Re: 2011 SBPLI First Regional
 

Just to clarify something that I'm certain the teams in the stands were not aware of during the alliance selection issue that many of you have been discussing.

As soon as 358 made the mistake the FTA immediately went to the head referee and brought the problem to his attention. The rules were quickly reviewed to make certain and the situation was then corrected as quickly as possible. Believe me, we on the field were aware of the problem BEFORE the yell from the stands from whomever did the yelling.

was the yelling un-GP? IMHO yes, however after being involved in FIRST for 12 years I also understand getting caught up in the "heat of the moment" and sometimes losing a bit of self control. Especially if you feel that you or your team have been "wronged". I can tell you that once the situation was corrected we never gave a second thought as to who shouted out, it was no longer important.

Simply put - I believe you all may be overlooking the fact that it was addressed fairly quickly and an announcement was made to inform the audience what had occurred. The end result of alliance selection was not affected.

Just a suggestion, don't dwell on the negatives. every event has it's issues regardless of location and teams in attendance. If you look deep enough you can always find problems with anything.

Quite frankly there are many of us that felt this years SBPLI-LI Regional overall was one of the best yet.

Re: 2011 SBPLI First Regional
 

As a current mentor of FRC2168 (one of the developers of our posted scouting system) and an alumni mentor of FRC229 I could not be happier to see our scouting system work out so well. Congratulations to the alliance!

To FRC1626 - Apparently the 3rd time running with FRC229 was the charm; I am continually impressed with your team’s growth and determination. Your consistent minibot was a major factor in the alliances success.

To FRC229 - It about time Division by Zero took home a banner. After quite a few rough years I was thrilled to have been there to support you in your victory. You guys built a solid bot this year, I'm proud of all of you. Way to put together an excellent last year for Chuck!

To FRC375 - Despite robot communication errors you guys played some of the strongest defense at the regional, without you the alliance would not have made it so far. Get that gripper fixed and kick some butt in St. Louis.

To FRC329 - Congrats on the Chairman's Award and building a solid robot, good luck at Championships.

Comments on the Regional as a Whole:
I was surprised by the lack of understanding of the rules by both the teams and staff at this regional. I arrived to the regional late on Friday after work, spent some time walking around the pit and watching matches, the number of things missed in inspection was surprising. From bumpers with concave sections, minibot deployments that gave the minibot vertical energy, and finally the issues with alliance selection. I take pride in the fact that the teams I have been a part of always know the rules first.

Please teams, take the time to fully understand the rules, watch for updates and read the Q&A as often as possible.

Re: 2011 SBPLI First Regional
 

Emphasis mine. I was an inspector on Thursday, and in regards to the bumper situation, we were not instructed to "pat down" the bumpers, but I know from now on, I will. We did have one team that had a notch cut out of the bottom of them bumper, but the LRI deemed it legal. And as far as the minibots, maybe it would have been a good idea to have teams demonstrate deployment during inspection, but that would add an siginiucant amount of time to the inspections. Also, many teams werent bringing their minibot for inspections untill friday afternoon...well after initial robot inspection. Mistakes happen, there were plentm more behind the scenes that you guys never even hear about. Our job is to make sure every team gets on the field and plays in a safe, honest manner.

Re: 2011 SBPLI First Regional
 

To 1626: As many of my teammates have already pointed out, thank you for picking us to be a member of your alliance. As always it is a great experience running with you and we were glad to help contribute to you first regional win!

Another thing that I think must be pointed out is that in all of my years in FIRST I have never heard of the 1st seed picking the 21st seed as their first pick. It takes a great deal of insight and a lot of guts to do something like that and we all thank you for it.

To 375: What a great experience it was working with your team. You relentlessly stuck to the alliances strategy and managed to shutdown some of the best scorers at the regional.

To 329: Congratulations on winning the Chairman's award, you guys definitely deserved it

Given that it was my first time attending this event, I had a great experience. No regional is without its problems and I would hope that all of the good that came out of it is not overlooked.

Re: 2011 SBPLI First Regional
 

FIRST Team 329 would like to congratulate all the teams this year, everyone was spectacular!

Teams 884, 229, 1626, and 375, congratulations!! We'll see you at the Championship! :D

And thanks to everyone that congratulated us, we really appreciate it!!

Re: 2011 SBPLI First Regional
 

Congrats to all teams that attended the SBPLI Long Island regional! I was super impressed by the robots and teams this year. Special congrats to 1629, 229, 375 and 329!! :)

I had a blast volunteering for this regional and I look forward to doing it again next year. Just wanted to thank the rest of the field crew and volunteers for doing a tremendous job. We were only able to meet a very agressive schedule (50 teams, 10 matches each, which demands 6 min turnarounds) with an awesome effort from the teams and our volunteers. So congrats and thank you to everyone on that! We were also able to make sure that everyone was able to connect to the field or knew why they were not connecting and give instruction for how to fix it. A feat only possible with an outstanding crew. Having the talents of Mark McLeod, Mike Massa and Bharat Nain available is awesome in this regard!

Re: 2011 SBPLI First Regional
 

As a member of Team 358 I would like to thank everyone who volunteered and attended the SBPLI regional. As a senior it will be sad that this is my last competition however it was a good way to go out. Congratulations team 329 on chairmen’s, to the alliance who won and all those who won awards especially Half Hallow Hills on rookie all start award.
Further more I would like to clear up the mishap in alliance selection. I would like to commend those who corrected the ruling on the field. Team 358 would never try to cheat. In WPI we had used this rule also had come into play and we were aware of it. However in “the heat of competition” while trying to figure out numbers and keep track of who was picked by who (50 three to four digit numbers can do weird things to your brain) we slipped and accepted team 1796. As soon as we realized it was not ok we did turn around and notify the field tech table behind us. They began to search through the rules to confirm the confusion. This is when the crowd realized what had happened and began to ask for a re-pick. No one is actually in the wrong here. We realized our mistake right away as did event staff and volunteers. The crowd also realized but was simply unaware of what was going on at field level.
I look forward to seeing some long island teams compete in St. Louis, and once again to everyone who made this event possible from volunteers and mentors to judges and sponsors.
Looking forward to the long island FIRST summer fun day!