Re: 2009 Peachtree Regional
 

Thank you for all the kind words. I am extremely proud of the robot that we built this year and I hope that we get a chance to attend the Championship and play with everyone. Good job 2415, 832, and 2655

Re: 2009 Peachtree Regional
 

Team 2415, the Westminster WiredCats, would like to thank the following teams for helping make Peachtree Regional '09 so much fun!

Many many thanks to 2655 and to 832 for some awesome matches and major upsets! Thanks again for selecting us for the alliance, and we'll be looking for you at Championships in April!

Thanks to 342, for giving us some PWM cables when we desperately needed them.

Thanks to 442, for helping us so much with our coding problems.

More thanks to 832, for lending us a victor.

Thanks to 1002, for being pretty much the first team we asked whenever we needed things, since you were right next to us.

Thanks to 1261, for helping us find the nearest Kinko, and for lending us a battery, even though everything was already packed.

Thanks to 1311, for starting us last year and mentoring us still. Your guidance in 842's project was so helpful. By the way, we still have your 2x4's. Sorry.

Great thanks to 1414, for cheering us on and pumping up all of our team so that we've all more or less lost our voices :)

Thanks to the coach of 1415, for understanding and diverting potentially awkward situations between our teams.

Thanks to 1533, for lending us 2 batteries. Without those two, we would not have been able to compete in the finals at all.

Thanks to 1746, for lending us yet another battery.

Thanks to 1771, 547, 1746, 2119, 587, 1102, 1319, 590, and 342, for an amazing end to Peachtree.

Thanks to 2420, for letting us charge some of our batteries in your pit and eventually giving us the charger.

Congrats to 900, 1771, 343, 1746, 1533, 34, 342, 1319, 1398, 1848, 2967, 3091, 2918, 1002, and 1311 for their awards!

Most importantly, thanks to all the judges, referees, and volunteers who make these events possible. Thanks again to all the amazing teams we've met over the past few days, and we look forward to seeing you next year!

All the best,
the Westminster WiredCats

Re: 2009 Peachtree Regional
 

Yup thanks to team 2655 for picking us after we were ranked 43 out of 46. It was very interesting because we finally got our robot completely working for the last qualification match but we got DQed haha...

And to 832, since I was a freshman in high school on 1002, I think we might have been alliance like 6 total times including qualification matches and we have never won a match together. This year we won 6 matches together.

First thing I thought when we got picked was crap, we have to play otto and north gwinnett. 1771, you guys might have one of the best robots in the country for this game this year and some of the best drivers.

Thanks to all the teams that helped us with spare parts: team Soup-1848, Tech High and The Robojackets - 2420, The CircuitRunners - 1002, Team 547, The Robo Lions - 1261, and the others I am forgetting

Thanks to 1533 for helping us out with our battery issues because there was no way we could have made it through the playoffs without yalls battery charger and batteries to borrow.
Thanks to team 1414 for helping us out cheering as well as all the other teams including 1002, 1848, and others.

Congrats to Mr. Folea for winning Volunteer of the year.
Congrats to triple strange for winning the Judges award
Congrats to wheeler for winning EI

Congrats to Mr. Barker and team 1311 Kell Robotics for winning chairmans and thanks for all your help throughout the past couple of years with helping us get off of teh ground. You guys really deserved it
And thanks to all the volunteers and judges and refs for helping put on a great regional.

And congrats to all my KIDDIES for not giving up even when we went 2-7. They did a great job of persevering and they just kept trying to make the robot better even when we thought we had no chance of the playoffs.

Re: 2009 Peachtree Regional
 

I think the one of the most amazing human player shots I saw was that from 590 in the last 2 seconds of the finals! Dumb luck or dumb skill, that cross field shot was awsome:eek: .

Congratulations Teams 2655, 2415, and 832, you where great opponets and earned the win.

Thanks to 1319 and 590 for joining us in a great alliance. Can't wait to team up with 1319 in again in Palmetto, and hopefully 343 can join the burnning flash;) . I really enjoyed the semi's against yall. I would also like to send kodos to 1002 who played a brutal defense. We thought we were bullet proof until we meet 1002's auton and lost a wheel:ahh: .

Re: 2009 Peachtree Regional
 

yeah... those semis were brutal. i thought that we had it there for a minute... but alas, my hopes were dashed:( but yeah, maybe at palmetto it can be the "burning flash in motion" that would be beast:rolleyes:

Re: 2009 Peachtree Regional
 

Na, Brent and I decided it is "Burning Flash of Metal"

Re: 2009 Peachtree Regional
 

well then! :rolleyes:

Re: 2009 Peachtree Regional
 

I must admit I'd be somewhat intimidated by a team called Burning Flash of Metal, what about the Wiredchimerapi?

Re: 2009 Peachtree Regional
 

im not gonna lie, the whole alliance stopped and watch that ball go through the air as the other coaches and i were screaming "SPIN! GET OUT OF THERE!!! NOOOOOOW"!!

And i think it was more skill than luck. We were watching him in particular the WHOLE match!

Awesome matchup guys!

Re: 2009 Peachtree Regional
 

Ya. The entire round the coaches watched the super cell and when he got one we retreated to our side of the field...

Re: 2009 Peachtree Regional
 

The Finals were so exciting. After 3 matches against the 1002's defense in the semi's, we lost our front wheel:ahh: . We called time and ran to our pit to change the wheel. In the excitement of trying to make it back to the field in time for the finals, WE FORGOT TO CLOSE THE PNEUMATICS RELIEF VALVE!!!!:o But even with it closed, we were bested the next match. I enjoyed seeing our old friends on 832 again. I loved the whole event and look forward to Peachtree '10.

*note* look for 342 to have a dedicated valve checker at Palmetto lol.

Re: 2009 Peachtree Regional
 

lol, don't feel down about that, i think 2415 forgot to turn their robot on during that match

Re: 2009 Peachtree Regional
 

and distribution block checker :D

Re: 2009 Peachtree Regional
 

Thanks for noticing our defense. For a while, I was doubting our usefulness towards our alliance in the elimination matches.

Anyway, do you know what happened to Flash (FRC#1319) in the 2nd semi match?

Re: 2009 Peachtree Regional
 

Hey, you guys are supposed to be on our side... And it was not our fault... The switch was faulty and the spring inside flipped the switch after the match started to turn it off... The next round we had to tape it closed...

But then there was those 2 matches yall didnt set up the driver station correctly... jkjk :P

Re: 2009 Peachtree Regional
 

Take your pick from two scenarios.

1. The 120A circuit breaker was broken and not providing power to the robot.

2. There was an issue with the field that the FTA and others could not figure out and wanted to keep matches moving. (I am not accusing anyone of anything shady, however we were not given any answers other then it was our robot. Which it may have been)


EDIT: Also are alliance partner 590s robot stopped working in the last final match, we assumed it too was a bad 120A cb, however I am not sure if any of 590s members confirmed it.
It worked in the next match and we did not change anything. When 342 broke there wheel we replaced our 120A cb just to be on the safe side. We have not done any testing on the cb to see if it is bad, but we will be. We have never had a problem with one has anyone else?

Re: 2009 Peachtree Regional
 

A big Thank You! to the Circuit Runners, Jim Rundquist, Karen Albrecht and everyone else who helped put on the Lunacy simulator exhibit - I hear it was well received.

The other developers and I would love to hear feedback from anyone who used it.

Blake

Re: 2009 Peachtree Regional
 

We had that same circuit breaker problem that one time with us also. The robot was definitely turned on as we got a voltage before the match on the driver station but once the match started our robot was off. When we went to look, the breaker had been slightly sprung open. We taped it closed next match and had no problems, replaced it later. We probably had a similar issue, funny that it was at a similar time.

Re: 2009 Peachtree Regional
 

I can tell you that it had not sprung open, as we had made it very clear for no one to touch the robot until the problem was figured out. Eventually we had to move it not knowing waht the problem was as time was an issue.

Re: 2009 Peachtree Regional
 

I'm pretty sure he was kidding. :D :D But I'm sure you knew that already.

AND HEY. The dead drivers station was not our fault. :P

See you guys at the Championship. :)

Re: 2009 Peachtree Regional
 

IMHO, It was option #1. I know because I was the guy with my face in your robot when this was happening. There were no LED's illuminated on the power distribution block shortly after the match started. I confirmed there was no power on the Bridge or the cRIO and the RSL was off. The exact same thing happened to 590. I saw this 3 times on Saturday. I brought this up in the inspector's post event confrence call and it has happened before at other events and other years. The 120A breaker is not bullet proof apparently.

Re: 2009 Peachtree Regional
 

And yes, he is completely correct. It wouldnt stay closed. We took it off and got a new one that we are putting in right when we get to Palmetto.

They said if the robot was off they would have stopped the match but what had happened we it gave a voltage reading as the match started but like seconds later the breaker failed and the robot turned off. Therefore they couldnt do anything about it and had to let the match run.

It was completely fair. Unfortunate, but completely fair. Plus we won that one.

I am not sure what to tell teams who wantt o check this problem but I believe that Flash said that they had this issue as well. Just beware about this problem. Maybe test your switch before matches to ensure that it doesn't pop out. Or Tape it like us haha

Re: 2009 Peachtree Regional
 

It seems pretty clear that the WiredCats problem was with the main breaker, and Flash's too. But to have so many go out at once seems unlikely; not impossible, but unlikely. We have had main breakers go out before, but on older robots that have retired from competition. Never had one go out during a competition that I can remember. But I plan on bringing a spare to Championships:D

I can't remember an elims round where so many robots didn't work at some point in a round. Our alliance had problems, #1 had problems, seems like others did as well. I wonder if there's an issue with this batch of main breakers? Or maybe just an issue with teams getting excited and forgetting the basics:ahh:

Re: 2009 Peachtree Regional
 

Our breaker might have been from last years bot for some reason... I am about 90% sure it was.

Re: 2009 Peachtree Regional
 

[quote=Tom Bishop;837709]I wonder if there's an issue with this batch of main breakers?/QUOTE]

Tom,

In our lab there was an incident where we had a problem with the breaker and I quickly looked at it and thought it was bad. If I remember right it didn't latch on correctly.

We were planning on replacing it and that task got forgotten.

I'm a little nervous about this years batch.

I would definitely take a spare.

Re: 2009 Peachtree Regional
 

Let's move the breaker discussion over to electrical. See you there.

Re: 2009 Peachtree Regional
 

I believe what I'm about to say should be relevant to Peachtree, but this may have occurred elsewhere as well.

In SF 1-2, our robot would drive. More specifically, our pick-up and dumping mechanisms functioned the entire match, but our drive motors never did. There is no way to know whether or not the Jaguars driving the two cims were getting a signal, but I doubt it. The jags were connected properly before and immediately after the match, when I checked. Back at the pit (after we lost), we immediately tethered and drove the robot. It operated flawlessly. Our team has mixed feelings about why this happened, but I believe it was a field issue. However, it was only the drive motors (which plug into to pwms 1 and 2, so maybe the signal for those weren't getting there?!?!).

Did any other teams have issues with their robot mysteriously work only partially? This has really been bugging me...

Re: 2009 Peachtree Regional
 

we did actually in qf-2 i think as well as the 2nd match before eliminations. It only occurred when we were on the blue side, blue 3 to be more specific. Also, our shooters were the only thing that worked as well, me managed to score like 3 balls on a robot that got too close. They blamed our drivers station, and gave us a new one

Re: 2009 Peachtree Regional
 

After discussing this a little more with the team, one mentor recalled 1319 not working in the finals, match 1; can anyone confirm or disprove this? I know for sure that 590 wasn't working in finals, match two.

Everytime this happened, it was on the blue side of the field. Coincidence?:confused:

DISCLAIMER: I'm not trying to blame the field or complain about the results of the matches, I am just trying to figure out what exactly went wrong.

PS- 2655, I heard your team is coming up to Hillsborough for THOR in June. Is this true? (I hope so.)

Re: 2009 Peachtree Regional
 

Yes, I also saw Flash's robot not work. This has already been discussed. See posts #116, $119, and #121 in this thread, and the main circuit breaker thread in the Electrical Forum.

Re: 2009 Peachtree Regional
 

nope, b/c in the semi-finals when they didn't work, they were red

Re: 2009 Peachtree Regional
 

Yay, even worse.:rolleyes:

Re: 2009 Peachtree Regional
 

We were down a robot too in the first final, and part of our conveyor had snapped off by the second. kinda off topic, but it confused me to why 1746 didn't call a timeout when their bot was on the fritz

as for that, I personally have no idea what it is, but I'll look into it and get back to you

Re: 2009 Peachtree Regional
 

Since you brought it up I was confused as to why they did not shut your robot off when your conveyor belt was dragging on the floor and made you go outside the size constraints.

Anybody?

Re: 2009 Peachtree Regional
 

I don't see why not!:D haha, It's more up to funding, but it sounds like fun.

and as for our robot not being turned off, we were essentially stationary for the latter half of the match, and i'm pretty sure the belt didn't leave the inside of the robot until i pulled it off at the end, and if it did we were in the center of a jumble of robots and it would've been hard to notice.:)

Re: 2009 Peachtree Regional
 

We didn't know we had a problem until it was too late....

For the record, the actual sequence of events was:

1. Broke a chain. Still not sure why.
One group thinks we simply lost a master link
The other group thinks our chains had a lot of slack
in them and a hit at just the right time got one cocked
wrong on a sprocket. That coupled with the fact that
it was really crappy chain -> bye-bye.

2. Threw a chain - The previous mishap really messed things
up so now the chain was loose enough to come off by itself
Quickly added a chain tensioner to take up slack

3. Loose wire. Probably knocked loose during previous repairs.
Broke free right at the start of the match. Ugh.

It's hard to overcome 3 catastrophic failures in a row ...

While we were "Undefeated" through the quals, we really can't
take credit for it. We had an unbelievable amount of good
fortune. Geez .. the first match our guys forgot to plug
the bridge ethernet cable in, but because they had the Team light
wired wrong, no one could tell ... Special thanks to 1533 and 1304
for winning that one - boy was that embarrassing!

The kids were crushed for loosing the finals for such crazy reasons,
not only for us, but also for 1771 who REALLY deserved to be there ...

We also want to thank 547 - they were awesome - did everything
we asked them to do and were very gracious about the whole thing.
If you ever need a partner, check these guys out - they are great!

We learned a lot at Peachtree, rest assured those lessons will be
addressed for Palmetto. We can't wait!

See you in a couple days!

Re: 2009 Peachtree Regional
 

thats not too bad...few years ago santosh and i went on the field and was scratching our heads on why nothing worked...we forgot to reinstall the robot controller....now THATS EMBARRASSING

but...
fortunately for us we had all our problems during the qualifiers.

Re: 2009 Peachtree Regional
 

we were undefeated the first day, but our whole 2nd day of qualifiers was a big disaster, first off our wiring on our compressor was loose, so we could pick up the moon rocks, but not shoot them. 2nd match, we apparently had a driver's station problem so we didn't work then. third match 1746, 1319 and co. just wrecked us. then the second elimination round we didn't work again, but we got a different thingamajig, which seemed to work. after that we didn't have any problems until one of our bands snapped in the finals.

ps. chains are the devil

Re: 2009 Peachtree Regional
 

Does anyone know why the standings page on the usfirst.org page for the Peachtree Regional is empty? Does anyone have this information?

The other pages - match results, awards, etc. - are there. Only that is missing.

I want to parse this data for statistical use. This is the only page I'm missing.

Re: 2009 Peachtree Regional
 

Actually, you have those switched. I remember as our alliance reaped the benefits of the malfunction, scored a supercell on ourselves, and still got the <G14> (but only for doubling not tripling). (http://www.thebluealliance.net/tbatv/team/2655)

The Blue Alliance has all of the match scores. If you click on a team, you can see their overall record as well as their record at Peachtree. This is really inefficient, but it is a method of retrieving those stats if you really want them.