Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

that was great.

Play by play was excellent-My mom told me afterword out of the blue that it was a phonominal voice performance. Great job George.

As good as 237 was in autonomous, I still think that our Brazilian Buddies at 1382 did have a better one, the knocked one of the hanging ones down and capped, that was a nice feat within itself, great job to both teams for that, its not easy as we found. we only got our's working the last day of competition, as 237 knows when we knocked them during autonomous so they couldn't cap. Sorry about it, you guys had a great accomplishment. What about the center?

3 rookie team really stood out, the All Star-Pioneers, (1676) the Highest Seed-Falcon Robotics and the Inspiration-(1688) all of you guys comprised of a strong rookie class, all 3 of you guys were in it for the rookie awards.

Very well organized, great job anyone who had anything to do with it.

but watch for 1403 at Buckeye we made some big time improvements on saturday.

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

I have to disagree with this one, and try not to be biased by the fact that I am on a team in the losing alliance.

I have video of the robot performing superbly (knocking off a tetra in autonomous, and playing defense to team on their side and the other side of the field, and everything) until 23 seconds remaining in the match (as called plain as day by the announcer) when they smashed into the center goal.

Now, unless they are really fast and that was a really hard knock into the center goal and the vibration from that carried all the way over to the field controllers and dislodged a wire to make it a communications error, then I would have to say that this call was one of the worst ones my team has ever had to be a recipient of and it basically cost us the regional. :(
I think it was a hard hit to their end of the bot thus being their problem, not a field problem that requires a rematch.
Did I mention that the other 2 robots on that team were knocked over in the heat of the match. But the same thing happened to 2 of our robots in the next match which was the rematch in question, so I won't go there.

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

On a more positive note, I was checking out stories from NJ news papers, and found this article in The Times

Quote:

Nuts and bolts of technology

Quote:

Sunday, March 20, 2005 By MIRTA D'AMATO Staff Writer TRENTON - With the help of their human creators, high school robots battled it out during the ninth annual FIRST Robotics competition at the Sovereign Bank Arena yesterday. The two-day "Triple Play" challenge attracted teams from several local schools, including TrentonCentralHigh School, and others from as far as Puerto Rico and Brazil. "It's a competition where teams of young men and women have worked with engineering mentors from local companies or universities to build a robotic competitor," said Randy Schaeffer, FIRST regional director for New Jersey and New York City. "They compete in a game based on strategy, technical prowess and the ability of a human player." Sponsored by several local companies including Johnson & Johnson and Bristol-Myers Squibb, the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) event kicked off at 9 a.m. with 2-minute, 15-second robotic matches on a 27-foot-by-52-foot playing field. Working together, TCHS juniors Detlev Yanez, 17, Justino Cortez, 18, and Guillermo Diaz, 16, strategically guided their 130-pound Patriot into the semifinals yesterday. "I thought I was going to mess up, but I did pretty good," said Diaz, who hustled to place tetrahedrons on their robot's claw. "I had to make sure that I didn't touch the robot at all." With skill and precision, Cortez, the team's captain and driver, strategically maneuvered the bot to place tetras on similarly shaped goals, while six other robots were doing the same. "This is my third year competing," Cortez said. "It takes a lot of teamwork and a lot of after-school hours to build it." HightstownHigh School student Ray Palmere, 15, said there are many challenges on the playing field. "It's the ongoing changing of strategies," said Palmere, team driver whose robot, Quicksilver, made it to the quarter-finals. "A lot of times you can't figure out the strategies to use, a lot of times you can. Once you can it's good." Helping to make the program a success, high school students work closely with team mentors to design and build the remote-controlled robots. "FIRST gives you six weeks to design a robot, come up with a game strategy and build a robot," said Dave Cipolloni, TCHS teacher leader for applied engineering and science. "During that six weeks, we spend at least six days a week, sometimes seven, working on the robot. We work after school until 9 or 10 p.m. and sometimes after midnight to get the job done. You have to come up with the strategy of how you are going to play the game and then come up with a concept on how you are going to design the robot to implement that strategy. Once you do that, then you have to start making your drawings so that you can fabricate the parts and make your robot." FIRST is a nonprofit organization that introduces high school students around the world to science, math, engineering and technology. "We feel strongly about the many opportunities that FIRST provides," said Curt M. Selquist, company group chairman with sponsor Johnson & Johnson. "The program builds enthusiasm for the creative engineering process, motivating young people at an ideal time in their educational careers."

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

Try not to be biased because our team was the winner, but wasn't the problem that 375 was disabled by the judges on ACCIDENT when they were slammed into the center goal? That's what I thought I heard, but I could be mistaken about that. 303, 56, and 237 though, wow, you guys did fantastic. :)

The bomb scare comment doesn't really make sense though.

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

Here is something I noticed during the last day of competition, quiet a few robots were pushed over, now some were legally pushed over, they were hit low and did not properly react, however the refs were not properly calling the pushing rule.
One team who will go unnamed, used their arm to tomahawk our arm when we were putting a tetra onto the center goal, they hit our arm several times and tipped us back onto two wheels. After the match I talked to the ref and he said it was "good defense" which is plainly stated as the opposite in the official FIRST rules. Later in the playoffs I saw several robots being pushed over by arms hitting high, the refs really need to pay attention and call that penalty.

I was disappointed because no one picked us despite being in the top 15 during the entire two days of competition, and of course the worst part was having to stand their on the sidelines as a standby robot hoping for someone to break so we could aid an alliance. We had some bad luck with alliance pairings and did pretty decently considering we were often paired with robots who could not drive or cap, or even show up for a match, we got pretty used to playing solo or in 2v3 situations.

Thanks to Team 272 for giving us an award for "saving their bot" we are going to find a nice home for your sword, hopefully next time you can pick us as an alliance partner;)

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

oh I had one beef with the judging, just one, and it doesn't matter really anymore.

In match Q32 with 1403, 1382, 1144 (red alliance) against 637, 237, 1617(blue alliance). you know the 10 point bonus for being behind the line. well at the end, The red alliance was all behind the line, and had video footage to prove it and such, however that wasn't counted, in the final scoring. The score ended up being 25-19 with blue winning, but it doesn't matter whats over is over. thats all.

however i think it maybe an idea to add a section in the rules next year about reviewing judged calls, as long as their is offical footage proving if something happened or not.

but it doesn't matter, whats done is done, and we're almost all volunteers

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

First off, thank you for the kind words.. :)

Second, I heard that it was a field communications error and if I have the call on video, I shall transpose word for word as to what the official call was, and post it here just so that we are all on the same page.

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

I was the one who announced the call that there was a communication error. I was just saying what the head ref (John) and the feild technical director told me. They informed me that one of the teams on the blue allaince was having problems communicating with their robot throughout the match. Sometimes it would respond and other times nothing. So the refs met with each other and made the call. I'm not saying whether or not they made the right one. All I can say is that they made the decision that they thought was best. To play "devils advocate" if I may. We were having difficulties with the blue side of the field all regional. So that may have been the that they called it the way they did. I know there isn't much I can say to take away the pain of defeat but let me reassure all of you that the refs did what they thought was the best and most gracious thing to do in the situation.

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

On another note, I'm looking for footage of the awards ceremony from saturday and the elimination matches. ANYONE with such footage, please contact me and we'll discuss the best way to get the footage to me. I'd appreciate all help I can get on this. THANKS

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

I really am not one for whining or moaning or complaining about calls in general, however this has really gotten to me. If you feel this deserves negative repuation, so be it, it has to get off my chest. I am only an outside observer, but actions like this, should be pointed out.

The reffing at New Jersey was horrendous. Many of the decisions made by the refs directly contradicted what was told to the drivers in the drivers meeting. One major point was the clock and music for the autonomous mode being off a second or two. Drivers were told when the clock turns to 120 to step to the controls and start to drive, and to ignore the music. However, Refs were constantly throwing flags for crossing the line "before the music sounded"...I know for a fact this happened to numerous teams and reversed numerous outcomes to matches. I am too tired/upset to think of more, but i really feel this was horrible.

Then Finals came around...what happened there... They replayed a match that was the cleanest of all the Finals. Every match before and after had more robots on the ground broken. I echo all that Elgin has said. This call was probably the biggest mistake that could be made, and DEFINITELY reversed the outcome of the champions.

I have nothing personally against anyone involved. This has just really upset me, to see three teams who truly deserved a win and two that would have gone to Nationals, get thrown out because of a bad call.

I know nothing will change the outcome, but i feel that this tragedy should not go unnoticed. Sorry if this hurts anyones feelings or anything, but i really needed to get this off my chest, anyone that knows me saw how much this has torn me apart the past 29 hours. I have been in a constant state of unrest. Yes i know this is only a game, but people who have dedicated months of their young/or any age lives to building a robot that can truly perform are being hurt. Many teams did not have the privilege to sign up for nationals without first seing what their robot could do. They may not have had the money from themselves or sponsors or for whatever reason. But events like this are just disheartening.

And i also know they are only volunteers, but still, kids or mentors who know the rules can do this job better. Humans will make mistakes too, but still this really was too big to overlook. And yes they are volunteers, but why volunteer if you dont really want to learn the rules and make sure the best teams win.

If this comes out as broken english, I'm sorry, I cannot think straight.

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

well, i was feild control/ score keeper at the regional. i job shared and watched after by 2 other people. (Walt, Josh) During that replayed match in the finals no robot was dissabled at all. infact there was a question afterword that if the robot had been having any problems whether we should have dissabled it. the refs infact never came to me to say anyone needed to be shut down. And from my end i did not even think that there where any problems with the match because i did not notice on my screen any flicering communications. its not till the IFI guy came over to me and asked if i had seen anything that i new anything went wrong. now the refs also never talked to me after the match they where talking with Walt so i dont know anything more about the call.

Next year, and or next week since im going to philli, i hope they get all the bugs worked out of the FIRST system. Scoring was hell, and real time scoring had so many problems it hardly worked.

But congrats to all the teams that won, and even to the ones who didnt. up until quarter finals we really didnt have many problems.

George again great job! you where awsome! thank god i didnt have to fill in for you that one match! i would have needed to get out the mittens!!!

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

I noticed the same thing. Even though we managed to win the regional our bot was beat up pretty badly. we were pulled over 2 times in a row by the same robot in our quarterfinal match by the same team! If we were pushed by the base of our robot and we were unstable i would have let it slide, buit one time the robot hooked the tetra we were holding 8 feet in the air and pulled us over. The other time our arms got tangled and, unfortunately after sotting on our back wheels for three seconds balanced, the other team pulled us right on our backs and didnt even try to let us right ourselves. I thought the refs could have done a better job with the pushing penalties, is this battle bots or first? I shouldnt complain too much tho because as the driver of 1279, i did do my fair share of pushing in the finals and accidentally pushed 56 and 237 over in the same match (they were a bit unbalanced and had a tetra in the air, i also pushed low). I felt bad about it though because I knew what it felt like to be non-operational for the remainder of a match and to watch your team lose.

In regards to the finals, excellent matches teams 56, 237 and 303. I have heard that they were some of the best matches at any regional yet. Thanks are in order to team 103 and 375. You guys really held your own out there. Also i would like to thank team 56, our mentors from our rookie year in 2004. We learned alot from some of you guys last year. It just proves what a great team you are. And team 303, our neighbors, right across the highway BR- excellent job, another successful bot from the panthers. 237 what can i say except you were so reliable and consistent- the only team to cap the vision tetra in autonomous i believe. Excellent work.

-Mike
co-capt/driver of team 1279 cold fusion robotics

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

I'll second that. Some things definitely get you.. almost like you got shot up the butt. Very few of us know what some people[no names] are going through right now because of bad calls, bad judgment, politics etc..

This could've been better, way better.

Sorry, I could not resist posting away from the GP side. This hurt way too much.
-Bharat
p.s. no offense to any of the award winners

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

The conditions on the field this year were not up to snuff compared to last year. We had a horrendous amount of problems with autonomous not starting at all because of the field, or losing control of our arm, or having autonomous finally start with only 5 seconds left. The IFI guy told us he had nothing to say about it, but obviously we were not the only ones negatively effected by field problems. The pressure pads were a problem as well and it took the officials half of the day to realize that Pad 2 on the red side was malfunctioning. During practice matches on thursday I was on Pad 2(as HP) and when I would step off the pad and be half way to the robot the robot would drive backwards! We alerted the field staff of this problem but it happened again in later matches and on Friday as well which resulted in a match having to be replayed! Both player stations were behaving very strangely and I hope we don't have the same field at Philly!