Re: Palmetto Regional
 

343 - Your NASA/VCU friends at 2068 were all pulling for you!! We were so disappointed to see you eliminated in yet another tough semifinal. See you at the championship in a few weeks.

Re: Palmetto Regional
 

congrats to 832, 342, and 1319.

Re: Palmetto Regional - Congrats.
 

Way to go Alliance winners:
1319 Golden Flash
832 Chimera
342 Burning Magnetos

Hope Chimera can make it to the Championship event. Way to go bringing a win home to GA!

Congrats to team 1746 Forsyth Alliance for your
Industrial Design award and Industrial Safety mention.

Congrats to
Rookie All Stars - 2237 The Junkyard Robo's
Engineering Inspiration - 337 Hard Working Hard Hats
Chairmans Award - 1102 M'Aiken Magic
Dave

Re: Palmetto Regional
 

Thanks to our allience partners first of all. 1626 and 1758 you guys were amazing and the reason why we got to the finals. Words can not express our gratitude to you guys for helping us keep our machine going. Our friends from 845 for cheering us on and accepting us into there wonderful state. Our buddies from Florida 386 for sitting next to us and cheering for us. Billfred and Barry my two personal friends good to see you two, you guys are great. The regional was great on a whole. The defense was pretty good and our robot took quite a beating. I felt like the scouting was not great becuase 342 is a much better robot then a third round pick but on mans loss is anothers gain. 1251 had a wonderful time hopefully we will be back next year. 1251 will be making improvements and be ready to go for nationals, I can assure you that. Dave will be on later to explain our difficulties in finals robot wise.

Thanks to everyone that made the Palmetto regional great,

-Drew

Re: Palmetto Regional
 

Just an outsider looking in but... it your sponsor cuts you budget ... maybe you need to get out and find more sponsors ....
Why do you think race cars have so many stickers on them?

Re: Palmetto Regional
 

Oy, don't remind me! ;) It's true: the field saw 1618 and 1251 square off on back-to-back matches--first in Q75, then in QF1-1. The result? The 1251 alliances outscored the 1618 alliances to the tune of 404-0. (And yes, I stand by the comments I made in the BAE thread a few weeks ago. Of all the people who could've blown us out, I'm glad 1251 was involved.)

I'll go ahead and get all the thanks and congrats out...

First and foremost, thank you to 801 and 1102 for joining us in our brief run in the quarterfinals. I was just hopeful that we'd make it to the elimination rounds alone, but to be picking was just mind-blowing...mind-blowing to the point that the pick list I gave our student was completely flying by the seat of my pants. All three of us gave it all we could muster--I wish we could've kept running enough to try our strategy in QF1-2 for real, but it is what it is. Thanks for a great run.

And of course, congratulations to 1102 again for bringing home Chairman's.

Thanks to all of our partners in qualifying--that'd be 1102, 343, 1251, 538, 537, 1390, 337, 900, 665, 1293, 34, and 1249, if you were wondering--for a great series of matches. Ten rounds was hard on everybody, but we worked great together. We had a few mechanical issues here and there (particularly in the match with 1251 and 665, which kept us from taking the field with 343 and 1293)--I hope we didn't let you down too hard. I'd work with any of you again.

My apologies to all of the teams we had to defend against, especially if we did anything bad to your robots. (I tried to catch up with all of the folks we seemed to target harder than others, but some almost surely slipped through the cracks.) I wanted the arm to come out as well as it was back in the shop before ship day, but in the end defense was all we could bring to the table.

Thanks to Tom, the IFI guy and Ed Sparks on 34 for all their help with getting our controller and radio back up to snuff.

Huge thanks to all the teams who helped us out with parts and ideas--587, 343, 665, 1293, and 1959 all come to mind, but I know that's not the full list.

Big ups to 342 for their first-ever regional championship. I didn't believe it when Mike Byran told me, but it's true--this is the first time 342's run the whole bracket, and the first time they've been in the finals since 2001. (Going back to shortly after Palmetto last year, Mike Bryan has been talking about keeping it simple in this year's design. Looks like that focus is paying off big time.)

I do have to give thanks to everyone who didn't ride me too hard about our arm bopping me in the chin Thursday. It hurt, I'm okay, it was a better example than if anyone else had done it. (The controls got knocked, and I was caught off-guard. The end hit squarely in the chin, but didn't cause any damage beyond a little mark. Though eating that thick roast beef sandwich right afterward wasn't particularly fun...)

And finally, thanks to all the students, mentors, parents, friends, and random well-wishers from Columbia High School. This was my first season away from "home", as it were, and I wasn't fully sure what to expect with 1618. We fought just about everything, it seems--manpower shortages, funds, the Postal Services department of the University of South Carolina, you name it--but we stuck it out until the bitter end. I wouldn't trade the past seven months for anything.

So, uh, how long until Palmetto 2008?

Re: Palmetto Regional
 

I just got back from Palmetto, and I must say, THAT WAS FUN. We finally got our arm working and it was nice. We even outscored 1626 in the match we had together. (We put up 5, they put up 4 for a total of 9) We had some really bad luck though, in our first match our main power cable fell out of the distro block, and we didn't play, and in repairing that problem, we accidentally unplugged our gripper, so we didn't do well in the next match, and so on. But, we're still satisfied, our scouting worked beautifully (Thanks 768 for the match scouting program) and our offense was pretty good. We may have won rarely, but consider the following, the top 15 offensive teams at Palmetto after Friday were 1. 1626, 2. 832, 3. 1251, 4. 1746, 5. 342, 6. 343, 7. 34, 8. 587, 9. 1249, 10. 1319, 11. 1369, 12. 386, 13. 801, 14. 1102, 15. 1287. For a team that has played defensively our entire existence (barring 2001 because it was 4v0) a top ten offensive ranking with our robot only fully functional in 6 of the 8 matches for which statistics were gathered makes us very proud.

Re: Palmetto Regional
 

I also just got home from the 3.5 hour drive from Columbia. I can't stop smiling. It was a great regional and we are very thrilled about the win.

Thanks to the Golden Flashes (1319) and Burning Magnetos (342) for being such great alliance partners. We really appreciate the pick and we knew we had a great chance at winning it all. However, when we saw the #1 seed score so many, so fast, we were a little scared. Congrats to 1251, 1646, and 1758 for being so great in competition and so wonderful after the match. I'm sorry we're not going to see 1646 in Atlanta because their bot is truly remarkable. You all should be very proud.

Another shout out to The Junkyard Robo's (2237) for winning Rookie All Stars. We were paired with you several times on Friday and loved winning 2 out of 3 with you in those early matches. Good luck in Atlanta.

Congrats to M'Aiken Magic (1102) for winning Chairman's. We like seeing you each year at Peachtree and were proud to be on your alliance there. We wish your teacher/mentor all the best and to get better soon. We'll see you again in Atlanta.

Thanks to the Forsyth Alliance (1746) and the representatives from Team Soup (1848) who cheered us on and to all the other folks from Georgia who watched the webcast and IM-ed us during the day. We loved having you in our corner and appreciated all the support.

And finally, a big thanks to our Coach, Tom Bishop. Two weeks ago at Peachtree, after our valiant run on the last day, he thought that we had a chance to do better at Palmetto. So he got us in on a late registration. I thought we had a chance, but I had no idea how wonderful it was to come out on top. Tom: Thanks for believing in us and helping make it real.

Good luck to all at Championships. We look forward to you hosting you in our fair city. Go FIRST!!!

Mannie

Re: Palmetto Regional
 

Wow, what an amazing two weeks for 1626. I just want to thank all of those that were supporting us while we were here in Palmetto. It was nice to know that our partners, 121, from Boston were supporting us, as well as our opponents from Boston, 125. You guys really kept us going. As disappointing as it is that our official 2007 has come to an end, it's still an amazing season. Two time finalist at two awesome regionals, and Delphi Driving Tomorrow's Technology Award is just flat out awesome. I want to personally thank Corey and Tom, for sitting and watching the webcast and giving us support/help. You guys are awesome.

Also many thanks to 1251 and 1758. The run to the finals was hard fought and well earned. I think those were some of the most amazing major repairs that have ever been completed in such a short time period. We had parts machined inbetween matches for 1251. Their turret went unused in one match, but we were able to replace a custom modification that they had no spares for in such a short time period. Can't forget 1758 either. They also had to replace critical parts of their gripper at least twice. Amazing show of worksmanship, really inspiring. 1626 almost made it without any major repairs. Right before the final match, we had to replace a wheel. It literally took us about 30 seconds to do. I couldn't have asked for a better run to the finals in either Boston or Palmetto.

I know I've forgotten people, but seriously, THANK YOU to all that helped make this the most unforgettable season for 1626. We'll see you all in the off-seasons ;)

Re: Palmetto Regional
 

Team 342 would like to tell Flash 1319, "WE LOVE YOU GUYS." Huge thanks to 832 also! That was an amazing day with great compedition. The eliminations were filled with some close scores and some great calls by the judges. 342 has won chairman's 3 times, but we could never have won our first regional with these two amazing teams. All three of us had mechanical break downs between rounds and our team members steped up over came snaped arms, bent pistons, and burnt motors. Congrats to 1251, 1646, and 1758, they put up stiff compedtion all day and actually had us pretty nervous during eliminations. They showed great GP afterwards and we enjoyed playing with them.

Re: Palmetto Regional
 

CONGRATULATIONS GUYS! We'll see you in Atlanta! You made us proud (and it was a good feeling to know that we got knocked out by the #1 team!!!)

Re: Palmetto Regional
 

Hey, this is the arm operator from 832 (you know, the guy with the fox tail and the goggles?) I would like to thank 1319 for picking us and 342 for completing our awesome alliance. I hope that we all end up in the same division at nationals so we can get another chance to work together! Great job everybody!

Re: Palmetto Regional
 

Eh, I'm pretty sure 1626 had everything under control. You guys should be really proud of yourselves. You've made an amazing run this season. You ran into a bit of bad luck at both regionals that kept you away from the gold, but hey, thats just life. So 1626, enjoy your off season, and come back next year and show the world what you're made of. You deserve the gold more than anyone I know, and don't worry, eventually fate will fall to your side.

Re: Palmetto Regional
 

I have been to four regionals before, and Palmetto 2007 was the most fun. Thanks to everyone who made it that way.

Re: Palmetto Regional
 

First of all I want to thank 1626 and 1758 for being great alliance partners. We are so sorry we let you guys down at the end. For those of you who were watching the web cast or the competition from the stands, I would like to explain what happened to our (1251’s) robot; there is a learned lesson in the end and an advise for others.

During semi-final match number 2 we broke the plastic coupler that connects to the window motor, which drives our turret. This was due to the heavy defense that was being played on our arm. After this match was over 1626 made a brand new piece for us in literally less than two minutes. The kit piece obviously had some modifications. This shows how great they are working in a team and being gracious professional. THANK YOU GUYS. In the mean time we drilled some holes on our robot to lock our turret into place so we could at least score with up and down motion. Unfortunately in the heat of competition and the shortage of time we did not think of covering our robot to catch the aluminum chips. On the first final match our robot did not move. We had no idea why. We kept looking for a problem and we could not find it. On the second match the drive train kept dying and the arm would not go up sometimes. For the third match our arm would not go up at all, the motor did not even try, but it did in the other direction. We kept looking for a problem in our electronics. Everything looked fine. When we got back to the pits to crate the robot we decided to find the problem, and we found that the aluminum chips we did not catch were in the pwm and digital inputs in the controller.

Lesson learned, NO MATTER WHAT cover your electronics when cutting metal on the robot. We usually do but we were in a rush and made one BIG mistake.
Overall we are very happy about the competition. It was GREAT. Thanks to all of the volunteers and the people that made it happen.

David Guzman