[Qbot2640]

Originally Posted by walterev

I'd like to echo Jay's comments in that Jim and Juan (FTA) supported us on Friday with network tables issues from Smartdashboard writes. We finally had to remove that bit to resolve the issues because of other problems with the robot. Both were willing to go the extra distance to help.

With an hour to go before being kicked out on Thursday...Juan "crouched down" with our two programmers to help solve the problem that cost us the entire practice day. At 8:00, code was not yet deployed, but just about ready, and we felt much better about Friday. Fortunately for us, he's reasonably local to our team, and we've got his contact info!

Two slight disappointments, though...(1) I was eager to take advantage of the rule change allowing me to observe our Chairman's Presentation - but the judge would not allow me to stay without sacrificing one of our presenters. Ironically, the survey afterward asked if we made use of this change. I really wish the judges would have been current with that rule - we were hoping to use that observation to help hone our presentation for our other regional. (2) There were a couple matches where a team's opposing alliance arranged to work on the coopertition but then made no effort to do so. We got burned significantly once, spending considerable time on a futile effort...don't get me wrong - we should have been watching and noticing the other side wasn't doing their share. I didn't think much of it at the time, until another team's mentor told me we were "set up", having also had a similar experience. I didn't take note of the teams involved, and wouldn't have held on to that info even if I had - every team has their own strategic methods, just want to point out to "Trust...but verify!" when it comes to something as time consuming as the coopertition stack - especially later in the competition where a team may have ulterior motives.

In spite of our abysmal performance, it was a great experience and we had a very good time...though I hope to never do a "week one" again! We'll be in a district next year, so I hope to be able to build a later-season pair of events.