Re: IRI - Comments, Suggestions,
 

hahahaha I'm with you, Chris.
Maybe we're just old. :cool:

Re: IRI - Comments, Suggestions,
 

GTR had twelve alliances for eliminations; the top four alliances got byes in the first elimination round. They used the serpentine draft order; i.e., 1st alliance captain got the first pick in the first draft round, then 12th alliance got first pick in the second draft round.

Re: IRI - Comments, Suggestions,
 

IRI 2006 was an extremely well organized event. My team (IRI rookies) had a great time, even while being overwhelmed by the very high level of competition.

We attended mainly to get some experience for our returning students, but will almost certainly return if we can.

Storm damage in St. Louis forced us to leave IRI just after alliance selection and before dodgeball. We were sorry to have miss the fun on Saturday afternoon.

Electric power was just restored at my house about 3:30 this morning, after about 100 hours outage. I need to catch up on a few threads now ...

Re: IRI - Comments, Suggestions,
 

More D.S.K. YEAHHHHHHH!!!!!!

Re: IRI - Comments, Suggestions,
 

About the only negative I can think of regarding this year's IRI is that our robot lost a drive chain early in the mentor round, spoiling my fun. Oh well.

IRI has become not only the best off-season event going, but in many ways, it is better than the best of the Regionals (IMHO). The level of play is fantastic. The elimination round matches at IRI were much better than what I saw at the regionals I attended. Everyone has had time to work things out, but also, the quality of teams at IRI is exceptional. I was impressed that some excellent teams which had so-so seasons this year made the effort to build new robots or major mechanisms to give themselves another chance to improve their season.

The referee work at IRI is superb. Things were called well, and also, I liked the rule changes that were made from this year's "official" rules regarding alliance selection and corner goal intrusion.

About my only criticism would be that it was too difficult to find information such as the team list, rules changes, dodge ball tournament entry, the webcast, etc. Information was spread out over the indianafirst.org, Team 234, and Chief Delphi web sites, and it took too much searching to find out about the webcast. That's about my only suggestion. Consolidate this info and make it easy to find.

When the Pink Team attended IRI last year, our plan was to attend IRI once, and then go to a different summer off-season like the one in Massachusetts. After winning last year, we decided to return try to defend our championship this year and then maybe go somewhere else next year. It turns out, though, that there is already talk among some of the team about next year, so who knows? The trip from Florida to Indiana is not a lot of fun, so the fact that our team is even considering returning for a third IRI says a lot about the event.

Re: IRI - Comments, Suggestions,
 

Just a few observations:

Signs with schedule times and locations would be great for newbies.

Pit area: there should be a way for the row we were in (up against the wall) to get to the exit doors without going deeper into the building for safety reasons.

A monitor with the ratings in the pit area and maybe another on the 2nd level would be nice.

The dinner thing was a nice touch, but needs to be better organized. Our drivers were 4 people from the food when they were called out to drive in their match. They had already been in line for 20 minutes before then. Can the teams go in shifts or have more lines open to accomodate everyone at once?

Our team had a great time at the event. It was nice to see some teams that we had played before and see some other great bots too.

DeAnna

Re: IRI - Comments, Suggestions,
 

well i was the gunner for IRI this year and i was last years arm operator so i had my chance to defend our teams title as champs and i can't say anything else but wow this is an amazing competition definatly harder than any matchs i have ever drove in or anything its so much harder than nats i believe cus it seems that IRI takes all the best teams and puts them under one roof and its amazing. JUST AMAZING and i would love to come again but its up to my team but i just love this competition and the only thing i would want out of it is archived matchs so we can watch them agian cus the matchs at IRI are the best i have ever played in and i couldn't ask for me.

thanks to all who made it happen it has not let me down yet it has actually surprised me as i come bak it just seems to get better every year.

Re: IRI - Comments, Suggestions,
 

My only complaint is the long drive... IRI is perhaps the most amazing event ever, organized by perhaps the most amazing group of people ever, but with all that brain power, one would think you would have created some kind of a time warp or wormhole or something... Now that I've mentioned the possibility of a wormhole, I'll expect one next year...

The mentor round counted? :eek:

Heidi

Re: IRI - Comments, Suggestions,
 

Of course the mentor rounds counted :]


Thank you all for the positive comments.

Re: IRI - Comments, Suggestions,
 

IRI is by far the best event I have ever attended. Maybe it was b/c I wasn't under any pressure as an operator or coach, but it was immense fun. There was an extreme level of competition that I don't even think is rivaled by The Championship. I've never seen harder fought matches then the semis and finals. Dean should come and learn from IRI.

Now, onto some nitpicks.

1. As pit announcer: I felt that I was under-informed on where and when stuff was, i.e. the talent show was in the auditorium from 12-2, but where was the auditorium? And the VIP pits were next to the playing field and when one of those teams was late to a match, I was unknowingly announcing them eventhough they couldn't hear me until I realized it and informed the person on the other end of the radio that they were out there.

2. As a spectator: I thought the competition was great. I liked the announcers from what I heard of them in the eliminations. I missed Copioli but I did listen to him on the lunch break. Although, the announcers were a bit loud.

I think that's about it. It was a very good competition. The school was perfect for the set-up too.

Re: IRI - Comments, Suggestions,
 

Please no fire alarms. Wearing a black t-shirt outside is no fun in the hot sun. Also I would have liked a team social afterwards. to say goodbye to all of my friends.

other than its too short, there is nothing that can be changed. that was so much fun.

Re: IRI - Comments, Suggestions,
 

Re: IRI - Comments, Suggestions,
 

This was my first IRI and just being able to go was a privelege in itself.

The food prices were extremely reasonable and there was a good selection

seating was adequete

One thing I didnt understand was why were the pits so squished in close together when there was sooo much space in that big gym?

Re: IRI - Comments, Suggestions,
 

I believe at times the basketball team had practice on the other end of the court, so they need that much...I guess. On a side note, the basketball team that plays there was the 2006 National High School Basketball Champion.

Re: IRI - Comments, Suggestions,
 

Good point.

No, that has nothing to do with it. There are 3 things:

1. Electrical distribution
The spacing is such because of limitation we had for electrical power for feeding the pits. If we spread out the pits more, we would need an improved electrical distribution system.

2. Tarps
Wherever there are pits, there must be tarps

3. Vex
We had the other side of the gym set up for a Vex tournament, but when it was decided that we were not going to play a Vex competition, it was too late to create more electrical hardware for better pit distribution.

We'll improve on #1 and #2 next year. Who knows, we may be able to bring back Vex at IRI also.

Thanks for the input.

Andy