Re: BattleCry in Just ONE WEEK!
 

Team 1519 would like to thank our great alliance partners 195 and 1126 for the time we spent as an alliance at BattleCry.

195- you guys really came through with some amazing defense in that last match!!! You definitely pulled your share of the weight in our matches. Also, we were very impressed with the fact that you almost shut down two high shooters on your own during their offense period. Thanks for your valiant effort!

1126- our two robots worked extremely well together in auto. Both your defensive and your offensive capabilities were impressive- they were sorely missed in our last match! We don't blame you AT ALL for what happened. We loved working together with you on our alliance!

It was disappointing that we didn't make it further, but getting the highest score of the day (101) with you guys almost made up for it. The Top Gun award was also very nice :D.

Congrats indeed to 176, 177, and 839 and thanks to everyone at WPI for a great weekend!

Re: BattleCry in Just ONE WEEK!
 

I truely realized what New England Defense means after this weekend. I knew it was just something floating around, but after I saw scores between 30-40 with the powerhouses in the match, something must be up.

At Championships, teams were trying out-score eachother. At Battlecry, teams were trying to out-defend eachother.

Re: BattleCry in Just ONE WEEK!
 

A-MEN. BattleCry 7 was, as always, an extremely competitive competition and really put on display what all of those NERD type people are talking about when they say defense. I hope that the Mid-West and the rest of the country was watching the Web cast!! It is always interesting how competitive BattleCry is each year, I look forward to it just because I know teams are going to leave it all on the playing field win or go home, robot intact or not...either way, that is the mentality of BattleCry. Few other competitions exemplify the New England style of play better than that of BattleCry. Rivalries run deep (like 1990's deep folks) at BattleCry and the New England big boys show up to play and win. Congrats to all at BattleCry and to the BattleCry staff for another great event...it only continues to grow in both size and prestige.

Justin

Re: BattleCry in Just ONE WEEK!
 

Congrats to all the teams at BattleCry - what a fun and exciting event.

This was our first visit to this region and it was great to meet so many new
teams and people. The hospitality and the event was fantastic and the competition was intense.

Thanks to all of the planners and organizers and volunteers for making such a great weekend.

Re: BattleCry in Just ONE WEEK!
 

So true. Our robot came back to the pits a couple times damaged.

You know something's up when powerhouses 121, 126, 1126, and 1519 get eliminated in the quarter finals.

There are a couple regionals in New England, but only one Battlecry, the off-season competition everyone wants to go to.

I hope to see more teams from outside of New England come to see what they actually mean when they say "New England Defense"

Re: BattleCry in Just ONE WEEK!
 

The quick answer is team 1126 (SparX) for QF1.3. The full answer is a long story...

The alliance of 1519, 1126, and 195 was the top-seeded alliance. In the eighth-finals rounds, we focused on offense and managed to achieve the highest score of the day -- 101 points.

However, the same "all offense" strategy came up short for our alliance in the first quarter-final round. The strong alliance of teams 271, 1103, and 181 played unrelenting defense against us while they also pushed hard on offense, winning the match by a score of 87-70. (That match had the highest total score of the day.)

We changed our strategy for the 2nd quarterfinal -- team 195 focused on defense for that match. Similarly, 271-1103-181 played even more energetic defense, and both alliances scores were greatly reduced. When the dust settled, our alliance came out on top with a score of 57-31, forcing a third round for the quarterfinals; alas, the win came at the price of having team 1126 snap two of their four drive chains and 195 threw one of their drive tracks.

The next few minutes were very hectic indeed, with two of our alliance members scurrying madly to get their robots repaired and our doing anything we could to help. Team 195 had an entire replacement wheel/tread assembly ready to bolt on to their robot. They made a complete swap faster than I would have imagined possible. NASCAR pit teams couldn't have done it any faster!

Meanwhile, team 1126 faced a difficult teardown and reassembly, as not only had their chains snapped, but the broken chains had jammed themselves tightly on one of their wheels. The difficulty of the repair was increased by the fact that the referees wouldn't let the team return to the pit area to make the repair -- the on deck area was in the dark, requiring the use of flashlights to try to see while making the fix. Given the difficult lighting and tightly jammed chain, before we knew it, our entire time-out period had completely elapsed.

At that point, in a great example of what gracious professionalism is all about, the opposing alliance of 271, 1103, and 181 took their time-out on our alliance's behalf in order to give 1126 the chance to get their robot ready for the match. We scrounged up a pair of halogen floodlights and brought them to the ondeck area so that 1126 wouldn't have to continue trying to repair their robot in the dark. In the meantime, we put our alliance's other two robots on the field and got ready for the match while the MC started to introduce the teams. The SparX pit crew continued to work on their robot and completed the repair to their drive chains just as the MC was finishing team introductions. However, as SparX went to put their robot on the field, the field crew said that our time was up and that we couldn't put the robot on the field -- it was too late.

We were stunned. After a gracious time-out by the opposing alliance and a gallant effort by 1126 to repair their robot, we missed the chance to get the third robot on the field by just seconds. We weren't even permitted to re-adjust our robots to different positions to accomodate a two-robot autonomous strategy. (A few minutes earlier we had arranged the robots for a two-robot strategy, but as SparX was headed back onto the field, we re-adjusted our robots back to a three-robot strategy, not realizing that they wouldn't be allowed on!) We were disappointed that after having worked so hard to restore the robot to operation, team 1126 wasn't able to put their bot on the field.

The third match started and team 181 succeeded in pushing us continually to slow down our autonomous shooting and cause some missed shots, holding us to only five balls in the high goal; meanwhile the combination of 1103 and 271 sunk six balls in autonomous, winning the all-important field advantage as well as the 10-point bonus by one ball! Despite valiant defense by 195 and our best efforts at scoring, being down a robot against such a strong alliance was way too much to overcome, and 271-1103-181 emerged the victors by a score of 54 to 31.

Our kudos go out to the opposing alliance of 271-1103-181 -- the gracious use of their time-out on our alliance's behalf was greatly appreciated -- without their extremely generous conduct, we would have had no chance to field three robots for the match. We were disappointed that they didn't go on to win the tournament, but we were ecstatic that team 271 was specially recognized in the award ceremony for their gracious professionalism -- it was very well deserved.

We also want to thank teams 1126 and 195 -- we were very excited to be able to have such extraordinary teams on our alliance. Even given the outcome of the tournament, we are very thankful to have you both partnered with us.

Most of all, however, our thanks go out to the many workers and organizers of BattleCry -- this tournament is an exceptional experience -- you can be sure we'll plan to be back again next year!

Re: BattleCry in Just ONE WEEK!
 

It may be a few days or weeks until we have all the matches online, as we are waiting for the WPI media server to have its storage space upgraded. I have put up "unofficial" copies of the opening ceremonies from Friday and Saturday, as well as the last finals match and the closing ceremonies on Saturday at http://users.wpi.edu/~brian/bc7/ .

Re: BattleCry in Just ONE WEEK!
 

well thanx for all the pats on the back but i believe team 271's alliance deserves it for giving us that timeout!!!
the stinky thing was that timeout they gave us lasted only 5 minutes instead of the alloted 10 minutes but oh well lessons learned

Re: BattleCry in Just ONE WEEK!
 

I hope that little bit wont keep you from coming back next year!

It's so nice seeing teams from farther away.

IMO, everyone should experience at least one Battlecry.

Re: BattleCry in Just ONE WEEK!
 

im not placing blame at all......but after watching the video we had taken, 195's tread was caught in one of our chains....this caused the canes to break.

on behalf of the sparX i want to that 1519 and 195 for being understanding and sincerly apoligize that we could not get our robot back on the field

Re: BattleCry in Just ONE WEEK!
 

...each year. :p

C'mon, Battlecry is like a safety valve for all that pent up defense you have. During the main season you want to win, so you score, score, score. But now in the off-season you want to play a really fun game, so you defend, defend, defend. And is that not what the off-season is about, having fun?

(Just a note to everyone: Not all teams play defense at Battlecry. 228 did not play hardcore defense at Battlecry - as always, we made it our goal to, well, score in the goal. I think we didn't do that bad either. And, despite that fact that BattleCry is the king of defense, 228, 40, and 121 did set the secong highest score of the 2005 season (with 128 points) at BattleCry6. :p)

Re: BattleCry in Just ONE WEEK!
 

Lucky for 177, we produced one of the strongest defensive robot(might i add, could score three pointer's). We just played are game, and it worked out to be a winning strategy...i have to say i loved the game this year...evey team had a diffrent style, you saw robots that did the same thing. however, the mechanics of each robot was total unique. Not to for get, i loved the new scoreing way battlecry introduced.

Over All,
i have to say this has been the Best Year, in my experience as a F.I.R.S.T.'er

Matt Pietkevich
aka
MaDcaDder

Re: BattleCry in Just ONE WEEK!
 

Battlecry is always a fun competition to attend (my sixth personally). I have to admit, beforehand, I thought that the toggle above midfield would go mostly unused. But there were some fierce battles fought over that extra 10 points. Also, I haven't seen lighting like their's at a FIRST event in years. So props to the Battlecry crew for once again putting on an excelent event (and I swear, one of these years, I'll actually attend both days).

Re: BattleCry in Just ONE WEEK!
 

Well, I guess I'll start out by thanking teams 1027 and 1058 you guys were great alliance partners and I'm so glad that we made it to quarter finals. I had so much fun at BattleCry this year (as I did last year) and would like to thank WPI and team 190 and everyone else who helped to make it possible.

The fact that there would be 16 teams selecting alliances gave my team some trouble. I didn't think about the fact that, as a 21st seed, we could move into alliance captain position. We sent our spirit captain down to the field to "graciously accept" and then I realized that she had no list an no idea who to pick. Since we don't scout off-season competitions, I didn't have a list on hand. I had made a list of who I thought was good, mostly because I like to watch the selection and wonder why people make the choices they do. (I had info because I always watch with a pencil, but no real data)

So I ended up running down there and giving my illegible-to-anyone-but-me list to our spirit captain. She promptly told me that she couldn't read it and would have no idea who to pick. The driver for 181 was standing behind us and told us that they had been using off-season drivers for the seeding matches and would probably not be selected but would use their on-season drivers for the finals. Having had success with 181 before, and knowing that they had a good robot, my final advice to our team rep was...

"If you have to pick someone and you don't know what to do, pick him."

And that is how not to give a scouting report. So that was my official signing off as Team 175's resident scouting nerd.

I was glad to see all of my friends from other competitions and teams that I have spent the last two years getting to know. I wish you all the best of luck in the years to come. WPI was a great way to end my time as a student on team 175!