Re: 2008 West Michigan Regional
 

The intent of many rules has been clearly repeated by the GDC in the Q&A. They continue to affirm that any slight incursion of the robot into the previous quadrant is a <G22>. Any bumping of the robot while it is hurdling other than incidental contact is a <G42>.

Cite?

Re: 2008 West Michigan Regional
 

Wow, what an amazing set of elimination matches!

First off, I would like to thank all the people that took time to explain all or parts of their machines to me. This was my second FRC event, and the first I wasn't sick at, and I was amazed at how great all the teams were about me wandering into their pits and looking at their 'bots. Special thanks to teams 33 and 85 for being exceptionally accommodating of my questions.

Congrats to the winning alliance of 71, 2171 and 2604. The 71 machine looked great with the new roller pickup; I especially liked the catches off the overpass and the pick-ups by smashing the ball with the side and popping it up and over the edge of their 'bot. 2604 played some amazing defense on the ball in a number of matches. If video gets up before MN, I will likely get some videos of 2604 in elims to show to my drive team as well as alliance partners; that's what defense in this game is about. 2171 seemed to sneak through both quals and elims without getting a whole ton of attention (from me at least), but they played solid the whole way through and definitely got it done.

Congrats to the runners-up, 33, 302, 141 and 1677. A great alliance, I wish we could have seen the finals with all the robots working (not to take anything away from the winners).

Congrats to all the award winners, especially Chairman's winner team 226 and EI winner team 141.

Kudos to all the volunteers that made the weekend run so smoothly (field issues aside, and even those were handled well). I think the MC/announcer did a great job of making sure all the penalties were announced. I also think the refs did a very good job of reffing. I didn't necessarily agree with the way G42 was being called, but it is definitely a judgment call and it was called consistently all weekend. I saw a number of hybrids over or under scored and hurdles scored when they shouldn't have been or not scored when they should have; these errors in RTS were always corrected in the final score.

This was a great event, and everyone involved definitely made it worth coming all the way from MN for.

Re: 2008 West Michigan Regional
 

Alright, im sorry i didnt have a chance to look at that Q and A...in that case i just overall disagree with first but the ruling was completely ok, although i do still think if we are being such sticklers about it all the lines should be monitored at all times.

As for the removing balls from the field comment...apparently i was mistaken. I thought i read it somewhere but i looked over the manual and i think it was told to me by someone. It might have been at the drivers meeting or it might have been my coach, im not quite sure.

Re: 2008 West Michigan Regional
 

I just want to say congratulations to all the teams at west michigan for an absolutely AMAZING competition!!

Congratulations to 2171, 71. You guys were awesome alliance partners and I look foreward to seeing you guys in Atlanta.:D

Also, way to go 141, 33, 302, and 1677 you guys played great together and were fierce competition. Awesome job!

i'm not just saying this because i am a mentor for 2604...It was another amazing year at west michigan!!

And...

I can't wait for Great lakes... There our (team 1718) is competing!

Re: 2008 West Michigan Regional
 

I think your coach misunderstood something the refs said. You can't ram a fallen robot at high speed, but you can push it out of the way without penalty. Determining whether a specific action is one or the other is up to the official.

Re: 2008 West Michigan Regional
 

One of the only reasons we came up with that defense is because in our first match with you one of the martians somehow had one of our balls cornered. We lost because of that. We also seen a similar defense played by team 1 in Detroit.

Re: 2008 West Michigan Regional
 

If a robot tips and is unable to right itself, and doesn't hit the E-stop then that robot can be called for impeading. No penalty can be called on anyone who hits that robot. directly stated by head the ref at Detroit regional.:ahh:

Re: 2008 West Michigan Regional
 

wow im learning who my team members cd accounts r :)

Re: 2008 West Michigan Regional
 

Thanks Ryan. In our second year we learned a lot. One thing I am proud of as a mentor is the drivers programmed the entire robot. Last summer, when we were getting ready for IRI, I bought a second control system on EBAY. After paying to have it reconditioned, we built a second robot using the remnants of a little kids BARBIE Jeep. There were two Fisher Price Motors in there. Andrew and David, our drivers, spent about 2 weeks programming it and when we started getting ready for IRI, we decided we wanted to try autonomous programming. They threw out our code and rewrote the entire program in Easy C, added autonomous programming with some help from Jeff Beatty and nothing has stopped them from learning. They wrote the tank drive code. They integrated ultrasonic pingers. They integrated the IR board. Andrew and David adjusted the program when we got to the Boiler Maker Regional, compensating for driving on carpet rather than the tile we had practiced on.

Casey, the student who was our Robocoach, welded our entire robot while teaching my daughter and a couple of other students how to weld. His dad is a mechanic and had taught him and he did all the work for our team, teaching other students along the way.

Team Hammond has been a great resource for us and we would not be where we were in our second year without their mentoring. We sincerely thank them for all their help. Brian Beatty ran our alliance and I learned a lot from him. He stressed how important it was to work as a team do your role. 2604 was fantastic in their role. He pointed out that attrition is a big part of doing well in the finals, keeping your machine running match after match and being ready for quick repairs. He made sure each team understood if they had a penalty why it was called to eliminate repeating a mistake. We almost had to call a time out and he explained good strategy on using timeouts. A great experience for me as a mentor.

Re: 2008 West Michigan Regional
 

hey does any one know what happened to team 2337`s hammer the last match they played it only worked once.:confused:

Re: 2008 West Michigan Regional
 

There were no technical problems during the last few matches, we just were defensed too well.

We had one match earlier in the day when the fuse for our compressor blew, so we were unable to use the hammer.

Re: 2008 West Michigan Regional
 

Also our common wire on the Spike for the compressor came out during the finals... therefore no compressor = no hammer action.

-Oris-

Re: 2008 West Michigan Regional
 

I am an adult mentor for 2171. We are a second year team. I thought you guys had a great machine. We had a great rookie alliance partner in 2604 and knowing what it takes to do what you and all the other rookies did, I want to congragulate you. Great job and keep up the good work. It is nice to see that teams that are in the 2000's can be competitive with the veteran teams.

Re: 2008 West Michigan Regional
 

well i think that your bot is awsome team 2337, i wish we thought of that. then maybe we would have been in the finals, also a part of is was our driver didnt practice, that was our first time compeating this year.

Re: 2008 West Michigan Regional
 

i also have a question does any one have a link for a video of all the matches? because my family couldnt go and they want to watch it.
i looked on you tube and google but could not find any can someone post the link if there is one?

Re: 2008 West Michigan Regional
 

I found matches 51-72 here:

http://soap.circuitrunners.com/2008/movies/mi/

For the match schedule go here:

http://www.thebluealliance.net/tbatv...hp?eventid=164


Hopefully they will post the rest of them soon.

-Oris-

Re: 2008 West Michigan Regional
 

This video was made by Dee and Randy from Team Hammond. My daughter posted it yesterday from the finals.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ikfog2niF6I

Re: 2008 West Michigan Regional
 

I'm working on getting them split/transcoded. I uploaded the second day qualification (TBA/SOAP/FIRST Video Archive), and am working on first day qualification. If those from SOAP are good enough quality for everyone, LET ME KNOW so I don't have to learn VirtualDub for this particular project and so I can speed things up.

Re: 2008 West Michigan Regional
 

yes, the ones on SOAP are great! I check every day waiting for the rest :yikes: ...you have the finals matches also right?

Re: 2008 West Michigan Regional
 

ok tyvm for your help

Re: 2008 West Michigan Regional
 

ya i just found out after school today my teacher that does the robotics club isn't doing it next year:( :( :( :(

Re: 2008 West Michigan Regional
 

I will also be working on the video tomorrow afternoon. I had someone else switching my DVDs and I think I missed saturday morning. Hopefully all videos will be up by mid thursday.

-Mike AA

Re: 2008 West Michigan Regional
 

OK, that makes thing easier.

Mike, I've got Saturday morning up already. If you can post Friday, that'd be great; my sound levels were too high, so the audio is craptastic at best. If you want me to, I think I can post most of finals, although I don't recall if I caught the first few rounds of the QFs.

Either way, I'll work on finals Wednesday after 3pm if I don't have too much homework.

Re: 2008 West Michigan Regional
 

thanks guys llet me know when u got them all up:D :] :) :) :cool:

Re: 2008 West Michigan Regional
 

is there any one goin to atlantia and useing a crab drive sistem that might be able to help us?

Re: 2008 West Michigan Regional
 

Here are some pics from the West Michigan event. My apologies that it took so long, I have been traveling....

All the photos are full resolution if you click on the medium sized photo it will open in a new window (then right click to save-as).

NOTE: Selecting on "all" photos takes a long time to load because only the "favorites" are cached.

MWR Qualifications Day: Favorites (260) All (1033)


MWR Eliminations Day: Favorites (255) All (914)

-J

Re: 2008 West Michigan Regional
 

Thank you for these! There are some truly excellent photos of our team, especially our drive team!

Re: 2008 West Michigan Regional
 

Any luck on finishing the videos from the West Michigan Regional?

-Oris-

Re: 2008 West Michigan Regional
 

any one have the vids for the regonal and nationals?


also Visit My Website "http://www.freewebs.com/kane300" im still working on it so dont expect so much.

Re: 2008 West Michigan Regional
 

many of west michigan videos are here. I am still working on getting the rest online.


-Mike AA

Re: 2008 West Michigan Regional
 

Hello my name is Christian, I did on Saturday a pag the regional michigan the url is www.frcregional2008.cl.tc every day I will climb more photo but complete and finish.
Thank you very much



www.frcregional2008.cl.tc

Re: 2008 West Michigan Regional
 

It was a lot of fun... thanks to everybody that put it on, the Killer Bees, Dragons, and Quantum Ninjas. Congrats to The Beast, Metal and Soul, and Robo Dogs. See you next year!