Did anyone share Minibots?
 

I'm curious if there were any teams that shared minibots during Week 1. I know there were no minibots shared at Alamo (unless you count the time 118 told the queuers they were using ours, as a prank...) and the Coopertition Award was not given out. Just wondering if other events were the same, or if someone elsewhere was sharing.

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

I'm not positive on this,but I think team 217 and 2056 shared they looked the exactly and had the same times pretty much and the two teams have helped each other out. My best guess is they shared.

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

I don't know of any teams that shared minibots in week one, but I do know that Team 3176 will have 8 spare minibots to hand out at Boilermaker Regional :D

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

1923 sucessfully sent a 1676 minibot up the pole!

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

In NJ Regional, Team 1647(Iron Devils) lent us their minibot on day 1 and we took it home to try and get it to work with our deployment system. We could never get it up, but the team was very helpful (especially their mentors Kyle and Bob; THANKS GUYS!) in trying to get it to work with our deployment.

On day 3, we were approached by team 1676(Pascack PiOneers) and were given their spare minibot to try and get it to work with our deployment. We finally got it to work and got it up in match 90, the final qualification match. Thanks a lot to both mentor Mr. Bill Giraud and student Marmike, who helped us to get it to work.

THANKS A LOT TO BOTH THESE TEAMS AND ALL THE HELP THEY PROVIDED!

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

We (340) gave 1126 one of our minibots. It never made it into use until eliminations. We weren't therefore eligible for the Co-opertition award but we did get to the finals on backs of Steve & Stevie (the minibots). Thanks 1126 for picking us, it was really cool to see 2 identical minibots racing up the pole. It was also great paring up with you guys again it just felt right!

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

That was student Chris Mormile. I wish we could have helped more. It was a pleasure working with you guys. You really have a great bot and drivers , and are the best kind of people to work with. Good luck moving forward.

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

Team 433 wasn't present at the NJ Regional, but I know that Team 1218 got the Coopertition Award for sharing their extra mini-bot with another team.

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

2228, 217 and 340 were sharing minibots.
2228 won the Co-opertition award.

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

At GSR, team 40 lent team 134 a minibot, which scored first place. This was the only minibot shared and scored, giving 40 the coopertition award.

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

Thanks for the compliments Mr. Giraud! Sorry for messing up Chris's name, but I thought his shirt said Marmike(can't see that well through my now scratched up safety glasses).

Congratulations on the NJ Regional win and keep up the good work and gracious professionalism on behalf of all of Team 1923!

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

1918 won the Co-operition Award at Traverse City, that is all I know about lending of minibots at the competition I attended.

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

Can you win the coopertition award if you aren't at the regional as an FRC team? If we bring a minibot to another regional can we win the award?

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

I'm not sure that information is completely accurate. According to the FIRST website, 2228 did win the Coopertition Award. We only shared our minibot with 1126. Many teams did come by to see how it was built and I did talk Larry of 1511 about the next iteration of the design.

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

I am fairly certain I saw an official source (probably Q&A) say that you had to be registered for the event, but I can't seem to find it right now.

I'm sure the beneficiaries of your generosity at the event would be more than happy to make an award for you.

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

Actually, 118 helped out with 1429's minibot design and the DiscoBots 2587 created a 118 copy halfway into the regional. 118 was very helpful in discussing their design.

When 2587 faced 118 in the quarters, they attempted to use this shared minibot design but it did not climb successfully (76 - 72 match ) .

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

if 118 would like to share there minibot design with me the would be nice ;)

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

I saw a minibot from Team 51 on another robot once, but it didn't deploy.

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

We shared our mini-bot with 716. We also gave them a partial deployment system and they vastly improved it. The mini-bot we gave them was a different design than our mini-bot, but is still sub 2 seconds.

They used it successfully in several matches but 2228's donated mini-bot made it to the top more than our donated mini-bot.

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

We mentored 2 rookie teams this year and never even thought about building ourmini's together...duh!!! Well that is changing tonight! I have a love/hate relationship with those darn things! Hate how the motors burn up if you even look at it the wrong way and love it when they climb that pole!:D

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

We had ours on our own robot, 2458, and 2191's bot

it was pretty cool to see it on other robots

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

2158 was the only team that legitimately shared a minibot (twice) during qualification matches at Alamo, but unfortunately the team they shared the minibot with did not successfully deploy the minibot either match.

-Danny

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

We were on the Olympic side of the 100 team Seattle Cascade/Olympic dual regional playing on the Olympic field and we loaned 1 of our minibots to MRT 3216 who successfully deployed it on Cascade at least twice. We specifically sought out a team from Cascade that had a good deployment system that was compatible, just to test this.

It threw the field people a loop since their system wouldn't accept our team number. Which was the reason given why we were not eligible for the coopertition award at Cascade. Though I'm not sure why they couldn't do a write-in tally since there were exactly 0 other shared minibots successfully deployed and there was no coopertition award given at Cascade.

We also loaned a minibot to 2147 on Olympic who successfully deployed it 3 times in qualifing and at least once in eliminations.

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

At Peachtree 122 shared their minibot with us (3573). We only got it on the pole once due to numerous issues with our deployer (wouldn't have mattered what the mini was like).

Despite our best efforts to inform anyone who would listen that we were using 122's mini before each match, they were not awarded the Coopertition award for the one qual match we did score it :confused:

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

From what I heard, there were one or two shares at St. Louis, but none were successful and there was no mention of the Coopertition Award.

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

At Seattle Cascade the que'er did specifically ask 3216 if the minibot was theirs or loaned and if loaned the team that provided it, per the queuing form, as reported by the 3216 drive team.

At Seattle Olympic......

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

After selecting 1868 for our alliance, we immediately began working with them on getting their second minibot working with our deployment system. 45 minutes later we had it ready to go for our first quarterfinal match. Every time we attempted to deploy, it went up, I believe 4 out of the 6 elimination matches we played. Awesome minibot, awesome team, things worked out well.

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

At Seattle Cascade, you weren't competing. You can only earn Coopertition points if you're registered for an event as an FRC team per <T03>. For Seattle Olympic, though, I'm not sure what happened there.

It looks like very few Coopertition Awards are being given out; I'm not sure why. Even in cases where somebody's eligible... I wonder if there are a lot of ties for the award, throwing off the count, or if people are just forgetting that it exists.

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

Mini bots were shared at the Chesapeake Regional.

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

The only minibots shared at Duluth that I know of were us installing a deployment mechanism on our alliance partner over lunch. In fact, using our minibot they consistently beat us up the pole by a few tenths, which is leading to a partial redesign of code. :)

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

We were the team you loaned your bot to (thank you very much).. and thanks for picking 2530 as your first alliance pick. I did ask queuing after our last Qual match if any sharing had occurred yet and they said none had, so unless the last few qual matches had any sharing (I doubt it) I think you can win the coopertition award for sharing in the elims, since 2169 did win it.

By the way, after the 2169 minibot smoked on the pole due to a faulty deployment, we went back to our original minibot. I believe even with our slower minibot we still beat 2169 up the pole due to our fast deployment.

John Vriezen
Team 2530 "Inconceivable"
Mentor, Drive Coach, Inspector

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

FIRST team 118 brought with them 6 complete deployment systems and minibots to the Lone Stare regional. They had them mounted on 3 other robots by the end of the day on Saturday, including their alliance partner FIRST team 1801.

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

Yes, we were asked this at Peachtree as well and every match dutifully informed them that we had 122's mini. After the match it went up we checked to make sure it was recorded and I was told 122 did as well.

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

Since this was such a success it is definitely something we are going to repeat at SVR and St Louis. You guys happened to have simple, effective parts that got the job done, and we plan on bringing a bunch of long 3/8 bolts and lock nuts to competition in the hope that we'll be able to do something similar even during qualification rounds.

It was pretty funny after we spent all day trying desperately to get our deployment done, we gave you the minibot and it was done before lunch was over.

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

At the West Michigan District, 1918 NCGEARS loaned us their minibot after ours burned up. We played 4 matches with it on saturday, we only had a chance to send up once, 3 times it popped off our pins holding it in place (same deployment method) 2 times from getting hit hard by another robot the other was from hitting the playerstation to hard :( which lost us the match and put us too low to get in a picking position.

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

We were actually registered for Seattle Cascade, but after the fact First decided to treat it as one regional and place teams on fields based on team number. So they initially considered them as 2 different events, changed to considering them 1 event, and then back to 2 different events once they moved the teams around. On the one level I can understand the reasoning behind why they choose to shuffle the teams between the fields with almost 30 rookie teams and 20 something 2nd year teams they wanted them to have a similar mix of veteran and rookie teams.

I do know what happened at Seattle Olympic but at this point I can't give anymore details.

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

In our discussions of the Coopertition award at our regional they told us that the qualification matches were the only way to earn the Coopertition award and elims did not count.

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

I will dispute this, as team 3221 won the coopertition award on the cascade field. our team deployed team 2471's (FIRST Team Mean Machine) minibot twice in qualifications, and had a failed deployment in the finals.

Why we got the award and not 2471, I don't know, but considering that they won the regional they were happy either way.

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

I will also dispute this, as this is never stated in the determination of Coopertition points. 5.3.5: "Any borrowed minibot which scores points...during the match". Not "any borrowed minibot which scores points...during the qualification match".

If that's a rule, then it needs to be stated in the rulebook. Because it isn't stated, then it isn't a rule and isn't enforceable as a rule.

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

In Florida, we lent 79 our back up minibot. They never got it up, but it was fun waiting to see if they could get it to work!

In Baltimore this weekend 340 shared their minibot and the other team got it to go up, so they got the co-opertition award. It was great. :)

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

I remember watching alliance selection just long enough to make sure the two of us were allied before rushing back to the pit to rig our minibot onto your deployment. I was thoroughly impressed how, in under an hour, you managed to make our minibot deploy better than we had in two days.

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

It's stated, Eric.

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

Our team, 2471, gave two of our mini bots to team 1510 and team 3221.
I am not sure if we recieved coopertiton points for it but I do know team 3221 won the coopertition award.

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

I take it you and the teams you lent your minibot to were on cascade as I don't see any of those team numbers on my olympic list. If you can confirm if one of those did successfully score in qualification matches and the aprox time I'll research it further and see if we can get your team the cascade coopertition award which was not given out at Cascade as verified by official FIRST results, WA and national FIRST officials, and the field announcer.

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

Considering that the results for matches after 64 (aka after Friday) still haven't been updated, I wouldn't think that they would have all the award data up too. We did score with team 2471's minibot twice during qualification matches, and got the award. Why we got the award, and not 2471, I don't know.

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

We also deployed their minibot twice during the qualifications, so they had a total of 4 minibots sent up by other teams.

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

FRC 3320 borrowed 118's minibot at Lone Star, we used it successfully in our last qualification match and helped them win the Co-opertition award. They even let us keep it after Lone Star was over as a thank you for be part of the two awards they won.

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

Not only did 217 lend us a mini-bot for GLR, they gave us pieces to build an identical mini-bot for us to use in Hartford. Unfortunately 217 is not registered for Hartford as otherwise we would certainly have put them in the running for the Coopertition Award.

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

Haywire 1569 and LiveWire 3456 both shared minibots at the Sacramento Regional. Haywire ended up winning the Coopertition award!

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

Team 1023 gave team 815 their minibot to use in their last qualification match and eliminations. It worked!

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

Team 1750 loaned one of their three minibots to 3507 which got it up the pole at least twice earning 1750 the Cooperatition Award at the Oklahoma City regional.

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

Dont get me wrong, I am not complaining. 3221 was an amazing team and I am glad they were able to use our minibot. I just found it odd to see (or not see I guess) how the coopertition points effected our score and outcome.

We will see what happens in Portland this week as well.

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

As I implied in earlier posts I'm on top of the situation and there are people high in the FIRST organization looking into the issue with the both Seattle regionals. It is highly likely that at Portland and the rest of the remaining regionals the proper recording and accounting of Coopertition points will be watched much more carefully. Which is a good thing because Bear Metal has every intention of giving Team Mean Machine (and any other team) formidable competition for the Coopertition award at Portland.



Good luck and we look forward to seeing you Thur morn.

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

In Pittsburgh, Team 1507 loaned us their backup to their extremely quick minibot design. After fabricating an adapter for our deployment, we successfully deployed their minibot in our final qualifying match, earning 1507 the Coopertition Award.

Even though 1507 chose us for the elims, inconsistency in using our swing arm deployment with their smaller minibot led us to return to using our larger, slower, yet far more reliably-deployed minibot design in the elims. This reliability came in handy in more than one match and helped the alliance make it to the finals. We are now working to improve our swing arm to work with minibots such as this.

By the way...Smoky Mountain Regional teams...two 1/2" diameter vertical aluminum pegs with a 4" center to center spacing...just sayin....:)

Fun fact - 1503 *almost* won the Pittsburgh Coopertition Award, because the volunteer mistakenly wrote their number down when our drive team checked in - another volunteer saw this and caught it in time! I'm sure that would have been quite an amusing sequence of events during the awards ceremony...*imagines "Yakety Sax" playing*.

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

At WPI we (FRC 2168) had some major problems with our deployment device through qualifications rounds, despite having a fast minibot.

We were selected into an alliance and shared our minibot with our alliance partners, 236 Techno Ticks, who took ours and deployed it in our first elimination match, resulting in not only the first succesful field test of our minibot but also securing us the match win.

We ended up recieving the Coopertition (TM) award because of this. Thanks 236!

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

That would have been hilarious. We would have been just as confused as everyone else.

-Nick

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

does your shared minibot have to score to win co-op award?

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

Yes and in qualifications, not in eliminations.

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

Minibots that score in the elims can win the award.

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

I got called on that earlier. They have to score in quals.

"The total number of Coopertition points earned by a TEAM throughout the qualification matches will be their Coopertition score."

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

Here is the list of Coopertition awards I have compiled so far based on the Awards pages on FIRST's web site....


COOPERTITION AWARDS AFTER WEEK 3
15 YES
12 NO

Coopertition Awards
WEEK1
Alamo - NO
NJ - YES
BAE - YES
FINGER LAKES - YES
Kettering District - ??
Traverse District - YES

WEEK2
SDC - NO
FL - NO
WPI - NO
LAKE SUPERIOR - YES
KC - NO
PITTSBURGH - YES
Wisconsin - NO
New York - NO
Waterford District - NO

WEEK3
NO Arizona Regional
YES Sacramento Regional
NO Peachtree Regional
YES Boilermaker Regional
YES Oklahoma Regional
YES Lone Star Regional
NO Seattle Olympic Regional
YES Seattle Cascase Regional
YES West Michigan District
YES Detroit District
NO Bayou Regional
YES St. Louis Regional
YES Chesapeake Regional

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

At the Peachtree Regional team 122 tried to share one of their 2 extra minibots with us but we did not have a deployment platform to work with it. They ended up sharing it with another team that made it to the finals though. So yes...

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

We used 217's minibot at Detroit with mixed success. We got one successful deploy in qualifying and one more in eliminations. We got approximately 400 successful deployments on the practice field trying to duplicate the issues we were having during matches.

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

Team 1918 "the NC Gears" shared a design with many teams including ours (Team 74 C.H.A.O.S.):D. Our team was very grateful for that!

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

We were happy to pass the design along to your team, among others. It was cool to walk around the pits and see our minibot design in at least 7 different pits. 141 even made it lighter and flashier!

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

FIRST has updated their Awards page for Peachtree and put a trophy in the mail to Team 122.

Also, we only made semifinals and never actually deployed the minibot in elims. We only got it up once, in our second to last qual match.

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

Our team (Team Mean Machine 2471) shared minibots at the Seattle:Cascade regional with 2 other teams that proved extrememly successful. Our alliance parter, team 1510 the Wildcats, used one of ours for both the qualification matches and finals. In building our minibot(s) we kept the design very generic so each of the 4 bots can be deployed numerous ways. Since we brought several loaner minibots it was easy to loan them out. Team 1510 ended up taking a minibot home to work with and will be bringing it back to the Portland, OR regional this next weekend (: We all look forward to seeing how other teams approach the minibot aspect of competition!

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

We have been in contact with Kevin, the FIRSTWA chairman, to hopefully correct any mistake in awarding team 3221 the cooperatition award, when it really should have been awarded to team 2471.

We were honored to be able to utilize the elegant and simple minibot design of team 2471, and were thrilled that they prevailed thoughout the eliminations to win the Seattle Cascade regional. Great job.

Mentor, team 3221

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

Thanks for helping to see that 2471 will get the coopertition award the earned and deserved!

Kevin has it under control and has informed 2471 of the fact that once all the paper work has been done it runs up the national chain of command and back down they will be receiving the coopertition award for Cascade.

Currently at the Oregon regional 5 of the top 10 teams are carrying either a 2471 or 2046 minibot.

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

At Long Beach, 696 has had 3 team members dedicated to installing a minibot on alliance partners' robots if they don't have a working one.

2339 has successfully deployed it on numerous occasions. 2576 attempted in two matches, but was not successful. 2272 had it all ready to go and tested working, but had a control system issue which left them motionless on the field.

It was a really great experience to work with team 2576 from Chile. Even though they didn't speak perfect English, and we didn't speak much Spanish, we really worked together well to try to get it installed and working. They gave it a great effort. I really like the sharing and helping aspect of this year's competition.

I believe the 696 minibot has appeared in 9 matches of other teams so far. Anyone else sharing at Long Beach?

Chances are it'll appear in at least one more tomorrow.

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

Nice! You guys did great today. We had lots of problems, no bueno... But watch, I'll be driving the arm tomorrow, and I will get autonomous working by "dead reckoning" style. I got high hopes for tomorrow.

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

We gave a completed minibot and deployment design to First Team 3175 (University Liggett HS, GP) along with opening our shop to them for fabrication of their entire robot. They were able to successfully deploy 4 times. Their main robot was totally designed and fabricated by their students (BIG KUDOS), so giving them our minibot, designed and built by one of our freshwomen, was in line with their team objectives.

I did not see anyone at our first event at Grand Valley State University (Western Michigan event) sharing minibots at the tournament, but I did hear successful designs were being given out by a couple of teams. I was busy queuing teams and did not get the pit scuttlebutt. I heard a team brought extras minibots and deployers for alliance members, I just don't recall seeing any on the floor. (hard to get the same attachment points, etc.)

Re: Did anyone share Minibots?
 

At Buckeye today, at least two teams have sucessully shared 1 sec range minibots... 3201, a team we have been close to since before it was a team, has been using one of our minibots at Buckeye very successfully - even when they were against us! 3138, another team very close to us, gave one of their minibots to 1629, which has been very successful with it! The result? Both teams using the loaned minibots are currently in the top 12! Very cool stuff!