Re: 2002 Zone Zeal
 

FRC games have never stopped allowing you to do some crazy creative things just look at 469 of 2010.

Re: 2002 Zone Zeal
 

They haven't stopped the flow of creative ideas, but they have certainly kinked the hose a bit.

Jason

Re: 2002 Zone Zeal
 

Thanks!



Feynman was the robot, and like the Physicist he was named for, the robot was much loved and an all-time favorite robot of the team. He was the first FRC robot I worked on, so I'm a little partial... ;)

/thread jack

Re: 2002 Zone Zeal
 

Do you know where i could find a video of Feynman in action?

Re: 2002 Zone Zeal
 

Re: 2002 Zone Zeal
 

I don't know why people hated that game.

I thought it was fantastic. If you had me name my favorite robots ever, a large percentage of them would be from 2002. From a design standpoint there was so much cool stuff that year.

Re: 2002 Zone Zeal
 

Even though i wasn't around for the year i completely agree with you.

Re: 2002 Zone Zeal
 

wooo
who remembers the 02 UTC New England Regional with Woodie as Emcee?

121, 69, and 103 were able to hold off grasshopper, rage, and others. I'm biased, but what a GREAT set of finals:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...20343059306153

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...33266881795495

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...01710809288310

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...99785300247888

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...87238361322246

edit...oops, and the final match http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...93905769166259

Re: 2002 Zone Zeal
 

I was driving that year. Funny story about that video: it was our second practice match at NJ. The first practice match was a little of a letdown because we were still figuring out how to use the robot correctly. The co-driver controlled the roller speed with a pot, and had to keep the rollers spinning fast enough to get the balls in, but not so fast that the balls just shot out the top of the hopper. As we ran the line she had to increase the speed to offset the weight of the balls filling the hopper.

So the first practice match we biff out both lines of balls by running the line way to fast and tossing them all 20 feet in the air, showering first the judges table then the scoring table with balls. Entertaining for the crowd, but not very productive. Second match we were too slow- I ran the line slowly and she ran the rollers slowly. You can tell by the end of the line that the rollers didn't have enough speed to push the last balls into the hopper, and the very last ball didn't get picked up. Of all the runs we did that gobbled up every ball, usually even faster, that's the one run that managed to get videoed and online. It's still impressive looking, but, arg, that stinking ball! It haunts me.

Eventually we got it figured out and went on to have a really good season. We got a play of the day award, and I think a design award for it. Ultimately we lost our regionals to 'bots that controlled the goals, but we sort of saw it coming. It still stands as my favorite 'bot, and one of the best games I've been apart in.

Re: 2002 Zone Zeal
 

From an engineering standpoint, Zone Zeal was a pretty cool game.

From a spectator standpoint, it was very boring. I would say 85-90% of the matches my team was involved in that year were over by about the 15 second mark (that's 15 seconds into the match, not 15 seconds to go). I can't speak for matches with other teams since I was usually very busy with my team, but I'm pretty sure it was similar - at least in elims.

I guess the first 15 seconds were insanely exciting, though.

I have virtually all of our division elims and Einstein on VHS. I would love to post it somewhere, but that would require me to find the tape and get the equipment to transfer it to my computer. That's not very likely to happen.

Re: 2002 Zone Zeal
 

Sounds like a good weekend project!

Re: 2002 Zone Zeal
 

Totally agree. Teams were all over the map in terms of creativity between how to grab the goals, minibots, ball collectors, strategies....it all just made for an awesome design challenge that was met with tons of creative ideas.

-Brando

Re: 2002 Zone Zeal
 

I don't think anyone would deny that zone zeal was a fantastic engineering challenge. The problem I see with it is that, in general, the best robots were some of the least interesting to watch. A top-notch goal control robot, like team 71, was a remarkable feat of engineering, but to an uninformed spectator, simply resisted attempts to push it.

Re: 2002 Zone Zeal
 

I thought the game was great, up until the finals at IRI, when we had an entanglement issue, and the alliance of 71, 111, and 93 was disqualified.

Andy B.

Re: 2002 Zone Zeal
 

Yeah I forget who the referee was for that................

2002 was my sophmore year in FRC and coming from 2001-2004 seasons it was my second favorite (behind 2004). The game involved a lot of strategy on where you were going to go and how and when you were going to position your robot..... A chess match almost. However just like a chess match, it is not always the most exciting thing to watch (though it was almost sad trying to watch teams beat 71 after they grabbed all three goals).