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Re: 2006 NJ Regional
Ok everyone, heres an update:
So we got there and the first issue everyone had to overcome was the weather. Freezing rain, hail, ice, the road conditions weren't great. On top of that the weather was starting to get bad as everyone was driving down. Some schools actually ended up canceling class, like 56 and 303's school. Guess what that means? No buses, so there were quite a few teams that got off to a late start.
It gets better, the official field doesn't have any Poof Balls, zero. The shipment that was on its way down for today probably got delayed because of the weather, however they got enough teams that brought balls to competition that they borrowed all of those and returned them at the end of the day. As for the control system, rumor has it that NJ had more problems than VCU and BAE, but they were working on it and its getting there slowly but surely.
Most teams that got there didn't pass inspection at all today. There were teams that had all sorts of problems, improper wiring, illegal parts, robots 33 pounds overweight. I talked with the inspectors and they said that the robots just weren't developed enough and had a lot of issues.
The average practise match had 2 robots on the field total. 2. Of those robots none really ran smoothly everyone was having problems at one point or another. Autonomous mostly looked to be buggy too, not too many looked clean.
Overall the game play looks like its a whole lot harder than anyone predicted. The ramps at the corner goals are preventing a lot of easy points being scored, if you thought that ramp was easy to get on and score on, watch and see its a good bit harder. The center goal is getting some balls in and by the look of it more teams are giving up on the corner goals and just trying to make a shot with the center goals.
Everything should and will clean up for tomorrow, but for one of the first regionals this year NJ looks like it'll be great, a lot of teams are looking good but a little more than half still have a good deal of troubleshooting to do.
See everyone bright and early tommorow!
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