Re: Sacramento Regional
 

If we had managed to hang in that round we would have won by five points...oh well.
Actually our autonomous didn't work b/c the field was angled wrong...we tried to hit the balls and instead tapped something that was jutting into the field and bounced off at a bad angle. It all worked out for the best though :).
Our autonomous stopped working well on Saturday because we replaced a sheared transmission on one of our chip motors, and it had more friction than the previous one--messed up our timing =\...hopefully we'll get that worked out.

I thought you came by and said that we were penalized in the last qualifying match for goaltending on mobile goal when we put it under the ball drop (thought we had *our* goal! whoops)...20 points there I think.
The powdercoat was a little bruised but we're still just fine...hopefully we'll get that cable problem fixed for SVR and be ready for some tough competition.

Re: Sacramento Regional
 

Life was pretty tough in Detroit... ...especially for the Chief Delphi team.

The Killer Bees, Team 33, were the class of the competition, which you can read about elsewhere. They were basically everyone's first draft choice -- look for them to win Toronto (really).

For our part we had a so-so Thursday practice, chasing a software bug that turned out to be a simple mis-wiring. Friday, we had a pretty good run. We won every round except a tie where another robot got entangled in us an then fell over, another round where a very agressive robot and driver jitters ended up in our robot tipped sideways, and a hard fought battle with the Killer Bees (their shooter probably hit 10 shots in the last 15 seconds -- no kidding). Saturday, the wheels sort of fell off as we lost two more: one through driver panic failing to hang, the other was 2 on 1 affair.

Bottom line, I didn't think we had showed very well and was not even certain of a first round draft. As it turns out, the number 2 seed, Team 5, graciously picked us.

I am not sure what happened to our drivers but all of a sudden, they were on fire. They fought and won 6 straight battles for the bar -- sometimes climbing over a robot to get there, sometimes lifting other robots on top of us.

I doubt that it will be enough to win in San Jose, but together with some good partners (The Bionic Zebras #313 and The RoboCards #5), it was enough for Detroit.

As to our robot's capabilities, it can hang of course. It can also suck up balls and deliver them pretty effectively. In addition, it was among the better big ball handlers at Detroit, though it was a small regional so that is not a huge plug for our team.

That is about it.

We'll see how things turn out against the West Coast teams.

Joe J.

Re: Sacramento Regional
 

The plot thickens...

I was there in Cleveland 2002 to see the mighty 47, 254, 229 alliance go down to the almost unstoppable 469 robot. This was the only poof-chief partnership that has occurred in FIRST, and the first time 254 has ever lost a regional.

Let's just say that all of 229 will be watching SJ waiting to see how this plays out, and who comes out on top. ;)

Re: Sacramento Regional
 

I will admit, the Sacramento Regional was a ton of fun for us Floridians, and we did have a great time with all the teams we met (yea, the guys on our team love you fembots.) We ended up meeting the Poofs at the mall on Wednesday night (Adrian and Justin, and I forget who else) and all we did was talk bots for an hour int he massage chairs, suprising each other with how much we knew about each others bots. The whole event though was really fun for us, especially the guy in charge we kept "bringing up points to." Our auto was a little shakey there though, cause at first the lines were off, then they had gaps in them, but hey, what ya gonna do.

* I must say, I was impressed with 955 and their overnight arm building, congrats to Will, Sean and the rest of the team on that.
* We do thank 254 for all the parts that we were given and the help (Adrian, Justin, and the Machine shop.)
* 1097, we still want those 4 zip ties back, but we forgive you and nice job fixing the hanging mechanism for the finals, good driving Mark.
* 692, thanks for the cheering section, We love you fembots


As for those facing the poofs at San Jose, have fun with their drive system, 15ft/sec in high and 8ft/sec in low, that is a nice switch. Have fun, we sure did!

Re: Sacramento Regional
 

254 did not win Sacramento regional last year, they were finalist though.

- as for SVR this year, if our upgrade goes as planned how bout a Poof-MVRT-Chief partnership;)

Re: Sacramento Regional
 

Just to sum things up, the Cheesy Poofs are 8/10 in regional competitions. Their only losses occured as follows.

2002 Buckeye Regional -- The alliance of 229, 47 & 254 loses in the semifinals to the eventual champions, teams 859, 469 & 201, two matches to none.

2003 Sacramento Regional -- The alliance of 599, 254 & 256 loses in the finals to teams 692, 662 & 1147.

This 8/10 record, is by far the most dominant regional record of any team in FIRST. Chief Delphi is probably the next best, although I would want to go back and look at the records of teams 16, 71 and 111 before I confirm that.

Despite all these victories between the 47 and 254, neither team has ever won a national championship. The drought ended for Wildstang last year. Will this be the year for 47 or 254? (or even both...)

Things are heating up in the kitchen, it should be a fun ride...

Re: Sacramento Regional
 

We had a great time at the Sacramento regional, despite some minor bot troubles. We lost two rounds simply due to drivetrain power wires falling loose, and then we lost our autonomous testing time due to a transmission problem. We lost another round to my error - I hit the hang switch too soon and we missed the bar :(

A somewhat mediocre regional, but our bot was solid and now that we have the bugs worked out expect us to be a force to be reckoned with at San Jose!

Re: Sacramento Regional
 

Yeah I forgot about that - You were trying to uncap the goal under the ball drop so balls could get into it - if you hadn't touched it your opponent would of got nothing - but because you won the match and the 20 extras points you gave your opponent actually helped your score - so hard to count that as a penalty agains you. Which one of you is color blind? Freaky - I think that was the only goal tending I've seen called all year.

I don't think you got any 10 pointers against for penetrating into the ball corral.

Got that cable fixed yet?

Re: Sacramento Regional Wecast archive going up^^^
 

http://robotics.nasa.gov/first/2004/sacramento.htm

So far Fianls and quarter finals - get to the semi's Weds.

Re: Sacramento Regional
 

Just to prove that they are indeed that fast, here is a video provided by Travis Covington:

http://www.hostdub.com/albums/Sivart321/DSCN1531.mov

Re: Sacramento Regional
 

Oooh... they were very fast indeed... ;)

Re: Sacramento Regional
 

Thank you from bo for such an awesome regional even though we didn't do as good as we had prayed for, this happened from being to cocky. All teams there were excellent. We hope to see you all at Nationals. If you would like to contact me my s/n for aim is "sumpunkskaterguy" also my email is "hummer02@bikerider.com". I am willing to except information on your team robot, or just talk in general. Thank you for taking the time out of your day to read this statement. Sincerely, Bo