PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

Thought someone should start this thread, since we are now a first weekend regional.

I think the question we all have on our minds is -- will 492 manage to add a ball handler to the same chassis they used the last two years? We know their code is new (thanks for sharing), but will they go crazy and have only four wheels or tracks or something?

Bad news for the fans of our Old School look last year -- there won't be much wood on "Top Gun," our 2006 'bot. We've caved in to the AllAluminumAllTheTime crowd.

See you in Portland. Bring your best game. :)

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

Team 1346 is heading south to bring some Canadian spirit to the PNW regional. We had a great time there last year, really enjoyed the competition and the city.

This will be our second year doing both PNW and the GTR... a first weekend and a last weekend regional this time, and many long weeks of NASA webcasts in between.

This year we've ditched the foam core fibreglass that has been a key element of our robot the last two years in favour of welded 3/4" aluminum tubing, but plywood will once again play a very visible role in our design.

See you all there... just a month from now, and good luck with the last three weeks of build. (We're halfway through build and not yet half-built. This is not so good.)

Jason

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

This is the first year my team will be attending this regional. Anything I should expect that could be different than other regionals? How about good restaurants?

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

114 will be attending Portland this year. We went to the Northwest Regional back when it was in Seattle, but for the last two years we've gone to nationals instead of a third regional. We hope to get some good early competition up north.

Hope to see you all there!

Mike C.

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

Team 1566 will be going back to portland.

too bad we cant reclaim top seed rookie team again this year.
:(


EDIT: me and the team seemed to like the Denny's near the stadium place :p

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

We'll be there.

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

If we can finish the robot :p

Yay for 450+ man-hour seasons for Cory, EJ, and me!

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

I can't recommend any especially good restaurants (we ate at Red Robin on Friday night), but it is a fun town if you have a car. The area right around the convention center isn't really tourist friendly.

This is a tournament where the local teams have a huge advantage. Californians come up here and rust solid by Thursday night. :)

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

Yeah, I remember our team was leaving Red Robin just as you guys showed up!

And I'm sad about the wood thing, your robot last year was awsome!

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

Good memory about a meal a year ago.

It's funny about materials. I build plywood/fiberglass/epoxy composite boats as a hobby (two canoes and sailboat so far). Really good okoume marine plywood is very light, stiff, and strong. Pound for pound, it is stiffer than aluminum. It lacks puncture resistance, and doesn't particularly "like" metal fasteners so it is probably not the best material for the chassis, but for most structural parts on the 'bot it is a very competitive material. Given the chance, I would like to have built Top Gun out of an aluminum chassis and a composite wood/glass/epoxy structure combined with select metal components. Ironically, a plywood composite structure would be much lighter and stronger than the fiberglass "pultrusion" beams used by some teams, but would still have the negative public opinion of wooden construction.

The real world calculus, though, is that we don't think most of the students involved in FIRST appreciate anything other than aluminum and Lexan. People ooh'ed and ah'ed over water-cut gears and color anodized aluminum last year, and didn't even notice our laminated I-beam towers on Wooden Thunder (the towers still worked last week when we demonstrated Woodie to some students by picking up metal cafeteria chairs and driving around with them). We made the decision to go all-aluminum and Lexan at least in part because we didn't want the negatives associated with wooden construction that we felt last year.

Since I have so much experience with composites, I would have preferred to use them again (and I really wanted to build some laminated carbon fiber/epoxy components), but I had to agree with the decision to go with a metal and plastic bot.

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

I like your perspective, it's quite refreshing to have someone thinking out of the box from a materials point of view. But what does this have to do with the meal again? :)

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

While the general public might ooh and ahh over fancy aluminum and composites, the judges at PNW are quite willing to look "outside the box" for intelligent application of materials. Last year we picked up the Xerox Creativity award at PNW, and while having two completely different scoring mechanisms (a multi-tetra "flipper" for the low goals and an arm for the high ones), they also really liked that our arm was fabricated of baltic birch plywood.

We had a demo arm in the pits that we placed on blocks and encouraged the judges to bounce on it... the arm, weighing less than 3 lbs, did not budge... even under the weight of three judges.

Wood -- used properly -- is an amazing material. A solid cylindrical column of wood is stiffer and more resistant to buckling than a solid column of almost any other material of similar mass. What is even more interesting is that in certain construction applications wooden columns can actually have a higher fire resistance rating than unprotected steel columns. In wood the outside will char and serve as insulation, while similar strength steel columns or beams can be heated until they become soft and flexible, collapsing under their own weight. Note that this applies only to thick columns, and UNINSULATED steel...

Oh, yeah... we'll have the baltic birch back again. It is beautiful wood.

Looking forward to a great weekend in Portland... can you guys arrange for more weather like last year's? This rain is getting a bit tedious.

Jason

P.S. Looking for plywood inspiration? Check out the DeHavilland Mosquito... arguably (and no... I'm not looking to start an argument with the Boeing fans... they have good arguments, too) the best bomber of WWII. Pretty much all plywood!

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

AWwwwww That was the best trait of your guys' robot!

I was always thinking, "When will i get to see that WOODEN robot again" :)

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

TOMORROW! IT STARTS TOMORROW! MUST LOAD THE VAN!

... and print the flyers... and help John finish the cart ... and ... well ... sleep for a couple of hours, I guess.

The tournament starts TOMORROW! :D :ahh:

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

Haha! It starts TODAY!

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

I will be there reffing and inspecting.

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

I wish this was being webcast. I'll be free all day Friday, and I've never seen PNR yet. :(

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

Hey guys how'd practice go? Any High scores? Inquiring minds want to know. Johny 5 says: "NEED INPUT!"

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

I'm falling asleep as I type, but I think I can cover a couple of things:

1. The state of the robots on Thursday is not as good as it was last year. This was a tough technical challenge year.

2. Scoring the center goal is a lot easier in the lab than on the field. Center scoring was not common.

3. Good human players are scoring 5-10 points each doing full-court throws.

4. The Cheesy Poofs looked human! They were struggling to get their robot ready just like the rest of us!

5. Team 492 still has the sweetest-driving robot in the northwest. Smooth as silk.

6. Team 1294 scored a center goal in autonomous!!! Send congratulations cards to...

7. I have the feeling that things are going to get a lot more competitive tomorrow. Lots of teams are still improving.

8. Huge props to three students from Issaquah Robotics Society (1318) who took time out to help me install our bumpers. I stayed late in the pits to do this (the team was at dinner) and Eric, Kyle and Elise helped me with holding, drilling, and bolting. Finest FIRST tradition!

9. It is hard to tell which period is which from the stands. The instant scoring is cool, even if one alliance did have a reported score of about 425 in one round. I think Thursday is practice day for the Regional team, too.

10. Quite a number of balls hit the chains in the center goals and bounce back out.

11. Most robots can get onto the ramp, even though a lot are top heavy. At least four robots turned over today, including ours.

12. Good ball sweepers are unusual.

13. This early, the best robots scored in the corner goals.

14. THE MUSIC IS TOO LOUD! A lot of folks are using ear plugs in the stands.

More news as it develops...

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

I agree with most of what Rick TYler said....

Music being loud: especially the whistle signifying the end of a round. Ouchie.

Center goal scoring and competitiveness: agreed. During practice I didn't see any consistent center-goal scoring, though a lot of robots our improving (especially ours :D).

Human Players: hard to score in corner goals - mostly for me because of bounce in the balls and the ramp going to the goal. I feel it worth it to hold onto the balls and let the robot score.

Robots tipping over: Yep. Ours tipped over also. Even some of the smaller robots (ours is maximum height) were tipping going onto the ramp.

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

One thing I noticed was that the human players saturaded the playing field with balls by trying to throw them into the side goals. Teams' human players would be throwing as soon as a ball got into the corral, so all the balls ended up being on the field as fair game or in bots. I think (hope) that most teams' human players will wise up and understand that throwing for the entire 2:10 just is not effective and infact is detrimental.

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

It will be interesting to see how this proceeds today and tomorrow.

Not every team had a decent goal or court to shoot at during build. I expect Thursday and maybe even today that a number of teams will take the "Shoot as often as possible strategy" to gain more experience on a real field. If the strategy works, this should help them improve their scoring accuracy by the end of today.

They may not end up in the top 8, but a good scouting team in the top 8 will see this change in accuracy, and watch them closely tomorrow morning. There are always a couple of teams that walk in rough, but improve significantly before Saturday, and are a good selection for playoffs.

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

Exactly why scouting is so important. Our scouting app (STAMP) creates an "Improvement Trend" calculation to find just such teams, even though they are under-rated.

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

If STAMP shows higher than our current rankings, I think it rocks. Otherwise, I blame programmer error.

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

Day 2 preliminary report.

Seven matches down, three to go. Top Gun is currently ranked 43rd out of 46 with a CP of 31 -- tied for highest in the regional. We are 1-6-0. We lost three matches by one point, one match by two points, and one match we actually won but a scoring error showed it as a 4 point loss (we had two robots completely on the top of the platform at the end -- the refs scored zero, we protested, and the refs added five points -- we later noticed that it was scored as only one bot on the platform and not two, but they said it was too late to change now, that we should have said something earlier, we said we did, they said, "too bad"). Our only big loss was to an alliance which included both the Cheesy Poofs and Team 948 -- which has a wicked accurate center-goal shooter. They beat us by 20 points. We also had the privelege of winning the highest total point total of the day at 64 to (IIRC) 60.

Today's random thoughts and notes:

1. The Scallywags (#1369) drove onto the other team's ramp at the end of a blow-out match. Ninety percent of the audience and the announcer ("Wow! They drove onto the wrong ramp, what a mistake!" <-- paraphrased) thought it was a mistake. We thought it was genius, and applauded as they walked out.

2. High goal shooters still are not the bomb. With a few exceptions, not many goals.

3. The Cheesy Poofs made big clouds of magic smoke in one match, and broke a shaft in another. When they worked, they were AMAZING. Team 753 took them out of one match with inspired, genius, outstanding defense. The Poofs still scored some low goals, but their awesome shooter was quiet.

4. Our robot could be better.

5. Good human players are now scoring 7-10 goals by hand into the low goals.

6. There is less indiscriminate ball-throwing than there used to be, but some HPs are still toss-happy, including throwing into dead goals.

This is a great game. They could run it again next year with no changes and it would still be a great game. I don't think there will be a "perfect machine" as there are so many different strategic decisions to make. All-dumping teams don't work. All-shooters don't work. Mixed teams work, and there is room, as always, for fast, smooth defense.

I want to play Aim High again!!!

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

So, here are some thoughts I've gathered about yesterday and today at the event. I have a feeling there'll be a negative slant to this, but realize that it's not because I don't understand why it happens or that I don't appreciate everyone working to make these events possible. I'm just sayin' that the rest of y'all need to be prepared for these issues as you compete in upcoming weeks.

• There was no systematic verification of balls' exit velocity during inspection.
• Some inspectors are going to misinterpret or incorrectly interpret rules regarding the shielding of shooting mechanisms. In particular, I'm aware of at least one case wherein a team was asked to shield roller chain that was in application unrelated to their shooter. Another team is competing with too many of a single motor-type, though I don't believe the mechanism they're attached to has ever been used. I understand safety is paramount, but exposed roller chain has not in the history of FIRST been questioned for safety, generally speaking.
• Your practice matches are not a time to "practice" defense. Practice driving or collecting or dumping or shooting, but for the love of all that is holy, please don't drive your robot into machines that are being tuned, tested, and fixed. Thanks.
• The real-time scoring system doesn't work. They're relying on referees to act as a redundant scoring system. Referees don't work. :) It has, on different occasions, lost a match score, crashed, and miscounted balls going into goals. I've been told, but don't have evidence, that scores have been swapped between alliances and that they have overlooked things like giving points to robots on the ramps.
• It appears as if the referees have been scoring offsides penalties incorrectly, unless the procedure has changed and I'm unaware. Rather than assessing a 5 point penalty for every 5 seconds of offsides violation, an alliance has been penalized just once per round or match. This became a concern to us when we lost a match because the alliance we competed against was offsides for the length of an entire round and was only penalized 5 points. We lost. After appealing to the referees; even showing them the rules that state the correct procedure for assessing penalties, they refused to change the outcome. That kinda sucks for a whole mess of reasons that are best left to another thread.
• Own up to your accuracy. Shooting is hard, if not practically impossible, in most cases. The Cheesy Poofs are getting better with every passing moment and will be a scary thing to see tomorrow, I'm sure. Other teams are getting better as well, but not in near the same capacity. The Poofs are scary. Anyway, if you can only shoot in a temperature controlled vacuum, please admit to it.
• Any robot that can store and dump 15+ balls in its hopper will instantly negate any middle-of-the-road shooter and they'll do it faster, more reliably, and more often.
• Please read the rules. The backbot isn't a cool name I made up because I like strategy, it's a requirement and you can't cross the midfield line when you're bored. (Yes, this happened.)
• Bring spare parts if you've got 'em, big metal hammers if you don't. Our poor robot has taken a beating, physically.
• Make sure your PVC pipe is regulation. We'd pressed a plastic piece into ours to make a floor and we had to fit it with the specified endcap before we could pass inspection. We put the endcap over our spacer.

I think that's it for now. If I think of more, I'll write more. There are good things, too, of course, but that's all stuff that's related to our machine and our experience and that probably doesn't matter to any of you. We're having a good time, we've got a fantastic machine that is reliably responsible for a large (80%+) part of our alliance score each match and we're in good shape despite being placed up against some of the best machines at the event.

(We won a match despite missing one of our three alliance partner robots. 1425 ran fantastic defense while all three alliance human players loaded our hopper with upward of 25 balls which we then dumped in one giant load. It rocked.)

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

Some thoughts from this guy on 1425....

Maybe I just haven't seen good human players, but I don't see hardly 4 or 5 go into the side goals from one human player - and that is with a high volume of balls. One strategy we used a couple times (even though our robot wasn't meant to push balls) was to just shove the missed balls around the corner goals into the goal. It has given us a few points.

Shooter speed inspection needed to be earlier. They just got their speed detector working late today, and I saw at least one robot (and I'm sure there were more) that shot way over the legal speed limit. Shooting isn't nearly as hard if you have a nearly-straight trajectory. It seemed they had it working later though, as they spot checked our team (we passed) after a round.

We are proud of our robot. Our only scoring option coming into the competition was shooting, and even though that didn't work we have made it to 3 wins 4 losses, ranked 24th, with ball rolling and good defense. Best part is: we just got our shooter to work in the last round of the day, and we made 3 or 4 in....expect big things from us tomarrow :cool:.

EDIT: M. Krass reminded me of one thing...the physicality of the game. Maybe it is just that our robot is more flexible than in previous years, but we have had some good battle wounds and jostling. When playing robot-to-robot defense on a good shooter it gets pretty physical.

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

I need a couple FINAL MATCH SCORES

Could I please have the final match scores for match #s 49 and 51.

We also need the TEAMS for upcoming matches 54 55 56.

Thanks so much.

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

Erik (and everyone, for that matter),

The scores and standings are posted on the FIRST website. You can find the match scores here: http://www2.usfirst.org/2006comp/Events/OR/matches.html

(Shamelessly, I again need to point out that we won match 49 while outnumbered. :) )

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

(Just got back from dinner...)

The physical nature of this game is really a big deal. If you are top-heavy, you are going down (in one match, four of six 'bots ended up on their sides). I am SO grateful that we ended up using 4x4 aluminum square tube for our frame rails. We have been mercifully untouched. The same cannot be said for everyone.

Some of the better defensive strategies involve nudging 'bots around the ramps. I've gone on record as being opposed to inentionally causing other bots to tip over, but if all the action is around the ramp 'bots are getting shoved part way up and then they fall over.

And, I forgot to mention earlier, that very few matches are determined by penalties.

And, Madison is right about velocity. I've seen balls go over the center goal on a really flat trajectory and land against the wall of the stadium a good 40 feet away. I know we shoot at 12 m/sec and I am SURE that some teams are well over twice that. I would like to have seen them test all 'bots during the day today.

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

Please review the link, many matches are not entered and it repeates (though not the same score but, for example, Q1 after Q35).

So please, if anyone has the data I requested please post.

Many of the data alos just does not line up with the accurate data.

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

Hehe, not shameless at all. Although I might be biased ;). It was a sight to see when all 3 of our HP's were loading up your massive hopper....that was actually the match we got our shooter to work.

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

Just look at the first set of matches. I don't know why it repeats, but the first set of matches looks good. I know match #49's score is correct at least.

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

And, strangely, it still has some scores that are different from when I walked out after the "final" scores were announced. There is something weird going on here.

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

Thanks for the updates, all. Keep 'em coming. We're listening.

Good luck tomorrow.

Andy

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

They are not ALL right. For example:
Q53 3/3/2006 3:42:00 PM
492 0
981
1346
948 0

In other words it says match 53 was 0-0. Uhm no.

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

Are you sure you are looking at the first set of Q matches? For me it shows Red: 41, Blue: 19.

EDIT: Just refreshed and now it shows Red 38, Blue 21...something is wrong :(.

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

That the correct score. It looks as if we are catching them in teh middle up updating, lets give them an hour and see then.

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

We recorded scores for every round but Q24 (they didn't announce it), and we agree will all of the scores listed. We have our issues with Q46 (see Rick Tyler's post earlier in this thread), but the page does seem to accurately reflect the offical scores.

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

Does anyone have news of team 254(Cheesy Poofs)? We haven't heard from them since they left for there.

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

According to the first page they seeded 4th, and are at least in the semi's.

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

Congratulations to teams 254, 753, & 1887 for winning the event!!! Good job to everyone else, too! I heard it was a tough set of matches!

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

anybody got video of the elimination matches?

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

That means the Poofs have won 11 of the 14 regionals that they've attended. This is probably the second most amazing FIRST competition feat, next to Beatty's 4 championships. Also, 11/14 is a pretty neat set of numbers. ;)

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

Anybody know who won Chairman's & Engineering Inspiration Awards? (only ones not listed on FIRST.

Edit: the answer is now on FIRST,
Chairman's was won by 492 and the Engineering Inspiration was won by 481.
Congratulations to both those teams and to 254, 753, and 1887!

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

I would argue that 11/14 regional wins is equal to that of Team Hammond's incredible 4 Championships.

If you add in the 6 Championship Events they competed in, they've won 11/20 tournaments they've entered.

If you take the reasonable idea of counting their divisional championships as wins, they are batting well over 600! -- even Detroit's Ty Cobb only bat 366!

Nobody has a record to match these guys, nobody.

Awesome Robots... ...and a Chairman's Award winner too.

Joe J.

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

I went to high school with a friend who played for the San Francisco 49ers in the late 80’s. One year at a Christmas party we asked him what it was like to play for one of the “greatest teams in pro sports history” (I’m a lifetime Rams fan so that still pains me to say it!) and he simply said “everyone in the NFL should get the chance to play for a franchise like the niners!” - That is exactly how I feel about having been a part of the Cheesy Poofs – every one in FIRST should get that kind of opportunity, and I am extremely thankful to have had it.

However, I think simply listing the winning percentage doesn't even come close to telling the story. The thing I think very few realize is that none of the original mentors are still with the team on anything other than an advisory basis. In fact, to the best of my knowledge, team 254 is primarily run by college and high school students at this point. To be honest, I think that the biggest accomplishment of the Poofs is really overlooked by everyone except those that have been a part of it. That is the fact that Steve Kyramarios and Jason Morella (the true architects of 254) were able to build the foundation for a team that has been able to sustain this level of excellence despite a huge turnover in personnel. So to Steve and Jason hats of to you for a job well done! Also to those presently involved with 254 (to many names to mention), congrats on your accomplishments and keep up the good work there are a lot of us out here who are very proud of you!

Take care all,

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

I don't want to let the Chairman's Award winner pass. Titan Robotics Club (#492) was the CA winner at PNW, and no team is more deserving. They are a major leader in FIRST in Western Washington, and have, in one way or another, been largely responsible for several teams in the area. They teach robot planning classes which are open to all of us, they sponsor the Bellevue practice event, and have been a true inspiration. I wouldn't be happier if we had won.

Thank you, Titans, and I look forward to seeing your '07 entry.

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

Woah. I had no idea the guys were so good, or so well known. I had no idea they had won so many events either. It comes as kind of a wake up call for me to stop goofing around and get serious.

The thing is, it is pretty personal for me. My team(1868) was formed only this year, in collaboration with NASA and girl scouts. We are lucky enough to have an old hanger area in Moffet Field Air Base to work in,with full funding, a machine shop, and a full size practice field. What is special is that team 254 are our partner team. We share the same work space, and they have helped and taught us throughout this season. Besides that, we're friends. I knew that they were a good team, but i didn't know how much before now. I just hope we can live up to their legend, and get some pennets of our own.

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

Did I mention that the person who awarded the regional Woody Flowers Award at PNW was Woody Flowers? He stood about 20 feet from our pit letting students sign his jacket fora LONG time. I didn't talk to him myself -- there were plenty of students who wanted to say hi to him.

The PNW Woody Flowers award went to Williane Tenca (Team 1510). I don't know her personally, but the crowd was appreciative when her name was announced.

(Hopefully Madison will now delete her post which demonstrated that I don't know how to read a Website...)

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

Miki was actually awarded the Volunteer of the Year award. The Woodie Flowers Award winner was Williane Tenca from, I believe, team 1510.

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

I'm wondering when the scores will be fixed - I think some of the alliances or scores might have been swapped around.

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

I was so glad to see Woody there. Just before Mark Leon introduced our team, Woody came over to take a picture of me our drive coach (we had mohawks) and he shook our hands. We were so awe-struck.

Also, congrats to 492. Team 360 attended their kickoff and pre-ship, and we're glad to call ourselves their friends. Even after their elimination, they came down to the arena to offer us advice about the opposing alliances and to wish us good luck. Nobody was more deserving.

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

A few of my thoughts, after the regional ended.

Yes, it seemed like there was much more noise in the pits this year on Thursday from machinery operating (of course, it could have been that the team right before us was running their jigsaw the entire day straight!)

Yeah, after all I heard about them I was expecting everything perfect. When I looked at their pit, they had the hopper off and were still making modifications. However, once they got that puppy working it sure was something to see!

No problem! We had finished up the work we could do on our robot a little earlier, and the programmers wanted us out of their way. We were just looking for something useful to do. It was good to meet you in person.

Yeah, that was a challenge. As a driver, it was really hard to figure out when the periods switched, and when it was coming up, while still staying aware of the situation on the field. I was lucky enough to have a coach that was able to keep track of that, letting me know when periods 2 and 3 were about to end (to get ready for the next) and when there was about twenty seconds left in the final period (to go for the ramp). Without that, it would have been impossible to keep track of everything.

And about the score, there was that one elimination round where blue got a reported score of around 3100, the "high score of the universe" according to the announcer. I couldn't stop laughing as I saw that number just keep going up...

Yes, I think there were more of those than FIRST anticipated. I hope they do something about that in later regionals.

Yes. From what I could see, the most effective robots were the ones that could either score well and consistently in the corner goals, or were so incredibly amazing/had such a great strategy of scoring in the center that they could negate any defense. This was best illustrated by the match between alliances 1 and 8. Although 1 had some great shooters, 360's defense was enough to totally shut them down. Alliance 8 could easily have won the regional, if it wasn't for 254's amazing strategy in that final round.

Sciencenerd's final analysis of Aim High: Shooters that can't shoot faster than 1 ball/second are next to useless. They will never be given an opportunity to sit still long enough to score significantly. Defense will be high, with many effective robots dumping at most one load of balls in the corner goal, then spending their time stopping the shooters from ever getting lined up. Robots that can't ramp had better be pretty durn amazing to make up for it. Team 254 is awsome. :)

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

One thing that consistently disappoints me about the FIRST games is that there's often a 'reach' goal that is very difficult to achieve - such as using the camera to aim and fire at the top goal this year - that is easily shut down by simply having a box on wheels hit the robot repeatedly. It's too bad that a robot which is able to hit the target repeatedly (no small task!) can be shut down by such a robot.

Not bashing anyone or anything, just an observation.

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

The Poofs were amazing. Hands-down the most interesting team to watch during the competition. Just couldn't help but jump up and cheer like mad when they started their mad barrage of balls into the center goal. Great job Poofs!

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

I wish I could have been there. Our two teams worked together during build.

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

does anyone have video of the matches, specifically the finals? I'm really curious to see the Poofs and Eagle Strike (114) in action! Sounds like it was an amazing regional

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

Definitely. Team 254's quick shooting in the last round of the Finals just clinched their alliance's victory. It was amazing and very innovative that they thought up shooting from the platform- A tough spot for some robots to even get up to to play defense; my team's robot could ram but had difficulty getting up there to shove 254's off. Getting up the ramp also had its high probability of robot tipping over, which did plague a lot of the matches.

I think the alliance that my team was in performed great and we had great fun going up against the 254-753-1887 alliance- We were the 44th out of 46th ranked teams on Saturday morning! Wow. Congratulations to the PNW winners! As for us, now we have the finalist spirit to carry over to our next Regional in Davis.

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

We'll have some videos of the finals up as soon as we get them off tape - could take a few days though, our video editors aren't the most motivated people :p

EDIT: And I must agree with the previous post - we had a great time. We too were ranked in the bottom of the thirties right before picking started, and I'm very glad to have a chance to play with 360 and 955. We made a great alliance. Thanks guys!

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

We actually didn't see you guys shoot from on top the platform, but rather wanted to keep it as a move we could save until we had to use it.

We started the competition with the ability to shoot from the base of the ramp, the top of the ramp, or ~26 feet away from the ramp. For the beginning of the competition, we were shooting from the base of the ramp only. On Saturday we found out our shooter was shooting faster than we had thought, and had to turn it down. By doing so we had to choose between the top of the ramp or the bottom, and after being completely smothered by 753 in two consecutive matches, we thought it would be much more advantageous to shoot from the top of the ramp.

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

I know this is untrue. Shooting from the ramp is hardly a unique strategy.

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

At the kickoff at TRC, a student and I walked onto the demo goal they had set up, looked straight up, and said -- practically at the same moment -- "you know, from here it's only a 3-foot shot." The idea has definitely been around since the kickoff.

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

The robot was designed to be able to shoot from the top of the ramp from day one. Their choice to use that strategy was just a coincidence, as cory noted earlier.

You'll find out soon enough why I know this. Their robot wasn't quite shooting at 10 balls per second, but I think we all realize now that is not completely neccesary. ;)

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

Now that I've had a bit of time to collect my thoughts and clean my apartment, I wanted to write a bit more about our experience in Portland this weekend. I'd written a bit on Friday evening about the challenges that we all faced throughout the day, what with the tempermental scoring and ranking system and all, and I wanted to revisit that and add to it.

The scoring system continued to be troubling through the qualifying matches and the ranking that determined the top seeds was incorrect, to the best of my knowledge, but in the end that is secondary to the amazing, exciting event that this turned out to be. Without elaborating, as it'll serve no purpose, I did want to mention that the information I had at my disposal indicated that the win-loss-tie records were incorrectly input into the ranking system for some teams. I don't know how it happened, but I do know that everyone at the event sincerely tried to make everything correct before moving on. When I brought my concern to Jason and the folks at the scoring table, they listened and worked to see if they could find the error I'd seen. That was reassuring.

I'm notorious among friends for really disliking these events. I hadn't really enjoyed myself at a FIRST event since 2002 or 2003, but I had a great time this weekend. Some highlights:

• Team 488 worked together better than almost any team I've ever worked with in the past seven seasons. The students all got along with one another and with the mentors, we were able to make changes and repairs to our machine quickly and effectively, and, of course, we all cheered each and every time our hopper unloaded balls into the goals.
• I was offered some very meaningful compliments that took me completely by surprise.
• We built a fantastic, effective machine for this year's game. We were responsible for scoring 75% or more of our alliance's score in almost all of our matches -- all with a 1-pt. dumper.
• Ice skating at Lloyd Center on Friday was fun. It was nice to see some teams come out and join us again.
• Before the start of our first quarter final match, I had the pleasure of a conversation with Woodie Flowers about the game and how we thought it might play out. One of FIRST's greatest assets is the accessibility of its personalities. Go to an NFL game and try to have a conversation with the quarterback and see how far you get.
• Competing alongside teams 1839 and 956 in the eliminations rounds was an honor and a privilege. We came together after competing all three together in our final qualifying match and winning by a margin of ~50.
• Despite losing in the last few moments of our second quarter final match, I think we showed everyone at the event how to beat 254. It's a shame nobody was watching ;)
• Winning a qualifying match despite being down one robot was a rush.
• The pride the kids have in their effort is amazing. They were grinning from ear to ear each time someone came over to congratulate them, to ask about the robot and the team, or to ask where we're competing next. Unfortunately, we're not currently registered to attend any more events, but we'll see what we can't do about that.
• Receiving an award from team 1425 for our robot's design was a flattering gesture that we all appreciated.
• Seeing Bill Gold again and finally being in the same room as Cory McBride. Cory and I had a near miss back in 2003. It's about time. I also got to briefly meet Akshay from 115 and EJ from 254, both very cool.

Congratulations to teams 254, 1887 and 753 for winning the event and to team 492 for winning the Regional Chairman's Award. I hope the momentum from this weekend keeps up through the rest of this season. Thanks, particularly, to Jason Morrella, Woodie Flowers, the whole FIRST staff and the volunteers for being the glue that held the event together. Based on what I've read about others' experiences at the other regionals, it seems like we had the best of the best with us at PNW this weekend.

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

I must admit, I was glad to be able to go to the Pacific Northwest regional this year. It was great to see all the teams working together, and despite some minor technical difficulties, to watch the volunteer staff do so well to bring everything together so it all worked out. This years competition was a joy to referee, and I was glad that there were so few penalties, although a few did occur. It was great to watch the teams at the regional interacting, and helping each other out, and at least with the time I got to spend in the pits, there was a definate aura of excitement and anticipation that was very heartening. Congratulations to 492 on Chairmans, and to all of the teams who participated. You are all spectacular for how you participated and behaved on the field at the regional. The excitement and energy at the regional was even greater then last year, and this was a great event to participate and to help contribute to because of all of the students, engineers, teachers, and mentors involved. Even more exciting, there were no disqualifications of any robots at this regional. That, in itself made me very, very happy. Congratulations to all the teams who participated,and all recipients of awards.

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

It seems many teams have had problems with the scoring system. Hopefully that's worked out before the next set of regionals. Our team was a bit disappointed when a match that we lost due to a scoring error (didn't get points for our autonomous so we lost that, then we didn't get points for robots on the ramp) made it so we placed right outside the top teams (placed 12th), but hey... technology messes up sometimes =P It's like those PowerPoints that never work on my school's computers =( We still had a blast though and the other alliance must have felt pretty happy when they won that match =)

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

Thank You!

Congrats to 492 on winning the Chairman's Award this year. Also, congrats to the winning alliance - 254, 753, and 1887.

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

There’s nothing superhuman about our program and I’m glad that we were able to show a new region that this is exactly the case. A lot of teams seem to think that there are “one hundred NASA Engineers” or full NASA machine shops that just deliver robots to us once every year. This isn’t the case at all, and I’m glad that the word is finally getting out. Like Dennis posted earlier, this year’s team was run by a 19 year old, a 21 year old, a 22 year old, and a 23 year old teacher. We are a team that’s built on hard work just like everyone else’s.


Just for clarification, our FP motors caught fire, were plugged in wrong, and backed out of their AM Planetaries (our fault, not AM’s). No shafts of ours were broken at PNW. We also had a couple dumb problems with our ball system in a couple matches, one of which was the 2nd match of the finals.

753 was amazing. Their team is full of top notch kids, and they build consistently solid robots year after year. It was an absolute pleasure to be allied with those guys and gals. Same with team 1887. We were fortunate enough to have a pit right next to them, and they were an absolutely classy team. It was terrific how on at least one occasion each of our teams, pretty much, single-handedly won a match for our alliance. It was an amazing chemistry that we had, and I feel fortunate to have been a part of it.


I finally got the chance to thank my former HS Physics teacher, Eric Stokely (formerly of 258 and now with 360), for originally getting me into this program. It was very emotional for me, personally, being able to see, for the first time in ~4.5 years, this person who has been a huge influence on who I am as a person, and it was even more exciting to be participating in the same event with him. It was seriously like old times being in the pits or watching matches rooting our teams and each other’s teams on.

Thanks to all the teams who helped us out at the regional. Thanks to 492 for letting us mooch power for our scouts’ laptop. Thanks to 360 for that team color LED. Thanks to everyone else who gave us miscellaneous parts or tools to work on our robot. It was good to see Maddie again, too :)

I want to thank everyone who had a hand in putting on the PNW Regional. It was a terrific event to compete in with many terrific teams and robots. I’d love to attend this event again in either Portland or in Seattle.

I feel like I have a lot more to say, but for some reason I can't organize my thoughts right now.

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

WAHOOOOOOOOOOOOO that was the funnest thing iv ever don't man! my team won two awards :D :cool:

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

So, I think if there is any place I would go postal right now it is Hatch Techology's headquarters. How do the manage 2 years running to make this ****?

Oh well.

The reason I am posting is that I get a 404 when I try to get:
http://www2.usfirst.org/2006comp/Eve.../rankings.html

which is the linked to from the regional page. Does anyone have a saved copy they wana share?

Thanks.

On another note, about shooting from a ramp.

At least at the pacNW the only 2 bots to do it were 254 and 492 so it is unique in impalmentation, even if many people thought about it.

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

I saw team 701 do it as well.

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

Ah, then my bad. But still, something that 3/47 do I would still say is pretty darn unique. I have to say that the determining factor is 254 just did it the best :).

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

I am sorry if I sounded critical of your program, and that I repeated a story that a student told me about your mechanical problems. You folks built an incredible robot, and it was inspiring to watch. I wish I'd had a chance to get a closer look, but you were all working so hard I didn't want to distract you. You did come in with a superhero reputation (sort of like seeing Clint Eastwood riding down a dusty street on a horse...), and it was encouraging to see that you had to work hard on a stubborn machine just like the rest of us. Yours just worked better when you were done. :) :) I hope you can come back to PNW next year.

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

I don't mean to "bump" or be a post whore but does anyone know when these rankings are coming back online or an alterant source?
http://www2.usfirst.org/2006comp/Eve.../rankings.html

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

Thanks for noticing, we had a PWM cable come loose so only one of our shooting rollers was working, but it kinda worked once. Now we got the strategy down for our next regional - hopefully.

I like the feel of this thread. A couple of years ago, our team was so envious of 254, but the more you meet and talk to EJ and the rest of their "crew" - it just boils down to a bunch hard working students dedicated to their program and who have some experience with success. While our program is a bit "rougher around the edges" than their's, we do feel the need to do better in all aspects of our program. So I can only imagine what they must feel each year to somehow stay a top and promote a model program and robot.

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

I took some pictures.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/amx/set...7594076466467/

Re: PNW 2006 -- The Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland
 

We were reviewing the STAMP data and found this, thought it would be a cool fact.

114, I feel your pain. You had the most uber toughest schedule known to man.

You had a 1.13. The NEXT hardest was a .44. The average was a -.71 .


I think the "Most under-ranked team at a regional" is going to go to team 114. Amazing bot, I would have liked to be with you and 360 in the finals, but alas it was not to be.