Kettering Kickoff 2008
 

The 9th annual Kettering Kickoff will be held on September 20, 2008. The registration fee will remain the same for this year and if paid by June 30 will be only $300. After June 30 it will be $350. Contact shicks@kettering.edu

Re: Kettering Kickoff 2008
 

We are looking for some volunteers for the 2008 Kettering Kickoff. It will be held on September 20th. Anybody who has ever attended the Kickoff knows what a quaility event it really is. If you are in the area and want to help out, contact me here and I will find you a job.

This year we will have 40 teams and the last I looked we had 39 signed up already :ahh: . So if you plan on coming you better hurry! :D

Re: Kettering Kickoff 2008
 

I hope this event will be just great..
With the IRI champs 67 being there and hoply World Champ Thunderchickens 217 should make everything just groovy..
The only sad thing is the me being the current driver for the team (326), i will be unable to attend because of already planned events...
This being my only chance to particpate its very heartbreaking..
But I hope you guys put up a good show..

Re: Kettering Kickoff 2008
 

Would you have room for our team, Team 2171. Please let me know. We would like to come. Just got home from IRI and and had a great time. I was the mentor on the field with the team. I believe I shook your hand. Please let me know.

Sincerely,

Vince Fleszewski

Re: Kettering Kickoff 2008
 

As far as I know there is one spot left (39 teams registered of 40):

http://www.ketteringfirst.com/static...gistered_Teams

Kettering Kickoff Registration - http://www.ketteringfirst.com/static...e=Registration

-Oris-

Re: Kettering Kickoff 2008
 

Thanks, I just filled out the application.

Vince

Re: Kettering Kickoff 2008
 

Added you to the list and have started a waiting list.

-Oris-

Re: Kettering Kickoff 2008
 

It is so great that this wonderful event is filled out so far in advance. Please though if you still want to attend get on the waiting list. You never know if somebody will drop out at the last minute. www.ketteringfirst.com

Re: Kettering Kickoff 2008
 

Hi all!

What's the status on the waiting list on the moment if I might ask? (:

Re: Kettering Kickoff 2008
 

We just expanded it to 42 teams. I know that we have at least 41.

Re: Kettering Kickoff 2008
 

Any chance this will be web cast? Might be a good time to try if this is going to be a district next year.

Re: Kettering Kickoff 2008
 

I also am interested in a webcast

Re: Kettering Kickoff 2008
 

I highly doubt that the event will be web cast, but I am hoping to get videos of all of the matches to post online.

-Oris-

Re: Kettering Kickoff 2008
 

I am unaware of any plans to webcast the event.

Re: Kettering Kickoff 2008
 

So for anyone interested in a webcast, I may have the next best thing!

Well, not really, but if it works out, we are going to be broadcasting live match feed via iPhone and Qik cam.

For updates on when feeds are starting go to http://twitter.com/ericbarch.

Bear with us, because this is in no way a tested setup, so if you're interested, watch the above twitter page for updates.

Re: Kettering Kickoff 2008
 

Anybody have an update on the results from Kettering Kickoff?

Re: Kettering Kickoff 2008
 

Teams 67, 910 and 2619 (subbing for 1075) defeated 27, 322 and 397 2-0 including an amazing 186-134 match.

Re: Kettering Kickoff 2008
 

The 910, 67, 2619 alliance won, 27, 397, 322 took second.

Ed beat me to it...

And yea, those matches were AWESOME best matches Ive participated in all year. Plus, the team Im from partnered with the team im mentoring at my school!

Re: Kettering Kickoff 2008
 

Everyone did a GREAT job, congrats to 910, 67, and 2619! That was an amazing match, I can't believe how intense it was.

Re: Kettering Kickoff 2008
 

Thanks for the update. I couldn't be there and I have not heard from my team yet to see how things went.

Re: Kettering Kickoff 2008
 

Your robot seeded 42 (last) got picked as the 3rd team in the 7th seeded alliance with 815 and 70 I believe, made it to the semis and the arm broke. Severely from what Beth told me.

Re: Kettering Kickoff 2008
 

wow, what a competition. I have to say that out of all the games i've been in so far I like this one the most. congrats to 910, 67, and 2619 for some matches well played. that high-scoring match, 186-134 i believe, was prolly the most intense all season.

Great event, hope to see some of the teams at another off season event ;)

Re: Kettering Kickoff 2008
 

Desperate Penguins were teamed up with Team 70 and team 2137. I called it the “Jackalliance” because Jack Nowakowski a new mentor on the DP Team (now that he is attending MSU) was the student team leader for Team 70 and Jack’s mother was the founder of team 2137. So Jack being tied to all these teams equals “The Jackalliance”. Desperate Penguins take good care of Jack, I know he will be of tremendous value to your team. Our loss is your gain, best of luck and take good care of my buddy Jack.

Re: Kettering Kickoff 2008
 

Ah,
I stand corrected.

Re: Kettering Kickoff 2008
 

Wow,that was fun. Except for a slow start,the event seemed to go pretty good. I really liked the large screen in the pit area for the standings. nice touch. However,if you are running a distrct next year, i think you might want to rent some larger bleachers for the end, to replace those shortones. There will be alot more people at a district. Well done.:)

Re: Kettering Kickoff 2008
 

Thanks for a super event!

As usual, the refs including Ron, Gary, and all were wonderful. It's amazing how we started, what, an hour+ late and ended the day ahead of schedule! That's one finely tuned crew there!

I have to congratulate our great partners 67, 1075 and 2619. BTW 1075, I did check on the subbing rule and once you bring someone in, you can't go back to the original robot even if they're fixed. 67, you played your wheels off guys. Awesome job!

Hats off to the incredible #2 alliance, 27, 322 and 397. We saw you moving through the playoffs and knew you were a force to be reckoned with. Our first final match was probably my highlight match of the year (including the Championship). 186 to 134 for a total score of 320 points! Holy smokes! I would absolutely LOVE to see a video of that! Did anyone get a video that they can upload to YouTube?

Thanks again to all of our alliance partners for a wonderful day.

Re: Kettering Kickoff 2008
 

I got a copy of the video, ~120kB after it was converted from a .MOD file to an .avi
uploading to vimeo as I type, will post the link as soon as it is done uploading and converting. I think 186 is a new record, I knew 1114 couldn't hold onto the top score forever ^.^
This video kinda followed our robot, sorry for those of you who wanted to see more of ur robot, I wasn't recording so... dont blame me :P

The Breakdown
------------------------
11 lines, 2 balls in auton = 60
5 hurdles for 67, and one place = 52
5 hurdles for 910 = 40
------------------------
152 + 34 other points from lines and herding
186 :D

link for video on vimeo, http://vimeo.com/1775644
sign up for an account and u can download the videos as well ;)

Re: Kettering Kickoff 2008
 

But who wouldn't want to look at the HOT bot?:confused:

Seriously though congratulations, it was a blast playing against you guys and after a score of 186 points its pretty plain to see why you were able to come out ahead. I still can't believe it. Congrats to the winning alliance.

I'd also like to thank teams 397 and 322 for playing with us. We had some struggles and we gave it one heck of run.:D

Re: Kettering Kickoff 2008
 

Do you have the link yet? Sorry to be inpatient.

Re: Kettering Kickoff 2008
 

Thanks, John. It was a fun - if long - day. My legs are sore now, and I've got a couple soccer games to ref this afternoon! Did you realize we had 3 rookie refs out there yesterday? I think they did an awesome job with only a few minutes' training. Wait until they get the full course!

Much of that has to be credited to Connie the best (and meanest?) queuer in FIRST, and her crew.

Some of the refs were talking about the alliances, and we figured almost all the finals matches would be good and exciting. We were right. We didn't forecast there being 2 ties. And the 2-0 match results in the finals didn't indicate just how close the two alliances really were.

Congratulations to all the teams participating. I think everyone did a great job, morning and afternoon. I was pleased to see the development of the teams and robots over the course of the season, back from the Rookie event and through regionals, Championships (what I got to see), IRI and now KK. I was also pleased to see a couple of teams that I hadn't had the priviledge of seeing before, including 1075.

I'll expect many more great things next season when I start seeing you Michigan teams in the new Districts.

Re: Kettering Kickoff 2008
 

We have all of the match videos recorded, about 2.7 GB worth of footage. It is already split into the individual matches, thanks to the DJ, with the big screen footage and area sound.

Now it is a matter of getting a hold of TBA to host the files or find another site to post it too.

I will do my best to get them posted some time this week.

Congrats to team 910, 67, 1075, and 2619. As well as team 27, 397 and 322 for making it to the finals.

-Clinton-
EngiNERDs - Team 2337

Re: Kettering Kickoff 2008
 

I would like to see your version of the high score, what format is it?

Re: Kettering Kickoff 2008
 

Gary, Im sure Connie will laugh about your compliment (?) This was the same crew that got the rookie regional back on schedule after a 4 hour delay. The hour delay was NOTHING ;)

Re: Kettering Kickoff 2008
 

Nick ,you were short one hurdle for the HOT BOT, Should be six hurdles and one place ,AWSOME !!!!!! Thanks for teaming up with us again at Kettering ,last year we fell a little short in the finals but this year we got er done. I would much rather play with you than against you to form the FREEZER BURN alliance! Thanks to our other alliance partners 1075 ,and 2619 ,you were both great to work with and look forward to playing with you again. The number two alliance of 27,397,322 was scary to watch , thinking we were on a collision corse for the finals! That first match was just sick from both allinces ,a scoring frenzy for sure. Team 397 great job a preformance to be proud of, and your one of the most improved bots of the year. To the teams and crew who puts this great event on KUDOS TO YOU !!!!!!! This is one of my favorite events of the year.

Re: Kettering Kickoff 2008
 

I had entirely forgotten about the late start. How did we end up at home an hour before we were scheduled to? Kudos to Connie and her crew! I can't really complain about it starting late, though; it gave us an hour to fix whatever was wrong with our robot (I don't even know what was wrong; but it took a little less than an hour to fix).
The large screen was very helpful; many times we lost track of what match they were on while we were in the pit, so all we had to do was check the screen.

Re: Kettering Kickoff 2008
 

Our second Kettering Kickoff was quite the rollercoaster ride...

On Thursday we noticed that our new Brecoflex Red belts were de-laminating themselves from the plastic part of the track. This was sort of disappointing as from what we had seen of them, they worked with alot less friction on carpet than the grippy Green belts we had before. We phoned up Brecoflex and they want us to return them for free replacements, but they want to analyze what happened so future customers (likely some of you out there) don't have the same issue again. (we had seriously had 15 minutes of driving, tops, on them when they started failing).

After that minor setback (after all we did still have drivetrains built and ready with the green belts for replacing the red ones when they died), we loaded up the trailer and headed out.

We knew that we didnt have much in the way of functional batteries (i think we're down to 2 mains, and 1 backup) so we stopped off at Woburn Collegiate Institute in Scarborough, ON, known to most of you as the home of Team 188, The Blizzard. They happily lent us some of their batteries and off we went to Michigan.

The border crossing held some minor holdups with the border guards not liking some letters our students had, but a few minutes later we were back on our way.

On our way to Kettering in the morning, we followed one yellow Plymouth Horizon, Michigan plate: KLRBEES, which I quickly assumed belonged to a member of team 33, the Killer Bees, who were to be in attendance. Nice car, BTW to whoever owns it.

We arrived, and set up our pits for the day, and went to locate our match schedule, only to find out we'd have to wait quite some time to get it. Oh well, such is life.

We get our match schedule, which I look at and there in our very first match, I see we were with 910, and 226, up against 217, 67, and 70. Wow, at the time I unfamiliar with 910 and 226, but I knew that 217 had beaten 67 for the Championship win on Einstein. I thought for sure we wouldn't win that match. I was surprised to see some 2 and a half minutes later that we actually had won it, with a fair bit of help from 910, but we held our own in our mostly new robot for the offseason. Yes, the design is largely borrowed from 1114's Simbot SS, however, its got a few changes, in places we thought we could make it better. Unfortunately we didnt really get to prove it this weekend. I hope no-one from 1114 takes offence to the fact that we more or less copied the arm design, it was sort of a tribute to how stunningly awesome their machine was and we wanted to try to replicate it. Our launcher works quite well, but without a fast, reliable drivetrain under it, you can't do alot with it. Time to modify the drivetrain, and probably get rid of the tracks. They're too expensive, and they're way too easy to break. Hopefully we can get a better setup ready for Brunswick Eruption in a few weeks.

A couple matches later the problems started... drive belts breaking, drive hubs breaking, battery issues, just everything piled up, and we finished 30th-ish in the rankings. We were ready to pack it in, we hadn't had a decent showing in 4 or 5 matches. I watched the draft go around, and come back to 910/67's #1 seeded alliance, only to hear "FREEZER BURN" as they dubbed themselves, ask for our assistance. I was in shock. We accepted, and the robot actually came together and worked for 3 solid matches until we lost yet another drive belt. 910 and 67 opted to call in a backup bot, and 2619 won the lottery. They too had a fairly rollercoaster day. They ended up as the highest seeded unselected team. That is never a fun spot to be, especially with half the drafting to go and not be selected.

We scrambled to get the robot back together just in time for our rematch of the tied SF1.2, but then realized that we weren't able to come back in to play, but were still "on" the alliance.

We got to watch that absolutely stunning display of performance by 910/67/27/397 that yielded the incredible 186-134 score, which breaks several records as far as i knew them. I think its the highest losing score (134), the highest winning score (186) and the highest total score (320).

Next thing you know, our alliance has won, and the officials had to ask us if it was alright that they had to send us a trophy in the mail as they had only made 3. We told them that was fine, and went back to the pits to pack up. 2619 was nice enough to let us take a few pictures with their trophy and we went on our way.

Great fun, and I'm sure we'll be back again next year. Hopefully with a consistently functional robot.

Re: Kettering Kickoff 2008
 

Well thankyou, its fun working with Connie she is a trip, just about everymatch she was making me laugh. if she saw you sitting down she will be like get you booty up and get those teams staged NOW!! during the elimination rounds we had the next few matches already staged it was fun chasing teams

Re: Kettering Kickoff 2008
 

Connie is pretty tough but when it come to queing nobody is as tough as the M n' M gals.

Re: Kettering Kickoff 2008
 

Ed, don't tell her that, she will take it as a challenge and the next thing shes working at could be a FLL tournament.

Re: Kettering Kickoff 2008
 

Congratulations to 67, 910 and 2619 and 1075 on the win. HOT and Foley, you guys know you're 2 of my favorite teams, I wish we could have gotten a chance to play wingman with you guys. 27, 397 and and 322, you guys were awesome out there. Playing against you was incredibly difficult and you were a force to be reckoned with.

2137 and 70, thanks for taking the chance on us, even though we were ranked last at the end of quarters! You guys were great alliance members and even with 2 busted robots, we still put up one heck of a fight in that last match!

Thank you to the folks who put on the event! You guys fought through a bunch of challenges and really made the event nice.

Congrats to all who played and good luck next year!

Re: Kettering Kickoff 2008
 

It was a fun event. We got to try out some prototype ideas on our bot (some didn't work so well...) and try out a new driver for a while (did a great job of improving as the day went on).

I'll say one thing that I've said before - I will NOT be unhappy to see this game go away. The difficulty of interpreting the rules real time and keeping real time score means that even the greatest crew of refs will have trouble. They did a great job at the event though, and they deserve all the praise in the world for a ton of hard work.

We went to a higher gear to improve our speed. That got our auton from a consistent 4 lines to nearly 5, but it made driving the bot very difficult. After we snapped the chain on our left front (6-wheel) we tried to replace the omni there with a skyway. The skyway walked off the internal hub. Talk about giving our driver nightmares.

Re: Kettering Kickoff 2008
 

Okay I posted the Finals matches online for now and will get the others posted later this week.

Download by Right Clicking on the Links and selecting "Save Link As"

Finals - Round 1
http://www.ketteringfirst.com/videos...f-Finals_1.MP4

Finals - Round 2
http://www.ketteringfirst.com/videos...f-Finals_2.MP4
http://www.ketteringfirst.com/videos...ls_2_Score.MP4

Enjoy and tell me what you think.

-Clinton-

Re: Kettering Kickoff 2008
 

Beth, your great team was on our list to pick, but you were snatched up before we could get you!

See you next season if not at WMRI!

John

Re: Kettering Kickoff 2008
 

Okay I am missing a few of the final scores from some of the matches, I need this information in order to post the files on TBA.

Does any one have this data? (maybe the Gearheads)

Qualification Matches:
Match 3
Match 7
Match 18
Match 19
Match 23
Match 24
Match 25
Match 28
Match 29
Match 31
Match 32
Match 33
Match 35

Quarter Finals Match 2-1 (1322 47 703 vs 815 2337 1528)
Quarter Finals Match 2-2 (1322 47 703 vs 815 2337 1528)
Quarter Finals Match 4-2 (27 397 322 vs 494 33 503)
Quarter Finals Match 4-3 (27 397 322 vs 494 33 503)

Semi Finals Match 1-2 (910 67 2619 vs 815 2337 1528)
Semi Finals Match 2-1 (70 1504 2137 vs 27 397 322)
Semi Finals Match 2-2 (70 1504 2137 vs 27 397 322)

Thanks for the help.
-Clinton-

Re: Kettering Kickoff 2008
 

Coming back home to my alma mater (from back in the GMI days) was great. Team 48 had fun and brought a lot of rookies to witness their first FRC event. I wish we could have performed better for them--transmission problems all day did dampen a few spirits a little. One comment I heard was that beacuse of the morning delay, they did have the opportunity to see some of the great dancers FIRST develops. I was told we have the Killer Bees to thank for providing the back-up scoring program and saving the day.

Many thanks to the awesome crew and referees as well for smooth event. Congratulation to teams 910, 67, 1075, & 2619...especially 1075, with all of their tread issues (we tank tread lovers have to stick together). Hopefully, we get the chance to return next year!!

Re: Kettering Kickoff 2008
 

Any updates on some of the video from the event?