A Summer Trip (or, Greg Mills Can Cook!)
 

Posted by Ken Patton.   [PICTURE: SAME | NEW | HELP]


Engineer on team #65, The Huskie Brigade, from Pontiac Northern High School and GM Powertrain.

Posted on 8/4/99 4:54 PM MST




Several members of our team just got back from the Ozark Mountain Brawl, an exhibition/competition put on by the Baxter Bomb Squad. We had a blast - the Bomb Squad really did a nice job hosting the event. It was a two day event, with some 'all-star' matches and robot Olympics type stuff on Friday and a tournament / exhibition with both one-on-one and alliance matches on Saturday.

They had a cookout on a lake on Friday night (Greg makes a pretty good burger!), and a party at a farm on Saturday. It was a good combination of competition plus vacation. Mountain Home is a small town in northern Arkansas with ~10,000 people in a resort area. A long one day drive from Detroit.

The final matches between HOT and the Bomb Squad - one on one matches - were pretty awesome. They went the full three matches, with HOT eventually winning. Puck position was important, because in the one on one matches both robots usually make it onto the puck. HOT got pretty creative in denying a Baxter 3X a couple of times. One time they dragged the puck away from them, and another time they retracted their folding wheels to lean their extended basket into Baxter's to keep them from maintaining 2 inches off the ground. And Baxter usually was much faster in loading 8-10 floppies and going to the puck!

Both HOT and Baxter spanked us, although we did manage to beat Baxter once when we (luckily) wedged the puck in their human player station. The fourth team there was DaimlerChrysler+Avondale #33, and they, um, beat us too....oh, well, wait'll next year...

Thanks Bomb Squad for a fine event - we hope you do it again next year. Thanks to HOT for taking our robot to Arkansas in your killer truck (we wouldn't have made it without you!).

The REST of you teams in the midwest (or wherever) should put this one on your calendars!

Ken

Re: A Summer Trip (or, Greg Mills Can Cook!)
 

Posted by Greg Mills.

Engineer on team #16, Baxter Bomb Squad, from Mountain Home and Baxter Healthcare.

Posted on 8/5/99 6:36 AM MST


In Reply to: A Summer Trip (or, Greg Mills Can Cook!) posted by Ken Patton on 8/4/99 4:54 PM MST:



:
:
Ken,

Thanks for the comments but it seems that anyone willing to drive 14 hours (twice) should get at least a hamburger or two. Our exhibition was a success because of the teams willing to come and play. Mountain Home is almost impossible to get to (maybe that is why it is so nice after you get here) and we realize that the middle of the summer is a very busy time. The Arkansas Economic Development Commission is producing a video to promote FIRST in a state-wide campaign this fall. The production crew at the tournament got some awesome footage. Thanks to all the visitors that made this exhibition possible, maybe we can all be a part of recuiting new FIRST teams! At least one new team is coming into the fold, due in part to what they saw last Saturday. University of Arkansas Little Rock will field a team in 2000.
Thanks again and we look forward to planning and hosting an event next summer!!

the Mtn Home experience
 

Posted by Ken Patton.   [PICTURE: SAME | NEW | HELP]


Engineer on team #65, The Huskie Brigade, from Pontiac Northern High School and GM Powertrain.

Posted on 8/5/99 6:57 PM MST


In Reply to: Re: A Summer Trip (or, Greg Mills Can Cook!) posted by Greg Mills on 8/5/99 6:36 AM MST:




Greg, I for one consider it pretty special to have a burger (okay, two) cooked by you! It puts a new face on the guy whose robots kick our butts. :))

One thing that people on our team noticed was the amount of community involvement that was evident in Mountain Home. A couple of examples:

1. Businesses had signs up welcoming competitors to the Baxter Ozark Mountain Brawl. It was a nice touch, something that I haven't seen much of elsewhere.

2. We were eating breakfast at a restaurant (we bailed on the Holiday Inn because the waitress was a grouch), and almost everybody in the place asked us why we were there (our uniforms clued them in that we were there for SOMETHING), and when we explained, nearly all of them knew who the Bomb Squad was! One guy acted like a proud booster of the local football team: 'you'll have a tough time beating them!'

Ken