Re: 2011 Greater Kansas City Regional
 

Wasn't much practice today at KC hope they fix it for tomorrow. :yikes: :yikes:

Re: 2011 Greater Kansas City Regional
 

Team 967 had a great day today, especially in the scouting department. Ready for Friday, and the actual competition. Good luck, everyone!

Re: 2011 Greater Kansas City Regional
 

525 is the real deal. Smooth delivery of tubes, and the mini-bot goes up everytime. We don't have any qualification matches this year with or against them. Match schedule is posted here. We are in the very first match at 9:15.

Field issues were frustrating this morning (for everyone). I'm very thankful we have a dedicated group of volunteers who finally sorted everything out. We had 3 solid practice matches at the end of the day. Autonomous looks like it is on track to hang a tube everytime, and the minibot screams up the pole. It's all systems go for Friday.

Re: 2011 Greater Kansas City Regional
 

Yes field issues and we are so glad everyone cooperated and made things run smoothly( It helped alot.):)

Re: 2011 Greater Kansas City Regional
 

Can anyone identify the team for WFFA winner Gary Hannah? Thanks!

Re: 2011 Greater Kansas City Regional
 

Gary Hannah mentors FIRST #1810 Mill Valley High School

Re: 2011 Greater Kansas City Regional
 

That was fast! Thank you very much!

Re: 2011 Greater Kansas City Regional
 

Has anyone posted pictures yet?

Re: 2011 Greater Kansas City Regional
 

We had a great weekend at the KC regional. A big thank you to all of the volunteers at the event. Everything ran on time. We loved the spacious pit area and expanded spectator seating. The technological expertise of those running the event was tested, and they came through every time. After Thursday's hiccup the rest of the event was incrediably smooth. We are proud to call KC our home regional, and cannot wait to square off against the fine competition there next year.

We enjoyed being pit neighbors with 932. You almost got our minibot up the pole. If that uber tube had not gotten in the way in your final qualification match I think we would have seen our first deployment of a foreign minibot.

Thank you to 1982 and 2373 for joining us in our #4 alliance. 1982, you had the complete package. You consistently hung one in auto, put up a top row logo, and your minibot went up the pole everytime. 2373, you were a steal as a third pick. You were built like a tank and were a serious scoring threat.

Congrats to 525, 1730, and 1984/3784. As an alliance you guys had the most consistant and dominant performances of the weekend. It was no fluke that 525 went undefeated, and 1730's only loss was at the hands of 525 on a match that was decided by penalties.

It was great to see 1710 back in KC this year. Your EI award is well deserved. Your volunteers were everywhere, and the students we interacted with in our combined scouting effort were gracious and professional.

To 3172. A Chairman's Award in your second year is incredible. I can't wait to get to know your team better. Good luck at Champs. It is a fantastic experience.

What did we learn this weekend?

• Make sure that your robot performance is consistent. I don't think anybody hit their auto 100% of the time. We were among the most consistent, but certainly not the best at the regional.
• We had the fastest minibot in the regional, but failed to get it up the pole in several matches. In the only qualification match we lost we did not anticipate two minibots being deployed against us, and when we got to the pole late our 3rd place minibot cost us the match. In another match a tube fell out of our gripper bounced off of our minibot and then landed on a middle peg. While the tube scored, it also tripped the switch that shuts off the minibot at the top of the pole. We still won that match, but looked inconsistent to the top seeds looking for a good partner.
• Use a pre-flight check list. No matter how well your drive team thinks they have it memorized make sure they check it off. We had an opportunity to upset the #1 alliance in our first semi-final match. We missed a step in setting up our minibot and the failed deployment cost us the match.
• Elevators do a great job of staying in the zone, but they have trouble reaching over tubes that have been pushed up against the rack. These are also difficult for the driver to see. As you hang tubes it is better to clear the fallen uber tubes than it is to try to squish them out of the way. We had the power to squish them when needed, but it probably wasn't faster in the long run.
• Playing defense has to be a well thought out strategy. If a partner comes driving across the field to pick up a tube and puts a defensive hit on somebody while you are also playing defense it could inadvertantly look like blocking and draw a red card. Not a risk worth taking in eliminations. Make sure everyone on the alliance understands that only one robot at a time can play defense.
• Minibots need to be secured. If an opponent thinks they can hit you hard enough to dislodge your minibot they will come after you. We had a redcard in our first elimination match when we loaned a minibot to an alliance partner. Not only was it not secured well enough in our haste to get it installed, but when it got flung out it landed on the opponents tower. We were not alert enough to use an arm to sweep it onto the floor. Since it then interfered with the minibot race for our opponents it was a red card for the alliance. :o
• It is harder to share a minibot than you might think. We shared ours with two different teams and it did not make it up the pole in either instance. One was an issue of it not being secured well enough and falling out, the other was a freak uber tube in the way that the driver couldn't see. We will use the experience gained in KC to make sharing more successful in Denver.

We came to the KC regional to win. While we didn't win our way to the Championship Event this time, we did win some valuable experience for the Denver regional. We also saw our rookie members inspired to learn more and work harder. Our sponsors who attended the event walked away proud of the investment they are making in the community, and we had several elementary and middle school students in attendance who can't wait to grow up and join the team. In FIRST everyone can win, everyone can go PRO. And while we have not punched our ticket to the Championship Event yet, we came away winners and we hope everyone else at the event feels like winners too.

Re: 2011 Greater Kansas City Regional
 

On behalf of team 3172 HorsePOWER, we love GKC and are excited to represent the regional at nationals. As a second year team, we lack many of the relationships other older teams have with each other. However, we now feel more "plugged in" than ever. We seem to be making friends all over the place! We would again like to thank all of the teams from the 2010 GKC Regional for their donations towards our trip to Atlanta last year! We have and continue to look up to teams like 1710, 525, 935, 1108 and 1986 that inspire us to take small steps and giant leaps in the spirit of FIRST. Thank you Kansas City, we look forward to 2012!

Re: 2011 Greater Kansas City Regional
 

The Swartdogs would like to thank the Greater Kansas City Regional volunteers and planning committee for another great event. The new larger pit area was very convenient and appreciated. Everything was smooth and efficient.
We also want to thank our great finals alliance partners 1730, 1984, and 3784. We had some fun close matches in all the finals rounds. Team Driven 1730's scoring ability was awesome and 1984/3784 played great defense.
Congratulations to team 3172 for the Chairman's award and 1710 for the Engineering Inspiration award.
Also congrats to Gary Hannah of FIRST team 1810 for receiving the Regional Woodie Flowers Award.

We hope to see all of you in St. Louis and some of you in Minnesota at 10,000 Lakes or across the street at North Star.

Re: 2011 Greater Kansas City Regional
 

Thank you so much to all of the volunteers and FIRST officials running the event. Starting Thursday late afternoon it was the smoothest event I have ever been to. It was very nice to extend the practice matches to 7:30, and thank you for that.

We brought with us a team of 42 students. ~20 rookies and another ten previously on team 2334. We were delighted to be the 8th alliance captain and even more excited that 2345 and 1098 were still available. Being knocked out in the quarters isn't usually fun, but we had a 4 year member from 2334 that hadn't ever tasted elims. We had many more cases like this on our team and everyone had a great time. Even so, the 525 + 1730 + 1984 alliance was unstoppable and we almost had you in the second match.

Of course congratulations are due to 3172 on chairmans.

By the end of the regional we were very happy with our tube scoring ability and I am confident we will have a reliable deployment system for midwest. All of our kids are excited and ready for Midwest.

Once again, thanks so much to the volunteers for a great regional.

Re: 2011 Greater Kansas City Regional
 

Team 3784 is still completely & utterly in shock over this weekend's results!!!!

Thursday night things looked grim when our team members opted to amputate our robot's arm so the rest of it would pass inspection in time for us to play.

Now we truly understand just what an AWESOME bunch of people are involved with FIRST!!!!

From the inspectors who gently walked us through each step of the process to the members of other teams who laid on the concrete under our bot to get our wiring & bumpers fixed, we can't list all the teams and individuals who made our 1st FIRST experience possible.

We thought that after Saturday night, we'd all finally get a chance to sleep (and the robotic issues infesting our nightmares would give us a break!:-)

Now every single member of our team---adults & students---is giving 110% to make sure that our team is worthy of joining all of you in St. Louis.

Thank you, THANK you, THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Re: 2011 Greater Kansas City Regional
 

To all those that attended the Greater Kansas City regional, as a member of the Regional Planning Committee I want to thank you for your patience as we worked out the field issues on Thursday. Everyone was patient and understanding which allowed those that needed to concentrate on the field issues to work them out. Once they were worked out things went flawlessly.

The enlarged pit area also allowed for a much safer event. We only had two reports of incidents to the EMT both being very minor.

Congratulations to all the teams, granted the winning alliance 525, 1730, 1984/3784, EI 1710, Chairman’s 3172 and Rookie All Star 3528 get to go on to the Championship but everyone should come away from this event feeling good. We were able to get all 56 teams on the field to have competitive competitions.

For a bit of behind the scenes information Missouri State Representative Grisamore is a staunch supporter of FIRST was caught visiting the teams from his district with his daughter to wish them luck. After talking with him we found the passion in his voice and asked him to speak at the closings. And what a closing comments he made, I do believe he is there fighting to help the STEM programs.

Re: 2011 Greater Kansas City Regional
 

For those looking to travel to a great regional in the future, GKC is offering some top flight competition. The regional winners tend to vary every year which shows the depth of talent at the regional. We may not have the name recognition teams like they do in Chicago, but it's worth a look in the mid-west.

2011: 525, 1730, 1985 (3784)
2010: 2345, 525, 931
2009: 1806, 1208, 931
2008: 476, 1806, 1802
2007: 935, 1775, 1997

(There does appear to be a general pattern of one team from the previous years winning alliance winning again the following year.)

In addition several members of the regional go on to win or be finalists at a second regional, showing the level of quality of that talent. Here are the 2011 results.

525 - 1st seed, regional champs at GKC and regional champs at 10,000 Lakes
1730 - 2nd seed, regional champs at GKC and finalist at North Star
967 - 3rd seed at GKC and regional champs at 10,000 Lakes
476 - 4th seed at GKC and finalist at Oklahoma
1986 - 5th seed at GKC and regional champs at Colorado
1985 - 8th seed at GKC, and regional champs in St. Louis
935 - 10th seed at GKC, and regional champs in Oklahoma
3284 - 13th seed at GKC, and regional champs in St. Louis
932 - 16th seed at GKC, and regional champs in Oklahoma

Just some food for thought. We'll see how the teams who qualified for Champs do versus the rest of the world before we start bragging too much. Teams who played in 2011 GKC and also Qualified for Champs are:

476 - at large
525 - double regional winner GKC and 10,000 Lakes
932 - regional winner Oklahoma
935 - regional winner Oklahoma
967 - regional winner 10,000 Lakes
1098 - at large
1710 - Engineering Inspiration GKC
1730 - regional winner GKC, Chairman's Award North Star
1764 - Engineeing Inspiration North Star
1984 - regional winner GKC
1985 - regional winner St. Louis
1986 - regional winner and Engineering Inspiration Colorado
2996 - Chairman's Award Colorado
3172 - Chairman's Award GKC
3284 - Regional Winner St. Louis
3528 - Rookie All-Star GKC
3784 - Regional Winner GKC

Let me know if I missed anybody. Proud to be from the State of Missouri, and excited to have the Championship Event in our state. Here's hoping it exceeds everyone's expectations.