Re: 2010 IRI Results and Awards
 

Please, please, do not re-add Cotton Eye Joe to the playlist. I was very happy with its absence! :p

Thanks for the clarification about the selection criteria.

Re: 2010 IRI Results and Awards
 

I concur. Cotton-eye Joe, YMCA, Chicken Dance....they are on my DNP list. Do not play. For the love of god.

Re: 2010 IRI Results and Awards
 

I thought the DJ's mix was awesome and was really happy to hear and sing along to some of the Beatles stuff. It was a perfectly timed pick-me-up during a tired time of the day. Good stuff!

Re: 2010 IRI Results and Awards
 

As the coach of a team that was likely viewed as a "how-did-they-get-here," I feel I must speak up on my team's behalf.

I haven't looked at the official rankings, but if we weren't last, I'd be terribly surprised. Here's why:
On Thursday several members of the team were at LNHS to help setting up the field and pit area for our 6th IRI. It was a hot July Indiana day, there were no outside windows around, and honestly our thoughts never really turned to weather. I have no idea how long the rain pelted our robot sitting in the back of a pickup truck. All I know is we went outside to get our pit installed and saw the wrath of God coming from above.

We took off and apart all jaguars, victors, and servos and dried them overnight, we changed out the PDB and sidecar (rewiring a robot on Friday morning is no small task, especially when you're in the first match), we re-lubed the gearboxes, but still were having communication problems, mostly on the field that we couldn't duplicate in our pit. Two matches, the robot spent the teleop period rebooting. One match, we had about a 2.5-second delay between sending the drive signals and the robot operations responding. One match, a freshly-charged battery read less than 8 volts (we hooked up a multimeter to it after the match and found it really still had >12V). One match, the entire left side of the robot refused to work.

I've really got to hand it to the students - despite all these setbacks, most of which we couldn't replicate outside of matchplay - they kept their heads up, they kept troubleshooting, and on Saturday our alliances won both matches to bring our final record to 3-5.

When the planning committee extended an invitation to our team, I'm fairly sure they didn't expect to get a waterlogged robot on Thursday.

As far as the call for more midwest offseason events, I submit to you CAGE Match - October 16.

I'm certain the folks that run IRI, and have done it for 10 years now, are much smarter than I am, and it is not my place to question their methods. Obviously they're doing something right.

Re: 2010 IRI Results and Awards
 

It seems like every team has been through an event like that at one point or another in their history. I hope for your teams sake that all the parts were recoverable and you don't incur too much cost to replace damaged controllers.

I hope your team isn't discouraged by these events. Unfortunately these lessons in seviceability and maintainability never come at an opportune time, but I guaruntee someone on your team suggests planning for a similar contigency next year. Your team will shrink wrap your robot well for transit and have very servicable electronics just in case.

Re: 2010 IRI Results and Awards
 

Thanks for your words of encouragement. Thanks also to Alan Anderson, Andy Baker, Mark Koors, Chris Mills, and Chris Noble for your help in diagnosing problems.

As a side note, Mr. Lavery was gracious enough to autograph our robot: "See you on Mars Dave Lavery".

I suppose he is very comfortable with the idea of water on Mars. :yikes:

Re: 2010 IRI Results and Awards
 

I'm pretty certain that Dave also empathizes with you on the travails of handling extreme rain/robot interactions at IRI. ;)

Re: 2010 IRI Results and Awards
 

I will agree with Kara here. I agree that the Cotton-eye Joe shouldn't be played more than 2 times in a weekend, but during the two regionals I went to this year the song to play during time outs and field issues was the Chicken Dance and the YMCA and those do nothing to help move the time along.

In general I thought the music could have used some help. Most of it was 80's rock music (no offense to anyone but when it is played softly and they repeat songs 3 LONG songs in one day it makes it monotonous... especially when scouting). But when they did play something it was the same three songs Be My Escape by Relient K, and Alejandro/Telephone by Lady Gaga. Before going right back to the 80's. Even in the eliminations when at most regionals they pull out the "intense music" as one DJ told me, it was the same rock music that was played all weekend.

I'll listen to rock, but after this years IRI I will kill not to hear it again! :P

Other than that it was a great event as always!

Re: 2010 IRI Results and Awards
 

Has anyone given any thought to the idea that maybe our hosts were doing the best that they could given circumstances? Do any of us really know anything about the DJ situation this year and how it came to be or how it worked out? We had good music and I saw lots of folks celebrating and dancing. To my knowledge, no one left the party because of the music or replays.

Just some thoughts,
Jane

P.S. Idea: something that would be productive and helpful would be to start a thread with suggestions for a dynamite playlist for events. I know there have been threads like that in the past - perhaps it's time to make one for the 2010-11 season. That beats the heck out of complaining.

Re: 2010 IRI Results and Awards
 

Thanks to all for great input here. We will definitely pay more attention to the song list next year, and even buy some requested songs that we didn't have available. Our DJ for next year is already working on this.

My personal opinion on this would be to strive for variety. This year, we really didn't worry about it too much. With some DJ change over during long days, some songs got repeated. Next year, we will keep a history of what was played and also strive for more variety.

Andy B.

Re: 2010 IRI Results and Awards
 

I also wanted to point out that the DJ's song choices at IRI, at least on Saturday when I watched, were pretty good overall. I've been to events where DJs just seem to put either some terribly overplayed stuff on over and over, or once even a single album just played through. Here there was a good variety of songs that mixed basic genres and styles fairly frequently.

Re: 2010 IRI Results and Awards
 

This is the correct answer.

Re: 2010 IRI Results and Awards
 

If it hadn't been for Cotton-Eye Joe
I'ld been married long time ago
Where did you come from where did you go
Where did you come from Cotton-Eye Joe


What amazing lyrics, who couldn't love that?

Re: 2010 IRI Results and Awards
 

country-techno.
some marriages should never be allowed.
period.

Re: 2010 IRI Results and Awards
 

Jane, I completely understand the music situation and I wasn't surprised it was played in the first place. Some off seasons play it because it is older volunteers who grew up in the days of rock and prefer that over newer music of the younger generation; which can become a problem when the competition is aimed towards the younger generation. I don't think that the music choice would even be a pathetic reason to leave the event that would be just plain rude. And I am not saying that 80's/rock is bad or shouldn't be played, there are some songs I love, but some songs were played in excess *2 to 3 times in the course of a day and there wasn't much variety. If there were more different 80's/rock songs I wouldn't have a problem since they would be different and new, but most of the songs played were repeats. If I came out as though I am complaining, I apoligize that is something I can do and not realize I am complaining. :o

I remember at an FLL event I helped volunteer at they had Grooveshark set up (free website with millions of songs) and they used that for their music/song requests to keep cost down and please those who came up requesting songs.

So I would just recommend more variety and fewer repeats.

P.S. Jane, they are looking for areas that could use some work. I wasn't the only one up in stands who commented on the music (a few other students from other teams around us did too).