Re: VCU NASA Regional
 

HERE HERE! =)

Re: VCU NASA Regional
 

I second that motion!!

Great job to everyone!!! And congrads to the winners.

Re: VCU NASA Regional
 

I am on Team 1123 with the robot "Shabang"(note the spelling) we simply played our game how we wanted to we chose to not cap goals we figured every1 else would so we would have at least 1 person on our alliance that would do fine at capping so we could just stop the other team from capping.

also on another note about us "ramming" at least that is what i think was said about us. i drove and i never pulled back far and rammed any1 i was more of a push then a ram. 416(i think thats the #) would ram from half the field but they had no traction so they couldn't really push.

we chose to look at the game in an innovative and trusty way to build a robust robot and push not do the norm take your own way in life. :P

(sorry for all mistakes in this post i don't like to type lots or use punctuation)

Re: VCU NASA Regional
 

I agree, agressive is good, but two robots come to mind at VCU that I think were overly agressive, out of controll, and just plain non-gracious. But that's the fact of life...

Re: VCU NASA Regional
 

I'd also like to mention that the play in practically all of the quarter-final matches and on were very high contact...we were simply playing that way from the start (friday morning on).

Re: VCU NASA Regional
 

I have a question about the #1 seed. As stated above somewhere, they played 9 matches while the rest of the top 8 played 8 matches. I understand that some teams will play more matches - its just the way things work out. However, in the past, extra matches were not counting towards those teams' rankings so that everyone's final ranking was based on the same number of matches. In this particular case, if I remember correctly, the #1 seed was in the last match and won that match, bringing their record to 8-1-0 for a total of 16 ranking points. The #2 and #3 seeds were both 7-0-1 giving them a total of 15 ranking points. If that last match should NOT have have been counted, that would have dropped the #1 seed to #5 (or was it #4...I think it was #5 based on QP's though).

If the scored was counted properly and the 9th match was in fact supposed to count towards their ranking, it doesn't seem right to me that a team with a loss would be seeded higher than two teams that were undefeated.

Kev

Re: VCU NASA Regional
 

If this is correct, this is another case of someone not understanding the tournament rules (or at least, missing a large bug in the scoring software). Section 8 clearly states that "[a] Surrogate team will receive zero qualifying Points and will not receive any Ranking Points." (With "Surrogate" meaning a team that plays an extra match, to allow complete alliances in every qualifying match, at events where the number of teams isn't divisible by 6.)

Why can't people just familiarize themselves with section 8?

Re: VCU NASA Regional
 

During our last semi final team 539 went after our arm....they used their
flip type arm to come over on it and ride on it....i would'nt
call that blocking....also once during this we were in a loading zone,
but the refs and judges did'nt penalize them. We might have gone on to
the final if it had been changed. 539 went after otherswith this arm
the same way in other matches. Also luckly we had a good strong
arm when they did go after us so we did ok....just could'nt place
the tetra.....keep in mind these bots costs thousands....is this any
way to treat them?

When we could we had one of our alliance partners 510 run interference
for us to keep 539 off of us. There were others during the vcu regional
but 539 sticks to mind as it was our last match. During friday
there was one match which we were'nt in that was more "battle bot"
than competitive play. many bots were knocked over during the
vcu regional.

another team....416 came to vcu over weight. (169 lbs).
they cut off the arm and played defensive during the whole time.
i guess they did'nt have much of a choice.

Re: VCU NASA Regional
 

In the final final match, 539 came along and whacked us up high, tipping us WWAAYY over. No suprise, they were disabled. Fortunately, we won the round along with the tourney 29-28 because of the help of 122 NASA Knights, and the 435 Robodogs.

Earlier, 416 left HUGE dents in our polycarb side panels, totally misaligned some of our frame, and pulled out our battery cable during a practice round. Ironically, coming out of our pit for a break from repairs, I saw a sign: "HAVE YOU BROUGHT YOUR GRACIOUS PROFESSIONALISM?"

And to top it all off, we were paired with 416 during the seeding matches, resulting in our tie for the day.

Re: VCU NASA Regional
 

Tristan: We had people who were familiar with rule 8. There were some issues, but the fact of the matter is, we knew about it but it didn't get done. I apologize. The scoring system seemed to not realize this rule, but then the system went down and we didn't have any rankings. We started with a partial list, and got the full list back halfway through alliance selections. With the problem we had, it was determined better to get going then to wait an unknown amount of time to fix it. After we started two hours late on Thursday, we could NOT wait that long to select alliances. In this chaos, the issue fell through the cracks. It is in our notes, and will be corrected in the software before next week.


Wetzel

Re: VCU NASA Regional
 

I didn't realize the extent of the scoring system problems--the fact that you couldn't fully correct the bugs on the fly, and the fact that there were other issues to be dealt with makes this oversight much more understandable, if still a little infuriating. Thanks for the clarifications.

Re: VCU NASA Regional
 

First off - 539 tipped us in Semifinal 1-3 and weren't penalized or disabled, even though we we in the loading zone as mentioned above. Head Ref Lisa said that it looked to her like they pushed us into the loading zone, but they were pushing from the side so they pushed us into the wall. I was driving so I know what happened - I intentionally backed up to get into the loading zone so we would be safe and then 539 tangled with us and went forward and tipped us over with most of our lift being off the field. Somehow, they were able to stand back up and continue without penalty. Afterwards, our alliance talked to both head refs repeatedly and even to Woodie Flowers who agreed it was a bad call but he had no power to change the score.

Head ref Skip was on the opposite side of the field but agreed that and loading zone (your own alliance color of course) was a "safe zone" if you had a tetra or not. I do not see why even Lisa thought they pushed us into the load zone - why she did not call a penalty. If she thought they pushed us into the load zone - thats fine - but she acknowledged that we were in the load zone.


Second - In another match, while attempting to cap the center goal, 1545 began to mess with us so I back up to get away. They took advantage of this and backed us all the way to the tip of a back goal because of a bumper we were using so that we wouldnt drive into a goal when trying to cap. The back-left side of our frame hit the tip of the goal and bent slightly. We were still drivable but 1545 backed up and rammed us full speed before I could move away from the goal and it bent the frame into the wheel and we were stuck. 1545 kept coming back and repeatedly hitting us even though we were not moving. A ref was watching and would not call them on intentional damage which. After watching the video many times, we finally agreed. Note: We were able to repair and we reinforced our frame, but 1545 hit us hard enough to also BREAK LEXAN!!!

This game is not supposed to be like battle bots. Some robots play actual defense by just being in the way. Others just like to ram people - and that is all they did. 1545 was an example of this - after they scored their 3 tetras in the bottom of a goal to make a row they were off to ram the other alliance. 539 capped during the qualification rounds, but all during the finals, played hard and tipped 616, 401, and were disable many times. If they were disabled for tipping 401 - why not for tipping 616? Was there a difference? They pushed both robots up high on purpose. This confuses me.


Was anyone else there or watching the webcast and saw this? Please post your thoughts and opinions on either or both of these situations - it can't be changed now but I would still like to hear.

Re: VCU NASA Regional
 

Whether or not 539 was un-GP or will continue to play un-GP, in my opinion it would be un-GP to boycott them. Being professional means you will continue to perform at competition regardless of things not going your way or others not playing by the rules. Just because they were not gracious or professional does not mean that you should be.

Re: VCU NASA Regional
 

I object. The referees are NOT professionals, they are volunteers. The opinion of Woodie does not matter in this case. Firstly, you go to ask him about an incident he may or may not have seen, and present him with what you perceived to have happened. In doing so, you presented it in such a way that there was only one answer. Secondly, he is not a referee, so his opinion on what should or should not have happened is irrelevant at the event. His opinon will matter durring the Monday confrence call.

The referees have a very difficult job. Video replay does not matter, it is expressly forbidden in the rules for a ref to look at a video. If it was not obvious to the ref from their point of view, then the robot was not obviously in.

Talking to a referee immediately following the match is the best way to get a proper explanation for why there were or were not penalties, not asking a celebrity their opinion on the matter.

Wetzel

Re: VCU NASA Regional
 

You entered the loading zone to use it as a safe zone, not to load tetras. If that is the case, then you are not protected. See G12 and G15

Wetzel