Re: Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland, OR
 

Nope... No hard feelings here... It was kinda sad though... we went from being undefeated Friday to being denied Saturday. Maybe it was the sushi effect (our team had dinner at Todai, a asian sushi/seafood buffet place :ahh: ) And Tyler, just for future reference (there is nothing we can do about it now) if you guys had spun the other way (counter-clockwise) you would have freed yourself. Our coach was trying to motion at you guys... But oh well ;)

We will be attending Nationals and will probably be making some modifications to our bot on Thursday.

Nice 2nd place finish!

Re: Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland, OR
 

NICE! so you guys were able to raise enough money to go to nats? great... two teams from WA will be there for sure! hopefully titan 492, who won portland, can join us...

Re: Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland, OR
 

We Team #957 are going to Nationals ... We were prequalified and now we were in the #1 Seed alliance that went on to win so we hope to see all the Portland Teams there.

Nate

Re: Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland, OR
 

WOW! This was one of the most exciting competition I have seen so far. The battle for the top platform and the bar was fierce. Team 948 got to the semi-finals and seeded 4th. In the last match of the semi-finals we were carrying two other robots, 997 (alliance partner) and 492's partner, when we tried to hang on the bar. This proved two much for our hook and it gave up in the last seconds of the match. We fell from the bar with a thud.

997 and 1258: You were excellent teammates! This year we made it a point to do extensive scouting and it paid off.

Anyway, does anyone know where the archive of the webcast is?

Re: Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland, OR
 

We were the 492 Partner I think you were talking about. The battle for the top was a huge part of the game. You guys did great. Very competitive.

Nate

Re: Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland, OR
 

It will probably be up on the NASA website (robotics.nasa.gov) within a week or so. At least that is how it has been in the past.

Re: Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland, OR
 

Yes... Besides being the Team Captain, I also bring in over half of our yearly budget. We were prequalified and as such we had one sponsor who last year said "make it to nationals, and we will pay for half of it." So, between lots of fundraising and great Sponsors http://www.bprobotics.com/sponsors.htm we will be going!

Re: Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland, OR
 

Well our Catain has already said the good part.
We had an amazing ( and partially lucky) Friday.
All of which was over shadowed when Andy Baker presented our engineer and school alumni with the WFA.
Paul Roush, WE LOVE YOU!!!!!

As for the DQ match (our last of qualifing matches) after the other robot snagged on our rope we all looked at each other and felt bad we had created a bit that could do that.
We expected and have no hard feelings at all about the ruling.

This in my 6 year in FIRST with two different teams. This regional was like my first one. Tons of excitment. GP everywhere.
Fun to participate and fun to watch.

I hope everyone else has the same experience we had.

In closing, A new member who is not on the build part got to dance on th efield during one of the field issue times (there were a lot)
So Lindsey Shelly now has a great CD sig

"I danced with Mark Leon AND Andy Baker"

She has no idea what that means :-)

As for myself? I got to dance with Mark Leon!

Have Fun!

Re: Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland, OR
 

I would like to put out a thanks to my team's great alliance partners 1433 and 753.

As the 6th seed, we successfully beat the 3rd seed, and then the 2nd seed, and almost beat the 1st seed in the finals.

I would like to thank 1433 for picking my team (1294) to join them in the finals. I also thought it was very gracious and professional for 1433 (the alliance captain) to not run both matches. They let 753 run both matches since 753 was our alliance's only hanger.

In the finals when we were up against 492, 957, and 1031, our partner 753 had problems with their gear box, and so only their left tread was working. So they weren't able to move. We took a timeout to let them fix their bot, and they worked very fast under pressure. But once we realized that it was actually the gearbox that was broken, and couldn't be fixed in enough time, the refs made us run 753 again. We had said before the timeout that 753 would run again.

Our captain didn't know that 753 wouldn't be fixed in time, and it wasn't his fault at all, I think he made the right call in the heat of pressure, because 1433 and 753 got more points then when we were in, and its hard being an alliance captain anyway.


I was just wondering if any other underdogs won in quarter or semifinals, or finals. Were we the only 6th seed to beat 3rd seed, then 2nd seed? I wasn't able to watch any of the other regionals since I was at portland.

Re: Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland, OR
 

Yes, I was very sad when Team 753 didn't work during the very last match. I was sitting on a crate with 2 other guys (sorry to that team) when I saw them sprinting as fast as they could and grabbing some drill bits or some tool or other. The pit admin said "Please walk in the pit area" and then they speed-walked/jogged back out. Poo.

Re: Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland, OR
 

We, Team 1151, The Hitchhickers, wen to Portland. We were not too sucessful, but we did enjoy ourselves and prep ourselves for Sacramento. I would like to congratulate the winning alliance (although i was too busy reparing our robot to know who the winning alliance was).

Portland was a great experience and, although we went 3-5-1 and placed something like 23 and did not get picked to the finals, i was satisfied with the results.

Re: Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland, OR
 

As a member of a team on the winning alliance, I would just like everyone to know that we asked the head referee if there was any way we could agree to give the other alliance more time to fix their robot. He said quite simply, no, that the match would have to start once the timeout was over.

It match had been so epic up to that point (a tie, a loss, a win, then 4 false starts) that it was really rather anticlimatic to win that way. Still, you guys should be proud of yourselves for winning twice as the "underdogs" as number six seeds.

We were in a similar situation last year in the PNW regional in Seattle. Team 233 ("Pink") was the number one ranked alliance, and we had upset the #2 alliance (we were in the #3 alliance) to meet them in the finals. There was a false start in that match as well (we actually played the entire match with one robot disabled). On the next round, given no time to switch batteries, our robot lost power and we were unable to complete the match strongly. The result was a second-place finish. The lesson is this: your time will come. Clearly, with everything that went wrong with our robots during those false starts, we had some extreme luck to win this regional. Either one of our alliances was good enough, luck was just on our side.

To everyone on the second place alliance though, I have to say, you guys were great. You took your bad luck professionally and graciously and you all top-caliber opponents and fellow FIRST teams. I hope 753 is going to nationals and that they can fix their drivetrain, because I would sure like to team up WITH them next time.

And to our alliance partners, 1031 and 957, you guys were awesome. You came through in the clutch every time and were everything we could have hoped for in alliance partners. Congrats on an awesome season. We look forward to seeing you, 957, at nationals - we got a sponsor at the last minute due to our win in Portland.

Good luck to all!

Re: Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland, OR
 

To team 753 and 1294 thanks for helping us (team 1433) make it to the final match, if not for the unfortunate timing of 753's gearbox breaking and the referee not allowing us to substitute 1294 in we might have won first place. What was up with the Head Referee hitting the wrong Emergency switch also?

PS Thanks 492 for trying to get us some extra time

Re: Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland, OR
 

About the E-Stop button,
What happened (I think) was this:

1031 went out of the field during autonomous mode. The head referee, Andy Baker, could not get the 1031 robot disabled using the referee's command center, so he decided to disable it using the E-Stop button. But since 1031 was on 492's driver side, Mr. Baker made the mistake of disabling 492.

You can't blame him - he's probably under just as much (or more) stress as the teams are since he has to make everything go smoothly.

Re: Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland, OR
 

As the President of team 1359, I'd like to thank everyone for their great comments about my team! My teammates and I enjoyed seeing them! Also, I'd like to thank our #2 alliance teams 1087 and 473. We had a great time with all of you. Right now, we're trying to earn money for the Championships since we qualified with the Rookie All-Star Award. Hopefully I'll be seeing you in Atlanta!