VCU Regional??
 

Who's going to the VCU Regional?

I know Maximum Oz, Team 388 will be there!!

Re: VCU Regional??
 

You can find the complete list on the FIRST Website. Team 1123 will definitely be there at VCU!

See you there,

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team 612 is probable

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hey im glad to see that my team 612 is going this year...ill look for you guys there if i can make it

good luck to everyone there!
also i havent seen many pics of the robots showing up - who do you guys think are going to be serious threats at VCU?

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422 will definitely be there!

to answer your question, i think sparky, deep run, and godwin will all be a threat, seeing as they are all shooters. Ive seen them and they look good. We are only lifting (and just did it for the first time at 1AM ship night) but we hope to hold our own out there. Does anyone else think that its weird having VCU on week 2? It will be nice to see the game played before we have to for once.

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Hawaiian Kids will be there for the first time.
We have one member who has never been on a plane, has to fly for 12 hours total and then we drive from Baltimore for another 2 1/2 to 3 hours.
Aloha!!!:p

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Team 540 will be there! Good luck to everyone and we're lookin forward to seeing all of you at VCU! :D

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We met one of your team members, David Sporno, who talks to us a lot via PM. We have an aloha shirt just for him, via his request.:D

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will the competition be broadcast online at all this year? if so, where?

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975 will be there. We think our robot can compete very well this year.:D

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2106 is making a return trip to VCU. We don't hurdle, we'll leave that to the Henrico teams. BUT, if you need a ball delivered to ya may i suggest Lucky's Delivery Service?

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i like the ball hugging gripper
check out 612's air travel system

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbGBxKjMlh0

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2186 will be there. Not hurdling but knocking them down and running laps like a greyhound.


Chris McKenzie
2186

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I like the thing pointing up instead! Ball popper!??:eek:

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Oh yeah, i forgot about that part. Lucky is packing heat. She has to be able to protect herself...

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401 will be there!


I am excited to see GRUNDY back at VCU!!!

If you haven't seen it yet, here is our promo video:

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Apparently so by the size of that thing! Hope your on our side.:ahh:

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If i can help it! I spent 3 years in Honolulu, living next to a big pink hospital, when i was growing up. I will definitely be looking you up even if it's to bush up on my pigeon ;)

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Im gonna be in town for this weekend, I might just have to stop by and check out the last day of games!

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1086 will!!!!!!!! and we're all pumped about it too!!!!

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1610 will be back....we finished sooner than last year and were able to get more practice in this year. I wonder if the Hawaii team has heard of 510? heheh...The big boss at work (who I talk to about BAE sponsoring us was
President of Hawaii Shipyards (now BAE Hawaii Shiprepair)
We also have a electrical mentor who was in Hawaii while stationed there
with the coast guard. He was suprized they are coming all the way to VCU.

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I've also talked to one of the mentors from 1598 (one of our alliance partners
from 2006 ) and they will be there too

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You can count Sparky 384 in for the NASA/ VCU Regional. We've already been there 8 years in a row, why wouldn't we make it 9:D
I can't wait to get the bot out of the crate and fire it back up!

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Since this is somewhat Dave Lavery's regional, we decided to attend. We did week 1 last year and almost came, but decided instead to go to NJ.
BAE is part sponsor of the Hawaii regional and many Hawaii teams with "large" sponsorships, but we aren't part of that collaboration. :( Our school is about an hour away from the nearest FIRST team in Hawaii.
I met the VCU and Chesapeake regional director by accident in Atlanta last summer and after my conversation with her, I made the decision that our team would attend both. There was a FIRST exhibition in Atlanta which I stumbled on by accident while there. Checked it out, met her there, and that's why we're coming.
We are very excited. We are spending this week prepping our Hawaii items to give out. Cant wait to meet you all!!!

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Off topic:
We've been trying to figure out what to do with our spare time other than outlet mall shopping/eating places.
What would you do for fun, especially in Richmond? I'm asking for our student team members and adults.

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The CAA men's basketball championship tournament is going on at the Richmond Coliseum March 7-10. I know I will be there.
If that isn't your thing, there is a bowling alley ~10 min west on Broad street from the Siegel Center also. Movie theatre another 5 min after that.

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617 will be there

cant wait

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Don't forget VCU's school of engineering usually has an open house on Thursday night and then you have the team social on Friday at the Virginia
Science Museum.

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thanks, we were planning to attend both. I like the bowling and movie idea also. Is it worth driving an hour or so south or west? Any sights to see?

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If you go east you can hit the Air and Space Museum down in Hampton, that's just over one hour down 64. West, about an hour and a half away is Charlottesville, and I'm not too sure what there is south of town.

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Richmond is rich in History. There are many sites in the area related to the settling of Virginia to the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement. Williamsburg is roughly an hour away. If you want to take a side trip, Thomas Jefferson's University of Virginia and Monticello are 1.5 hours away and Washington D.C. is 2 hours away.

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thank you.
By the way, that pink hospital in hawaii is tripler hospital near the airport and I think you meant "pidgin." Howzit!!:D

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Who all is submitting their Chairman's Award at VCU this year. 612 had a lot of fun submitting at our home regional last year, from what I hear it may be another exciting Chairman's competition this year! :D

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Wow, how nice of Dave to sponsor a regional out of his back pocket!

*whispers into ear*

Oh what, he doesn't? Oh... um, then how is this Dave's regional then? Isn't this... oh... Virginia's regional? Or something like that?

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Team 388 submitted there Chairman's Award earlier this week. Our PR Team sure had a fun time writing it, too.

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if you had some warmer weather (aka summer) you'd probably like to go to Kings Dominion....about 30 mins away north-east on I-95

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What's that? Guess I'll look it up.
As for the Dave's regional comment, just was kidding.:)

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Speaking of rich in history, depending on the weather it might be fun to take a walk around the canal walk and belle/browns isle and stuff. There are placks and little monuments to history and the civil war, and one of those islands used to be an old prison/iron works/hydroelectric power plant and structures form all of those are still standing. Walking around in an 80 year old hydroelectric dam is pretty fun.

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LOL! I looked up King's Dominion with my students, and they got hella excited. Then as I was browsing the site and checked the calendar dates, they are closed til March.
Sorry, but if you saw the disappointed looks on our student's faces, you just gotta laugh. Never seen a high become so low so fast.
I like outlet malls and eateries, they just want the theme parks.

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Hi...thats why i mentioned warmer weather....soory for the kids...still there are lots of things to do in Richmond.

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you guys are awesome!


I cant belive that the NASA /VCU regional ( the best regional ever) is finally this weekend!

Its gonna be good , vcu is stacked this year with alot of really good teams and theres a fair share of shooters and speed bots that i know of.

best of luck to everyone , and I cant wait to see everyone

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435 will be there =D

i cant wait!!!

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dude , a guy that was on yalls team during stack attack is now one of our mentors

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Drive a hour south and you could end up in Southampton County (place of Nat Turner's slave rebellion) or Franklin (some civil war history, but not too much else) and visit Team 1610. Other than Franklin, theres not much to do if you head south of Richmond, but you could head southeast to the seven cities AKA Hampton Roads (Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Newport News, Suffolk, Chesapeake, Hampton, Portsmouth) If you want to head down there, check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampton_Roads It has all the good Hampton Roads history, and even a list of attractions.

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Busch Gardends > Kings Dominion any day of the week

Though yeah it's generally not open till later on in the spring time.

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A lot of this depends on how much time you have and when. I am assuming that you will have a bus to get around in.
On nice weather days, Belle Isle is a terrific place for outside running around and general relaxing. Access is via bridge hung under Belvedere Street is and right by the VCU campus. Many students go there on nice spring days, or swimming in warmer summer days. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belle_Isle_(Virginia)
Maymont Park is also fun, there is a small zoo there in addition to the gardens. http://www.maymont.org/

The CAA basketball tournament is Friday-Monday, with games downtown at the Richmond Coliseum. http://www.caasports.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=43048&SPID=3455&DB_OEM_ID=8 500&ATCLID=1402043
About an hour and a half west is Charlottesville, with Monticello. Would make a nice half day trip. http://www.monticello.org/
About an hour east is Williamsburg and a bit past that is Jamestown. http://www.history.org/ http://www.historyisfun.org/
Headed north, you have DC about two hours away on the way to Annapolis with all that DC has to offer.

That is what comes to mind right now. If you had any other suggestions or details I could likely find something else fun.

Cheers
Wetzel
(Born in that pink hospital)

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Here's the Weather Report for the VCU regional:

Wed
Mar 5 Partly Cloudy
64°/38°

Thu
Mar 6 Sunny
61°/44°

Fri
Mar 7 Showers 50%
56°/33°


Sat
Mar 8 Partly Cloudy
47°/26°


Sun
Mar 9 Sunny
49°/30°

Bring what cold weather cloths you have. This isn't going to be a weekend for a trip to Bellows Beach. On the plus side, no man-o-war's within 2000 miles.

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phantom robots (2028) will be there to go get our ticket to the finals in georgia this year, so everybody else better just go and pick up the crates becausse u dont wanna be embaressed now do u? i didn think so (JKJK) but no everybody better be on there A game this year and u can see the webcast by going to the same place u did the nj and other last weekend.:)

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64° + "cold weather clothes" = does not compute.
We were experiencing windchills of -5° where I live the other day, and gusts of many mph on my hill.

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That was directed to our Hawaiian friends. Some of them may not have experienced a freezing night in their lives and may have nothing heavier than a sweatshirt in their closet. Remember "cold" is a relative term :-)

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Team 1522 will be there, get ready for the most confusing weather ever hawaiian kids.

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48 hours to go...
to all Rookie and traveling teams:
Do you need anything when you get to VCU? I will have 3-5 spare flag holder and PVC caps if you forgot them. Send me a PM and i'll see what i can bring for you. I'm not sleeping well anyway so it will give me something to do!

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any predictions about the game?
i think someone in another thread about VCU mentioned 384 and 1086, do you all see any strong robots
also how do you think the matches will play out in a week two regional?

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1086 and 384 have great shooters. They will be a force to be reckoned with. My team, 2106, has something you did not see much of in week one: a herder. I have seen a few of the arm designs from several of the teams, but none of them are nearly as efficient as the two Henrico Shooters. 540 has been keeping thier 'bot under wraps. It will be interesting to see what they have packed in the crate.

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yeah i guess the only teams anyone is talking about this year are last years triad. too bad other teams arent posting their stuff this year...i dont know how strong sparky will be because of how they pick up the ball, but once theyve got the ball in their bot there willl be NO stopping them!

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Team 401 is ready to put things into overdrive at VCU!!! We look forward to competing this year, and can't wait to see what the other teams have in store. Check out our video and see what you think.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pP4wXJ4p8aU

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I think Sparky / Cheese will have a great showing at the competition,

only thing to remember is that 71 (THE BEAST) had a similar robot, and got knocked out by 111 & 1114.

Point being -- regionals are crazy..and anything can happen!

Best of luck everyone!

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After seeing week 1, I suspect that 384 and 1086 may not be quite as dominant as they initially appeared... I still expect one (probably both) in the top 8, but they seem like they might have a bit of trouble getting possession of the ball. 1731 probably has the strongest robot of the VCU ones that I have seen (612 is pretty solid too). On the other hand, I've only seen like seven or eight robots (including my own team's) out of the sixty-four that'll be there, so it is impossible to tell. We'll know in four days though :)

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I have to agree. Team 1731 looks amazing this year, and their hybrid mode with the light show is pretty cool. Anyone have any info on 1610 or 435? They always have great bots every year but there's nothing on their website.

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Team 1731 will be there and we're looking forward to seeing everybody again and you first timers too. If you haven't seen it yet, you can see our robot preview on our website http://www.team1731.org or on Youtube.

As for stuff to do, we usually go to the after event things such as the VCU Open House and the Team Social. This year a few of our members will be going to the 2008 Virginia Motor Trend International Auto Show. If your students and mentors like cars, this might be something fun to do. Of course, there's always swimming at the hotel if you're lucky enough to have one with a pool :).

See you guys on Thursday!

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You can stop by my Robotics Demo I will be holding in the Technology Showcase...If you are looking for something to do during downtime at the competition.

Check out a preview at

http://www.me.vt.edu/romela

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I was recently at VT and saw some of the amazing RoMeLa lab robots and would recommend that everyone stop by the demo.

VCU should definitely be a great regional this year, especially with all the variety in robot design.

Good luck to everyone!

Also I posted one of the pics of our robot a little before it was completed.