2005 Midwest Regional
 

Just a quick announcement that we have established a website for information regarding the 2005 Midwest Regional located at www.midwestfirst.org. If you have comments on the site please either PM me and I'll direct it to the right person or use the contacts page on the site.

As most everyone knows, the 2005 Midwest Regional is being held at a new facility this year, the UIC Pavilion. I think it's going to be a great time and I'm looking forward to the new location!

{edit} The site has been updated with some pictures of the Pavilion if anyone is interested. It looks like it will be a great place to have a regional! {/edit}

Re: 2005 Midwest Regional
 

I am very excited to say team 45 will be going to MWR again this year. I can't wait to see all the great competition that is always there. Good luck to all teams!!

-Kyle

Re: 2005 Midwest Regional
 

i guess 108 couldnt resist to see the best drive train teams out there again. HERE WE COME... :)

Re: 2005 Midwest Regional
 

I cant wait. the midwest regional has always been my favorite.

Re: 2005 Midwest Regional
 

Im so excited for Midwest...it gunna be lots of fun this year..It is one of my favorite regional and i think by far the coolest of any regional lol

Re: 2005 Midwest Regional
 

It is great that the Midwest Regional has a website. This is very helpful. The former site on the NWU campus was very much appreciated. My hope is that the new site will be as accessible and functional. Keep us informed as new information becomes available.
See you in March!

Re: 2005 Midwest Regional
 

Dave :

Do you Know if it possible to tailgate at the new location? If it is are there any teams that would be interested in having a multi team tailgate lunch.
Also in your picture taken in the Holland Chanel because the light House looks like Hollands Big Red?

Jim Schaddelee
Team 107

Re: 2005 Midwest Regional
 

I don't know this yet, but I will try to find out. The last I've heard is that they're still working out parking arrangement details with the University. I know the area is basically surrounded by large parking lots (very similar to the Northwestern setup) so I imagine it will be possible to tailgate. It's probably too early to commit to anything yet, but I bet at least some of my team would be interested.
Yes it is, I grew up in Holland and my family still lives there. In fact I was part of the Holland High FIRST team (as a student) from 95-97.

Re: 2005 Midwest Regional
 

Bringing this old forum back to life.
Does anyone have any updated information on the Midwest Regional??

Webcast??
How will the Venue be setup?? Split the arena in half?? (Half Pits and Half Field)
Parking??
Power in the stands??
Area for practice autonomous modes??

Any more information would be wonderful.

Re: 2005 Midwest Regional
 

Like most regionals, there is still planning going on. We are trying to get answers to many of these questions.

We are expecting to be able to have a webcast. Check http://www.midwestfirst.org - we will keep the site updated with information as it becomes available.

Re: 2005 Midwest Regional
 

Now that we are a couple days away, who do YOU think will win the 2005 MWR? I personally think 108, 269, 383 possibly. I think they would make a dominating alliance. So, who do you think?

Re: 2005 Midwest Regional
 

Midwest Regional will be a very interesting regional. There are several teams that we haven't seen and couple of teams that we know will make improvements *cough* 71, 79, 111, 108 *cough* Very hard to may any predictions.
I saw this just now on midwestfirst.org. Passing it on to others.
See you down at regionals

Re: 2005 Midwest Regional
 

anyone know if/when today the webcast link will be posted??? i just checked up on the site, and it says the link will be posted Thursday march 24, 2005 (today) but its stil not up *tear* lol...

thanks for the info in advanced...

*wow just my luck... posted 2 minutes early...

Re: 2005 Midwest Regional
 

The webcast is up and running!

http://www.midwestfirst.org/live.php

Re: 2005 Midwest Regional
 

Can someone maybe zoom out the camera a bit, the left side of the feild is cut out. Thank you

Re: 2005 Midwest Regional
 

We've been told that the camera is zoomed out as far as it will go... sorry :(

Re: 2005 Midwest Regional
 

They occasionally have the left side of the field in a "picture in picture" type setup with it in the lower left corner.
ERic

Re: 2005 Midwest Regional
 

here are the rankings after day 2 of te midwest regional

1. 79
2. 111
3. 71
4. 45
5. 383
6. 269
7. 9
8. 108
9. 877
10. 525
11. 648
12. 903
13. 1646
14. 1675
15. 74
16. 81
17. 1259
18. 1034
19. 970
20. no
21. 1472
22. 857
23. 754
24. 537
25. 1163
26. 167
27. 107
28. 706
29. 461
30. 1091
31. 1652
32. 1268
33. 1240
34. 92
35. 930

Re: 2005 Midwest Regional
 

I would just like to say congratulations to everyone who won awards today -

1259 - Imagery Award
65 - Innovation in Controls Award
648 - Xerox Creativity Award
108 - Delphi's Driving Tomorrows Technology Award
537 - Entrepreneurship Award
903 - Judges Award
71 - Website Award
383 - Autodesk Visualization

Also, for anyone who is curious, the top 8 teams are as of Friday:

1st seed - 79
2nd seed - 111
3rd seed - 71
4th seed - 45
5th seed - 383
6th seed - 269
7th seed - 9
8th seed - 108

And a big congratulations to Mr. Al Skierkiewicz of Team 111 for winning the regional Woodie Flowers Award!!!! You deserve it for your incredible dedication to FIRST and for being a wonderful mentor and inspiration to so many people!

Congratulations to all,

Jaine

Re: 2005 Midwest Regional
 

Big congrats to all of today's winners. Especially 108, 383, and Al Skierkiewicz :) Someone needs to make a giant posterboard with his head on it and take it to Nationals.

Look for the Scott Ritchie head tomorrow!!
:]

Re: 2005 Midwest Regional
 

I won't be at Nationals, but I'll see what I can find. I've got some really good pictures of him over the past WildStang years. Maybe my mom and I can work something out with that posterboard thing.....

Karen.

Re: 2005 Midwest Regional
 

Alliance Selections

1. 71....111....537
2. 269...45.....706
3. 383...903.....65
4. 648....79....107
5. 9........74....1525
6. 1646..108...525
7. 970.....81....754
8. 877...1675..1240

Re: 2005 Midwest Regional
 

I misssed the score of Q1-2. Can someone tell me what it was?

Re: 2005 Midwest Regional
 

70-33 Red, blue had 10 penalty points leaving the final score 70-23.

Re: 2005 Midwest Regional
 

Thanks, Joe. My computer locked up and I had to re-boot. Ain't Windows grand?

Re: 2005 Midwest Regional
 

Way to represent the West Michigan teams, 74 and 107..... You guys looked good out there. Hope to see you all at Weast Michigan Regional this coming weekend.

-Carl

Re: 2005 Midwest Regional
 

What did everyone think about the venue?

I, personally didn't really enjoy it. I think the staff there made it kind of unenjoyable...though they were just doing their jobs, I think it was their policy. I see the danger about sitting on stairs, but they were being sort of "staircase Nazis." I couldn't stand at the top of the stairs without being told to move when it was obvious that no seats were available. Also the food was VERY expensive, but what do you expect from a place like that? We did find some cheap local restaurants. Another thing was about what door to enter through. For some unknown reason, they would not let us enter from the side, they told everyone to go through the front and blah blah blah...I didn't see any reason for that. Gahh...and more...Wildstang's beach ball...They were throwing it up like at any other sporting event, but appearantly the staff didn't like it, so they deflated it. I could probably go on and on about UIC, but I won't. I don't want to sound too negative about it, I just wanted to freely voice my opinion.

Re: 2005 Midwest Regional
 

Quarterfinals were off the hook, 107, 648, 79 in quarterfinals lost to 71, 111, 537, by 10 pts first round won by 1 point second round, then lost by 1 point due to a 10 point penalty third round. I'm very pround of our team for our progress, hope to do very well at West Michigan, see ya'll there in allendale.

Re: 2005 Midwest Regional
 

Good job 71-111-573.... :]

Re: 2005 Midwest Regional
 

I was very dissapointed at that face off. Technically there should have been a penalty against the red alliance because one of their tetra's was busted. But, it's all in the past now. So I suppose it really doesn't matter that much anymore.
I look forward to seeing you guys at Allendale, as well as WO-Bot, B.O.B, the Holland Alternative High School (the West Michigan Regional is becoming infested with Holland teams), K-zoo Math and Science Center, etc. See you all this coming Friday and Saturday!

Re: 2005 Midwest Regional
 

Can you explain? I don't understand why you expect a penalty to be levied for a tetra breaking.

Re: 2005 Midwest Regional
 

I thought the event site was good. The staff was a little bit nazi about the staircases, but honestly that's fine.. frustrating but fine. It is a safety issue, and to keep the aisles clear. One of my pet peeves is when people stand around on the staircases for no reason, so that people can't get through or can't see around them. It was pretty crowded during awards and final rounds, but there were seats around - maybe not with your team, but there were seats. The food was expensive, but not as outrageous as they could have been. There are options around that. I think most of the volunteers (that I interacted with) were friendly, so that's a plus. There were a few field problems that really delayed things, but we can blame that all on the cowboy :)

As far as the game itself:
Seems there were many inconsistent calls on penalties, i.e. one match a robot blatantly dangled high over the wall and did not get disabled, but later on, "pure breaking the plane" was a disablement. Did I miss the update, or rule stating that? The aggressive play penalties seemed to get out of hand nearing the end. Some were called for running into a robot from 2ft away or less - I hardly consider that ramming at high speed. The only defense that appeared legal was pure blocking - forget about trying to bump a robot out of position. One robot was penalized for it during elim rounds, and I couldn't believe it.. I watched them the entire match, and couldn't figure out where the overly aggressive play happened.
There were some disables for accidental tipping, even though the rules clearly state that that could be part of normal game play, but yet other was tipped with clear intentional interaction, and nothing was called. (not saying the tipping was intentional, but the robot interaction was intentional, whereas it really wasn't in the following case). One robot simply turned around with their arm out to go to their auto loadzone, while another robot was sitting behind them and fell over when the other arm whacked into them. The first guy was disabled....
I feel like the "over the wall" should have been forseen with such a knowingly vertical game. But I guess, just be careful near the wall and don't let anyone push you over the wall.

Re: 2005 Midwest Regional
 

My understanding was that an alliance could get penalized for broken tetras. That's what everyone on the team was saying.

Re: 2005 Midwest Regional
 

Hi All,

Can someone who saw the finals of the Mid-West regional let me know what happened in the quarter finals. There was a match where the 45 alliance, they were red, had all 3 robots disabled. Why?? Also does anyone have the scores from the finals at mid-west?

Thanks!!

Justin

Re: 2005 Midwest Regional
 

***I want to preface this by saying that I am not complaining, whining, or angry about this. What's done is done and I am not asking for any mistakes to be corrected. I am merely pointing this out as an example of how what I consider to be an obvious error had a significant impact on the event. I just want to see things like this be prevented as much as possible in the remaining events this year.***

Match 53 turned out to be a terrific battle with 269, 525, and 1675 vs 71, 92, and 970. At that time, 71 was ranked 2nd and 269 was ranked 3rd. During the course of the match, tetras were being stacked in rapid succession and everyone was doing very well (except for us - our tetras fell on our hook and prevented us from scoring :( ). The final score ended up being 34-37 in favor of blue, pushing 71 into the #1 seed.

Towards the end of the match, 269 and 71 got in a bit of a pushing war and 71 ended up on their back (no call was made, and from the video on Soap, based on my ref experience last week, I would not have called a high hit or intentional tip either). While this was happening, the far (from the audience) middle goal had a red-blue-red stack on it. One of the blue teams went up to cap a blue tetra on top of the red, but couldn't quite get it and descored the red tetra in the process (it was still hanging but was off to the side...unseated). At the end of the match, I noticed the red tetra hanging and realized that we should have gone over there and pushed it up to cap that goal and take away the middle row from blue to get the win. I asked my fellow coaches for that match if they knew how long that tetra was hanging there and the consensus was for about 30 seconds. Unfortunately, none of us saw the descore, which actually happened with about 10 seconds remaining. Apparently, NONE of the refs (despite two standing next to the goal) saw it either. With this descore, the final score SHOULD have been 37-27 in favor of red.

I recalculated the final average points for each team involved in that match and redid the rankings based on the results of that match and assumed that EVERYTHING else that happened before and after that match stayed the same. Here are the top 16 (with actual ranking in parenthesis):

1. 269 (3)
2. 111
3. 71 (1)
4. 383
5. 648
6. 45
7. 9
8. 970 (13)
9. 1646 (8)
10. 79 (9)
11. 903 (10)
12. 74 (11)
13. 525 (17)
14. 108 (12)
15. 81 (14)
16. 1675 (24)
(unfortunately 92 would have actually fallen from 29 to 33)

The only reason I point this particular instance out is because it wasn't a judgment call that some people may or may not disagree with - it was an obvious rule infraction that was missed. The video on SOAP doesn't show the actual descore because, like I said, it occured during 71's fall...but if you watch before that, you'll see the far middle goal have red-blue-red and blue trying to cap, then the fall, then you can see that same goal having red-blue-unseated red. I have video from another viewpoint that shows the actual descore.

Again, the fact that this occured doesn't matter - nothing can be done about it and that is fine with me. The referee's decision IS final. Having been a referee, I know that when something big happens, you want to watch it. But if you are a referee, you must resist that urge to watch if it is not in your designated area to watch, unless there is nothing going on in your area. I don't know if the refs at Midwest had assigned areas, but that is how we did it at Boilermaker. It seemed to work fairly well.

Its constructive criticism...do with it what you want.

Kevin

Re: 2005 Midwest Regional
 

The alliance of 269, 45, and 706 were all disabled in our 2nd quarterfinal match. We were disabled for safety reasons dealing with the tetras/arms and the player station walls.

We still won the match and advanced.

Re: 2005 Midwest Regional
 

The SOAP video from match 53 can be found at
http://soap.circuitrunners.com/2005/.../il/il_053.wmv

The top red tetra on the far center goal can be seen being scored at 1:40. It can be seen properly seated around 1:45. At 2:03 team 92 can be seen trying to score a tetra. At 2:16 the previously scored red tetra can be seen precariously hanging from the goal.

I have a somewhat bias opinion on this topic but I am sorry, but this kind of omission is simply unacceptable. I know that all of the refs take their jobs seriously and they get a lot of complaints and hassle from teams, but it comes with the job. I just hope that this type of thing will be watched more closely in the future.

Team 1675 did end up being picked in the first round to for the elimination rounds making it the team I have worked with in the last 3 years that played after lunch. Then we proceeded to demonstrate that we were in fact a rookie team by putting the wrong battery in the robot...sorry Alliance 8, it'll never happen again.

But our FIRST spirit lead us to win the Rookie All-Star award which, in taking us to nationals, extends our season beyond just one regional and it gives the students, mentors, school and parents something to be very proud of.

-JonA

Re: 2005 Midwest Regional
 

This was my first time attending the Midwest regional. I agree with Michael Hill from team 45. The staff wasn’t as enjoyable as I expected. In my opinion think the UIC Pavilion wasn’t a good choice as a new venue. There wasn’t much room to dance. The only place to dance was the stairs. But the UIC Pavilion staff didn’t want anyone on the stairs. I agree about the safety issue. We don’t want anyone to get injured. But what are we suppose to do when they play dance music? For example the Cha-Cha slide and the electric slide. But on a good note I enjoyed my self, I made the best of what I had. Congats to everyone that attended. Thanks to teams 383 and 903 for picking us team 65. We had a last minute redesign of our arm it wasn’t cooperating correctly. We was ranked 31 out of 35 teams. Mr. Ken Patton, thanks for giving us a chance to redesign of our arm. Thanks for listen to what the team had to say in the letter that you received. Our goal was to stack/cap tetrahedrons so you can spike your hair and 7 for you to spike you hair with color. We achieved that goal. We stacked/caped 9. One more we would have seen Val in a dress. Also to teams 111, 71 and 573 for giving us a great final round, Congrats. Although I don’t understand why we had to replay the last match, I really enjoyed myself.

Re: 2005 Midwest Regional
 

Dancing is illegal according to FIRST rules. Although I have seen invited dancing, such as in Pittsburgh, and music played that invites dancing during the event, dancing is still supposed to be prohibited according to their rules. I like the music - it's fun and gets people going, especially when the field breaks down for a longggg time.. :) But technically prohibited. Hopefully that is not the only reason you thought it wasn't a good venue.
I thought it was good... enough seats, good view from just about anywhere, good size, good access to/from the pits, and personally I like the arena-type setup where the field is down below the seating in it's own little space. I wonder where it'll be held next year......

Re: 2005 Midwest Regional
 

I had a great time at the Midwest Regional. I thought the venue was pretty nice and I met some cool people (Al and Courtney from 111, Andy and his drive team from 45, and DJ and his drive team from 1646 are just a few that come to mind right now).

However, as a couple people have stated the reffing was very inconsistent especially when it came to aggressive driving and high tipping. In match 47 we were backing out of our loading zone when team 970 ran into us and got caught in our cage, so our base driver Jimmy tried to drive forward to get loose but could not. So he pulled a turn and because 970 has a high center of gravity they tipped over. The head ref had us disabled because he said my arm swung around and hit them, which is impossible. We even showed him our robot showing that my arm is not on a turret and is incapable of moving around like that. Now in match 53 team 269 clearly has their arm raised up pushing against team 71 and caused them to tip over and they were not disabled. I don't know how they cant call that high-tipping.

There were also several instances of refs not paying attention as several times we saw robot getting hit in the loading zone and no penalty was called. Also in our second quarter finals round there was close to 10 seconds were we had to sit there because no tetra was loaded on to the loading zone.

The one call that had me going up the wall was in match 13 when our alliance partner was called for aggressive driving and received 20 penalty points. However when we asked for an explanation of the call the ref said "We called it against team 167 because they continually pushed against team 269 after the scored a tetra and they're is no longer a reason to play defense against them" I'm sorry but maybe they wanted to stop them from getting another tetra so they cant score. Also when we asked where this was in the rule book they had to call FIRST because they didn't know. It turns out that in update 15 and rule G25 which no where does team 167 violate that rule, and it also states that it is a 10 point penalty and the second offense is disablement. So them how is it possible to get 20 penalty points from that. The refs were severally mistaken in calling several aggressive penalties that effected the outcome of the whole regional.

However what in the past is done and I want to say congratulations to 71, 111, and 537 for winning the regional, 111 for winning Chairmans you guys defiantly deserve that one, Al for winning the Woodie Flowers Award, 79 for proving that us Floridians know how to play with the big boys of the Midwest and finally to team 1646 for picking us (After a 4 year drought of not making the eliminations).

Hope to see many of these teams down in Atlanta.

Re: 2005 Midwest Regional
 

In the crazyness that has been the last two days for me (catching up on homework, trying to register our team for the Championship, and the resulting chaos from my post above), I have forgotten to post my thoughts on the actual event as a whole.

I really enjoyed the venue much more than the venue at Northwestern. I felt it was much roomier. Perhaps that was becuase there were far fewer teams, but the whole arena style venue appeals to me more anyway. All the volunteers (refs included!) did a wonderful job. Cheers! You can't beat the price of parking for downtown Chicago (free is of course preferred, but they did what they could to accomodate us!).

I do have one complaint though - I never heard Cotton Eyed Joe (I was in the pits most of the time though...).

Kev

Re: 2005 Midwest Regional
 

I think the venue was acceptable, there was plenty of moving space around the stands for someone to dance a little. We had to make a voyage to our buses in order to get lunch, but the crossing guards were doing a great job to make sure nobody gets hurt.

QUOTE AmyPrib/ Dancing is illegal according to FIRST rules. /QUOTE

:confused: When did this happen? How come I never see this rule enforced?

Thank you soo much to teams 383 and 903 for forming a great alliance with us! Congratulations to team 111 for winning the Chairman's award! I hope to see you all at Nationals! :)

Re: 2005 Midwest Regional
 

I believe the rule was put in place after FIRST the year after a student at a team social was seriously injured while crowd surfing when he was dropped on his head...ever since then for safety reasons they have had a no dancing rule and the whole tunnel during the award ceremony is banned.

It's all for safety