2010 Boston Regional
 

I searched but was shocked to find there was no thread for the 2010 Boston Regional!

So who is ready for this years competition in Beantown??!!

125 is ready and bringing a few surprises...


-Brando

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

The Blue Alliance will be there and webcasting!

http://thebluealliance.net/boston10

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

I'll be there!!!

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

I can't wait to see the suprises! Good luck to all of the Boston teams... Too bad I can't be there this year.

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

1922, Team Oz-Ram will be the only team from NH there. It seams to have taken forever since GSR but it is finally close.

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

Greg Marra FTW!

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

I'm really excited for the Boston Regional! I'll be there as a volunteer on field repair/reset. ::safety::

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

AND recording?!?! pretty pretty please?!?! :)

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

Team 2871 will be there very intrested in what others are going to be doing this year...

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

Recording indeed! We've got our Pinnacle box ready to go.

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

Team 69 can't wait till this weekend. It's going to be so much fun and excitement. Can't wait to see everybody there!

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

Team 1350 The Rambot's are ready to play!

This will be the best Boston Regional yet!

Allow us to introduce - Semmetric AL (The Shark Hunter)

We challenged ourselves to make a completely symmetrical robot.
It has wheels top and top (there is no bottom)
Also has double ball control rollers and kickers
Oh yeah - we are using a telescoping fishing pole (which works in both directions) to place our "Shark" hook (it's the real deal - 880 lb test) on the bar to allow us to winch up.

Best of luck to ALL teams!
We hope to join you in the finals!

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

Picture of symmetric AL

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

Very cool! I was hoping someone would make this kind of bot this year. Reminds me of a R/C car toy I had back in the 90's that I can't seem to remember the name of. Hey all of you 'raised by Nickelodeon' kids, can you help me out? It had two big wheels and would flip over when you changed directions really fast. One side was blue and the other was orange.

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

Team 11 is excited to meet up with old friends and play with many new ones.

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

1511 will be there after a 3 year hiatus.

I personally can't wait to finish up my senior year of regionals in the very same arena that I was 3 years before!

Oh, and we have a few surprises of our own to unveil ;)

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

3280 will be there, coming off a pretty successful WPI Regional (4th seed, Rookie Inspiration, Highest Rookie Seed, and a Woodie Flowers Finalist Award for our lead mentor).

Look for everything we showed in Wocester plus the ability to score two balls consistently in Autonomous from the second zone, and the ability to hang. Both of these were abilities that the robot had but the team didn't take advantage of.

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

Tyco Rebound

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

Kenner (Now part of Hasbro) also made the Ricochet around the same time.

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

Second year in a row I forgot to take off of work! :( Then again, Friday is looking good...:)

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

Be there? I'm already here! (I work across the street ;). ) But 1153 will be "travelling" to Boston! It's kind of strange being away but still near my office...

BTW, you can thank the company I'm with for building *THREE* new restaurants in the area: Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers (you can practically fall out the door and into it), and Panera Bread and Upper Crust Pizza (down the block and a bit).

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

Yeah our original idea was to copy Ricochet or Tyco rebound type of set-up.
So we could flip over and drive on both sides.

The problem was that in order to be symmetrical the wheels would have to be huge. So we decided to still go for it but use the kit of parts set up x 2.

I'm sure it would have been a lot easier to go with one side - but we challenged ourselves to see if we could make it happen.

If everything (or even most things) work as designed - Al should be dangerous.

Symmetric AL (the Shark Hunter)

:cool:

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

1474 will be there :D
Can't wait to see everyone.

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

Just two more days! I'm starting to get very excited.

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

The Griffins (Team 1884) just arrived in Boston after a 7-hour flight from London! We're going to take in the sights today, and we'll see you the guys and gals on Thursday. We've never been to Boston Regional, so we're hoping to do well and represent ourselves justly. See you there!

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

Rolling Thunder's trailer is packed and ready to go. It's been a few years since Team 1511 has been to Boston and is very excited to be returning! Lots of old friends and new friends await!

The advance group leaves this afternoon with the rest of the team following on Thursday. Very soon Rolling Thunder will be "Rolling!" Safe travels everyone! See you soon!

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

I'm off to field setup in an hour or so!

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

I'm heading over to Boston University right now....I hope everyones ready to start this thing off huge!

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

I couldn't make it (neither could 3186), however 1403 is back, and most of my family made the trip. Looks like it has a pretty great team list, as we have come to expect from this regional. Oh look the LED curtain, it is pretty amazing!!! Check out the webcast!

For those of you who have never been to the boston regional before, this is one of the premier regionals to go and see. The also tend to have a little extra showmanship.

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

Go 125! You have a bunch of folks rooting for you over here in San Jose!

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

Webcasting live each day at http://thebluealliance.net/boston10

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

Darn it. :mad: ustream.tv is blocked at work. I can't even watch matches during lunchtime.

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

If I were in a match against 125, I would play 6v0.

Just sayin.

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

This appears to be a popular strategy "against" 469 at the Troy District Competition: http://thebluealliance.net/tbatv/event/2010oc

21-0
24-0
25-0

These scores were not produced by accident. This was a conscious effort by all the teams playing to get the highest ranks possible.

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

WOW.

The regional has been decided by a penalty, and the worst kind to loose by, a human player steping out of bounds.

It was a REALLY good match, tied 12-12 at the end, with the penalty on blue.

congrats to 88, 1922, and 1768!

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

Hey greg I have pictures for you from the boston regional. Where can I send them? :D


congrats 88, 1922, and 1768! :D

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

Congrats to 3280 on winning Rookie All-Star! You guys were very smart drivers with a reliable robot at WPI, and I'm glad you'll get to Champs.

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

contact@thebluealliance.net works great :D

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

Hey Greg. A few members of my team are using the Tracker 2010 for the iphone. It says it takes pictures from TBA. How do I upload one for team?


Thank you 88 and 1768

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

I would like to make a shout out for 1511, 383, and 2648- you guys did great and I remember watching your other quarters/semis matches on the big screen in the pit area and seeing the 11 and 13 scores and feeling really nervous about going head to head with your alliance. Everyone put up a great fight. 1511, congrats on the chairmans award!

I would also like to thank 88 TJ squared, and 1768. I think we made a great alliance because we played it as a team, we had a plan and we stuck to it to matter what the match threw at us. 1768, you had a hard job of playing defense against the best teams at the competition, and you did a great job. Also, thank you TJ for believing in my team, 1922. We had a rough Thursday/Friday but Saturday morning we overcame the issues and came back alive, positioned in the middle of the rankings. Thank you very much for believing that we would be a strong alliance member.

Great job to everyone at the Boston regional,

Mike Klinker

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

Boston Rocked!

My favorite match that we played in was Qual match 78, we lost, but our robot finally flipped over.
However, in the process we lost:

1. A bar that kept balls from getting under our bot
2. A drive chain (if we had lost the exact same chain on the other side we would have been fine , but...)
3. A bearing that was installed in the transmission backwards
4. And a pneumatic accumulator tank was knocked loose

They weren't huge issues, luckily, we added a plate over the transmission bearing to prevent it from falling out again, Also, we remounted the accumulator tank, that was probably just not secured properly the first time. The bar was only held on with zip-ties, and the chain only came off because the accumulator tank got caught in it (we think).

We would have tried to hang in that match as well, but the missing chain made it hard to turn or go over the bump (our robot drives in a very straight line with only one side powered and the wheel that worked on the side that lost the chain was a slick wheel).

I've never been as excited to lost or to break something as I was in that match.

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

Only comment about eliminations- lol @ the seeding system. Definitely not how we wanted to go down...


Other than that, this was BY FAR, the best regional I have ever attended and the most fun the class of 2010 could have had at their last regional. The teams, the people, the venue, the city, and the overall atmosphere was just overwhelmingly enjoyable and friendly.

MORT felt very loved by many teams and event staff during our entire stay and we sincerely want to thank the Boston Regional planning committee, teams, and the fantastic judges for making us feel at home. The most welcoming and best run regional in FIRST was well worth it and we are adding it to our "Favorites" list for the future.

"Its about time you guys dropped by in Boston, we've been waiting for you" - best comment we've ever received from judges :D

Congratulations to all award winners and regional winners and finalists.

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

Hey I'm from team 1922 if you have some pictures from the boston regional please send them my way at videogamejunky13@yahoo.com
Thanks for the help!

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

I would like to thank teams 88 and 1922 for having faith in us and choosing us for your alliance! It was a privilege to play defense on an alliance with two such awesome teams and robots!

Al Fordiani
Technical Mentor and Advisor
The Robo-Chiefs, Team 1768

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

This year I invited several colleagues to share the FIRST experience at Boston, and they all came away extremely impressed with the organization and enthusiasm. I haven't been to enough Regionals to be definitive, but outside of the Championships, Boston must be (one of) the most professionally run event in FIRST. It was a pleasure to meet and talk to the volunteers, staff and of course all the others teams in attendance. Even the arena security staff searching backpacks for illicit Reese's Pieces were friendly!

It was very gratifying to be part of the winning alliance, and I think that 88, 1768 & 1922 showed that - as Woody & Dean hinted at Kickoff - a well organized alliance working together is critical in Breakaway, and can be competitive with, at least in my opinion, alliances with stronger individual robots.

Of course the difference between winning and losing is often luck. The finals were so close with scores of 8-7 and 12-11 that they could have gone either way. Luck happened to be on our side this time, but the alliance of 383, 1511 & 2648 were extremely good and made us work for every single point.

My personal highlight was qualification #68 which we lost. However one of our Blue alliance partners, 2888 Beaverbots had a flawless match after a frustrating Thursday & Friday of communication problems with the field. A special shout out to the FTA assistant who provided the crucial diagnostic information that helped solve the problem.

Finally, our award winning team website (www.tj2.org) has lots of event photographs posted under the media tab.

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

It was great to see 2888 out there and running smooth after diagnosing a number of control system and electrical/mechanical woes over the competition. What was inspiring to me was their kids NEVER got frustrated over their robot not working, and were always positive about trying a new configuration to determine what the problem was.

Mike, if you were the fellow I met and chatted about gate drivers and Jaguars, thanks for lending some expertise to 2888. Boston was definitely busy from a tech support standpoint, especially without taking into account some of the truly oddball problems I saw both on and off the field.

Speaking of shout-outs, big props to the Nu-Trons team 125. The Ask an Engineer desk was definitely busy all 3 days, answering questions and handing out tools/parts that the Spares Desk often couldn't provide. A major benefit of coming to Boston!

--Eric

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

Ohhh, the other thing.

The MC and game announcers- SO GOOD. Every single match was brilliantly announced and the commentary was always so enthusiastic and exciting.

Awesome regional.

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

Yep. Seconded.

Just want to say Andy Grady makes every event he announces amazing! Everything he announces is just more exciting than it would be otherwise. I've watched a lot of regionals with a lot of announcers, but Andy grady is the best aound.

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

Thanks! Thats what we are there for. I hope you guys come back to Boston soon.

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

Thanks Chris, we have had a great time so far this season going to Atlanta will be a great.

Our drivers have been the key to our success, they are talented kids. The best thing is we have no Seniors and only two Juniors on the team. The entire drive team is made up of Sophomores.

We would like to thank JC Penny for all of their support, they sent representatives to the competition this weekend, gave the team some free gifts, and when we won our awards they offered to cover our entry fees for Atlanta.

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

Thanks for making it such a welcoming regional for us Brandon, and the rest of 125.

1511- thank you for spare parts when we really needed them

1511, 229 and 1153- it was a pleasure learning so much from your wonderful machines in the pits.

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

All around 1511 cleaned up in Beantown with the Chairmans and finalist awards as well as coopetition, had an awesome time and were very impressed with the teams there. There were a number of good hangers (ours included after some significant reengineering) and many robots that started a little rough on practice day were up and running well by the end of competition. Thanks to our alliance partners and some awesome competition the finals ended up being high scoring events decided by just a point in each case.

The other teams, the volunteers, the judges and the event crew were all phenomenal. I especially want to thank the Judges, Woodie and Dean for showing up and being so gracious and nice to our team members. I know that just being there made at least some of our parent mentors (parentors) lifetime supporters. One of our parents who had never been on an away trip with her son said to me "Wow, I had no idea. Now I get it. Now I understand...."

The areas for improvement include some issues with getting power to our laptops for scouting on the final day, and a slow startup due to field problems on Thursday morning, other than that the event went without a hitch.

I would like to note that the power issue was not universally enforced. At least one team (not naming names - and we didn't "blow them in" at the event) had power running from the central camera booth down to their scouting laptops the entire time - after it had been announced over the PA and we had specifically been told - no power from the top. It was an obvious cable and was taped down along the stairs - even a casual observation would have seen it. We were alternately told during the weekend it was alright if the top level booth people didn't complain and that it was absolutely forbidden and against the rules. Note I am not criticising the staff or volunteers, they did their best with what were obviously rules handed down to them by either FIRST or the Venue itself.

I think in general this is something that FIRST and the venues that FIRST is at should think about. More and more teams are wanting to use laptops in the stands to scout. Our particular scouting config consists of 6 laptops (one for each robot) and one host machine that gathers the data from the other 6. There isn't a laptop on the planet which can last from a single battery charge for hours of scouting - certainly not the low end inexpensive ones that teams can afford or get handed down to them.

Could there not be some OFFICIAL scouting area where teams could sign up to have up to say 7 seats (one for each robot, and one for a host machine) that has power run to it and it's LEGAL to setup a little network and laptops? Due to wifi restrictions (this DOES make sense - don't want to interfere with the field) we can't network wirelessly and position laptops in supposedly "legal" areas, so cabled networks are the only way to do a shared laptop system.

If you place the scout area in an area that has reasonable view of the game so that scouters can see what is going on, and so that other spectators aren't standing up in the way of the scouters, tape it off and reserve it just for scouters, have the power run by an electrician so it's not a potential danger. Just an idea but one I think is worth considering. I think this would also remove some of the pressure involved with "getting the best seats" for scouting. If we KNOW we have reserved scout seats, then the teams can just pick a nice place to view from but don't have the "scramble" to get to it. This is a general idea for all events and I'd encourage input. I understand the concern for having "amateur run" power in the stands, but I also think that scouting and strategy are an important part of FIRST and it would be nice if we could come up with a solution that both protects the venues and participants, AND allows scouters to do their job.

On my perennial issue of sound both the FLR and Boston regionals seemed to forget the complaints of prior years. The music (especially the final day) was too loud much of the time - to the point of speaker distortion in some cases, the announcing and the field system buzzers were also too loud. Earplugs were a required accessory in the stands. A complaint at FLR resulted in a brief turning down of the volume for an hour or two then it went right back up - I didn't even bother in Beantown, it seems like a lost cause. Are we still measuring SPL levels and monitoring from the stands? Because that seemed to work well last year....

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

Thanks for the compliments from everyone. It is an honor and privlidge to call matches for the wonderful teams in this region and beyond. Big props to Dave Price who I feel is one of the best up comming emcees in the game and "Angry" Erik Eckhardt who was fantastic as an announcer to fill in for me so I could rest my ankle and voice here and there.

Big time congrats to the winners TJ, Ozram, and The Robochiefs. Double digit scores for each team in the final match is pretty incredible. Also a big congrats to team 1923 for winning EI and 1511 for Chairmans. It was great to see teams come from such distances to take part in the regional.

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

I'm the president of the regional planning committee in Boston. Thank you all for your kind words about our event -- we're very proud of it and we love putting it on for you all!

The feedback so far is great. I especially like the idea of an "official scouting area." We do have a challenge with the venue in Boston that we're not supposed to be plugging in to power or network drops that we don't have advance approval for (since most of that access requires additional payment). I and some other volunteers all had to ask students to unplug from some of the suite viewing areas, and the taped down power cords were also a continuing problem throughout the weekend. Many thanks to all the teams who were gracious enough to move their setups out of those areas -- I'm sorry we had to ask you to move, but we have our own responsibilities to our hosts at the Arena.

Team 61 worked with us in advance to set up a "sportscasting" area, and we were able to accommodate them. Similarly, with this scouting area idea, I think that's definitely something we could make work for next year since we have plenty of time to plan out what we'd need. Please feel free to email me directly -- mikell@bostonfirst.org -- if you have specific suggestions or requests for what an area like that would require.

Thank you all for attending this year! Keep the feedback coming!

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

Awesome! I hope other regionals can do this as well!

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

I've heard that Dean Kamen gave a speech about the Dean's List award. Did anyone record this? I'm really interested hearing what he had to say.

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

This was recorded. When it gets split out from the rest of the video, we'll put it online. :)

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

I must say, Boston was a blast for everyone on 229. thanks for all the teams who we competed with or against this weekend!

Does anyone know the name of the speaker who spoke about his prosthetic leg?

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

I believe you are looking for this guy, http://biomech.media.mit.edu/people/herr.htm

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

I was an inspector at Boston on Thursday and can't tell you how much fun I had! I wasn't able to attend for the rest of the weekend due to classes and work, but the time I did spend there was memorable to say the least. I would like to thank everyone from the Griffins(Team 1884) for their awesome display of hospitality. For all of you who don't know, they are from England(a 7 hour flight) and I'm from Connecticut(a 2 hour drive) and after all their struggles on Thursday, they accepted me into their group and invited me to dinner for helping them through their struggles. It is this sort of kindness that FIRST is all about and I will remember this event for a very long time.

-Fletch

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

Thank you so much for your gracious response - I was fairly certain the issue was involved with the Arena's rules, union requirements for running power, or similar issues. I will email you separately about what might work, but it might be good to open it up as a separate thread eventually on Chief Delphi so that other teams can provide input. We have our particular requirements but other teams might have different ones.

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

Also - one of my team leaders pointed out that the word "Cleaned up" might have sounded cocky - whoops sorry - I must say I was mighty proud of the team - especially the students - and might have let my gracious professionalism slip a bit there.

I apologize - I hope you all grasped that I have the utmost respect for the other teams there, the judges, the organizers, the volunteers, the other competitors, especially the winning alliance and our teammates with whom it was two of the most awesome matches we've ever been part of in the finals. We appreciate the attention that Boston paid us and had a HECK of a good time there! :)

Cheers,

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

Pictures pictures pictures:

View hundreds of pics and videos taken at the Boston event at our smugmug site:

http://rollingthunder.smugmug.com/20...255_jXhy3-A-LB

Re: 2010 Boston Regional
 

I'm a little late with these, but I've finally got all my photos up from the event:

2010 Boston Regional

Yes, it's a lot of photos, but I wanted to make sure to get as many teams and robots as possible. Fortunately, they're all tagged.
Looking for your team? Type in the search bar at the top "frc[team number]". Looking for just your team's drive team? Search "frcdriveteam, frc[team number]". Robot pics are "frcrobot". Other tags are "frcjudges", "frcrefs", "frcpit" (for all the pit action),"frcawards", and "frcopeningceremony".
As usual, teams are welcome to grab my images for their sites and whatnot (but please give credit! :) )


Once again, Boston was an amazing event and I had a great time.
I'm so, so proud of 88. Thank you 1922 and 1768 for being awesome alliance partners! :)
Also huge congrats to both 1923 and 1511 for your extremely well-deserved awards!