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Originally Posted by Alex Cormier
ouch, late by a few seconds and not allowed onto the field. too bad.
1519, 1126, 195 = Quarter-finalists.
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by BoyWithCape195
What team was not allowed onto the field?
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The quick answer is team 1126 (SparX) for QF1.3. The full answer is a long story...
The alliance of 1519, 1126, and 195 was the top-seeded alliance. In the eighth-finals rounds, we focused on offense and managed to achieve the highest score of the day -- 101 points.
However, the same "all offense" strategy came up short for our alliance in the first quarter-final round. The strong alliance of teams 271, 1103, and 181 played unrelenting defense against us while they also pushed hard on offense, winning the match by a score of 87-70. (That match had the highest total score of the day.)
We changed our strategy for the 2nd quarterfinal -- team 195 focused on defense for that match. Similarly, 271-1103-181 played even more energetic defense, and both alliances scores were greatly reduced. When the dust settled, our alliance came out on top with a score of 57-31, forcing a third round for the quarterfinals; alas, the win came at the price of having team 1126 snap two of their four drive chains and 195 threw one of their drive tracks.
The next few minutes were very hectic indeed, with two of our alliance members scurrying madly to get their robots repaired and our doing anything we could to help. Team 195 had an entire replacement wheel/tread assembly ready to bolt on to their robot. They made a complete swap faster than I would have imagined possible. NASCAR pit teams couldn't have done it any faster!
Meanwhile, team 1126 faced a difficult teardown and reassembly, as not only had their chains snapped, but the broken chains had jammed themselves tightly on one of their wheels. The difficulty of the repair was increased by the fact that the referees wouldn't let the team return to the pit area to make the repair -- the on deck area was in the dark, requiring the use of flashlights to try to see while making the fix. Given the difficult lighting and tightly jammed chain, before we knew it, our entire time-out period had completely elapsed.
At that point, in a great example of what
gracious professionalism is all about, the opposing alliance of 271, 1103, and 181 took their time-out on our alliance's behalf in order to give 1126 the chance to get their robot ready for the match. We scrounged up a pair of halogen floodlights and brought them to the ondeck area so that 1126 wouldn't have to continue trying to repair their robot in the dark. In the meantime, we put our alliance's other two robots on the field and got ready for the match while the MC started to introduce the teams. The SparX pit crew continued to work on their robot and completed the repair to their drive chains just as the MC was finishing team introductions. However, as SparX went to put their robot on the field, the field crew said that our time was up and that we couldn't put the robot on the field -- it was too late.
We were stunned. After a gracious time-out by the opposing alliance and a gallant effort by 1126 to repair their robot, we missed the chance to get the third robot on the field by just seconds. We weren't even permitted to re-adjust our robots to different positions to accomodate a two-robot autonomous strategy. (A few minutes earlier we had arranged the robots for a two-robot strategy, but as SparX was headed back onto the field, we re-adjusted our robots back to a three-robot strategy, not realizing that they wouldn't be allowed on!) We were disappointed that after having worked so hard to restore the robot to operation, team 1126 wasn't able to put their bot on the field.
The third match started and team 181 succeeded in pushing us continually to slow down our autonomous shooting and cause some missed shots, holding us to only five balls in the high goal; meanwhile the combination of 1103 and 271 sunk six balls in autonomous, winning the all-important field advantage as well as the 10-point bonus by one ball! Despite valiant defense by 195 and our best efforts at scoring, being down a robot against such a strong alliance was way too much to overcome, and 271-1103-181 emerged the victors by a score of 54 to 31.
Our kudos go out to the opposing alliance of 271-1103-181 -- the gracious use of their time-out on our alliance's behalf was greatly appreciated -- without their extremely generous conduct, we would have had no chance to field three robots for the match. We were disappointed that they didn't go on to win the tournament, but we were ecstatic that team 271 was specially recognized in the award ceremony for their gracious professionalism -- it was very well deserved.
We also want to thank teams 1126 and 195 -- we were very excited to be able to have such extraordinary teams on our alliance. Even given the outcome of the tournament, we are very thankful to have you both partnered with us.
Most of all, however, our thanks go out to the many workers and organizers of BattleCry -- this tournament is an exceptional experience -- you can be sure we'll plan to be back again next year!