Heh, I thought we were in for another tormenting weekend when we got stuck on the floor again first thing Thursday -- but it turns out that the way we packed our crated caused some fiberglass to warp. Good thing we had some weight to put in a bar to fix it.
Friday was somewhat frustrating as far as matches go -- luck of who you're allied with/against plays a large part in it. Then there's alot of times where the Outpost player simply does not cooperate with you and tosses the Empty Cell over the wall or defys your pleading by dumping it onto the floor instead of on the ramp...
As a general warning, the second qual. match had a team not show up, which meant we were on the wrong end of 2 vs 3 against team 45. It was MOE and us vs 3 other bots and we had a great strategy for an upset. We could have pulled it off with better execution, but every strategy changes when there's a sitting trailer on the field, heh. When we learned there were rookies who'd barely built a bot Thursday afternoon, we went to help. Then Friday morning, we could put more people out to help because we had more mentors to help. Still kinda stings that we were helping the rookie who would've filled the empty trailer finish inspection as Match #2 started, but that's just how it goes.
End of qualifications, THE very last match of Saturday, we learned how to play defense, and play it well. We finally perfected our side-hybrid modes for the linkage drive train, so you guys in Florida better watch out
We all but shut down the second undefeated team, and though we got pinned once we also made sure they had nearly a full trailer by the end. Let the record 2-5 fool you, if you dare
The venue for the most part was great! 12x12' pits with gigantically wide aisles that prevented traffic jams and loud "ROBOT COMING THROUGH"'s. It was alot more safer for all of the VIP's, CTO's, VP's, CEO's, etc, that happened to pass by. If only we didn't have that silly trailer, we'd impress the other teams on the field as much as we impressed all of VIPs as the robot danced around in our pit... The burgers left something to be desired, but the smoothies were fantastic. By Saturday we needed more seating for the audience, haha. Loading stuff into the event from a trailer was pretty easy too -- a large bay door led from the loading docks straight into the pits, with no bumps or door dams to get over.
Finally, there are many thank you's -- MOE (365) definitely did us some favors, and I know they did all of the rookies a ton of favors. Then there was Dawgma (1712), who helped build a rookie's bot completely from scratch on Thursday. Then there's Epsilon Delta (116), who seemed to have mentors and team members volunteer in many aspects of the event.
Thanks to the many who helped pull DC off; we look forward to coming again next year!