told us to file them down after the second time. They gave us the ball as a souvenir, too.

Re: Manchester, NH Regional
 

Yeah, I saw you guys (121) pop that ball. Those 2x balls are fun to watch pop. They deflate in a matter of about .01 seconds.

I have no idea how we DIDN'T break anything. We built ours "like a tank" (In the words of certain members of 121). At one point during our testing stage, we were testing out ways to lift our bot off the ground. It was about 3 feet high, and we released the pneumatics. It dropped too fast, and snapped what was holding it to our make-shift bar. It fell 3 feet, bounced a few inches, and then settled. We were scared we broke our bot, but it turns out we didn't even loosen a bolt. We couldn't break our bot if we tried. But it could break something else. I'm surprised it hasn't.

ANYway, Team 69, you HAVE to find a way to go to Nationals. If it's a matter of money, find some more sponsarship. There simply has to be a way. If there's anything I've learned from FIRST it's that you never say die. There's always a way. Maybe that's why we got the Rookie All Star award. We had no adult support, no machine shop, built our bot, literally, with only hack saws, a hand held drill, and an angle grinder, and somehow got a working bot. We didn't even have a hammer for a while. Things kept going wrong all the way through and we just plowed straight through every snag we hit.

It'd be a shame for us to make it to Nats and to not see Team 69 there. Hell, without your scrimage (and meeting the Duct Tape Bandits at said scrimage), we never would have found out about the pool-hose stuff that we now use on our wheels.
If there's anything we can do, let us know.

Re: Manchester, NH Regional
 

We decided to nickname our robot (team 663) BallPopper after we were involved in the popping of three 2X balls. The first one that popped on Thursday was clearly our fault; I think the other two may have just been caused by two robots pushing the ball from opposite sides.

Re: Manchester, NH Regional
 

It may be fun to watch them pop... however in no way is it fun to be the guy who has to go blow up another one. From Thursday till Saturday balls popped:

5 Point Balls - 7

2X Balls - 9

Anyways it over now so I dont have to fill up anymore of them.

Please if you have sharp corners on any part of your robot file them down or cover them with tape, make the lives of the field reseters much eaiser.

-Aaron

Re: Manchester, NH Regional
 

one of our mentors asked for a popped 2x ball and got denied, heh oh well. Worth a try.