Sacramento Regional

[10intheCrunch]

I think but I'm not sure that we took first seed based off of our highest one match score (200). We were planning on choosing each other since the day before anyway, so it was no worries =).

[Winged Globe]

Congratulations to team 481 for a well-deserved Regional Chairman's Award win, and many thanks for hosting laser tag friday night. Quack!

Thank you to our alliance partners 1425 and 833. We tried our best, and it was a lot of fun.

And, thank you to all the teams, volunteers, crew, planning committees, referees, and judges for making Sacto a great second year event!

[Tonay K]

Hey all, does anyone recall if any of the Reno, NV area teams showed up in Sacto this year? Most likely teams 950-Reed Raider Robotics and 953-Reno High School Robotics.

I was a member of 950 last year (moved cross-country) and almost all of our team graduated. Sadly, I've lost touch with the other members. Just checking to see if Nevada was represented.

P.S. - Hey Adrian, Tony from 950. We hung out at Arden Fair last year, good times. And I still feel like crap about what we did to 254 in that match, we hope you don't hold it against us...

Sacramento Alliances (seed rank after qualifying)

1 254(1) 753(2) 955(29) (champions)
2 1120(3) 945(5) 481(24) (finalists)
3 835(4) 869(6) 1072(12)
4 961(7) 1097(18) 981(22)
5 841(8) 599(16) 701(30)
6 1151(9) 1425(17) 833(14)
7 1427(10) 114(17) 692(28)
8 1147(11) 1388(19) 1458(26)


Lucky I copied this on the notepad - I just typed in all the seeds and the BB crashed on me when I hit post!

[10intheCrunch]

Some amazing things happened at Sacramento. For example: 1427, leaders of the 7th seeded alliance, did not have a robot on Thursday. Their team didn't know about the time limit and cobbled together a drivetrain with about 1 wk to ship, and sent it off. Thanks to a lot of effort from team 376 (I think...the guys helping them had 376's sewed on their shirts) and the 254 mobile machine shop they were able to get the drivetrain working, programmed, and running, and took 10th seed. Wow.

955, our second alliance choice, built their hanging assembly in one day at the regional. They were much better than anyone, including their seed ranking, gave them credit for, but thank goodness our scounting team liked them! They were amazing in the elimination rounds.

Awesome regional guys.

[BionicAlumni]

Originally Posted by Ken Leung

Regional Woody Flowers award: Steve Kyramarios from team 254

Awesome job Steve!!!!!!!!

[Wetzel]

Originally Posted by Ken Leung

The Cheesy Poof #1 alliance scored a 210 points match in finals 1.1, and from what I heard, that tied Richmond's 210, the highest score of all the regionals!!!

16 and 1405 also scored a 210 at Annapolis in the semifinals.

Wetzel

[Joe Johnson]

Will someone who saw it first hand give a thumbnail sketch of how the Elimination Rounds went in Sacramento?

On the surface, the story is simple: Cheesy Poofs win ANOTHER regional.

But, I suppose that it was more complicated than that.

Anybody willing to fill us in?

Joe J.

P.S. By the way, how many regionals have Cheesy Poofs won now 8, 9, more? Do tell...

[dlavery]

Originally Posted by Joe Johnson

Will someone who saw it first hand give a thumbnail sketch of how the Elimination Rounds went in Sacramento?

On the surface, the story is simple: Cheesy Poofs win ANOTHER regional.

But, I suppose that it was more complicated than that.

Anybody willing to fill us in?

Joe J.

P.S. By the way, how many regionals have Cheesy Poofs won now 8, 9, more? Do tell...

Hmmm... Sounds like a "throw-down in the making" between 254 and 47! Or, for one of the most amazing pairings ever, imagine 254 and 47 on the same alliance! The San Jose Regional should be quite an event!!!

-dave

[Wetzel]

Originally Posted by dlavery

The San Jose Regional should be quite an event!!!

-dave

I know...I wish I could go again, but the whole quitting-your-job-to-go-to-a-bunch-of-regionals-thing ended up being a bad idea...




Wetzel

Originally Posted by dlavery

Hmmm... Sounds like a "throw-down in the making" between 254 and 47! Or, for one of the most amazing pairings ever, imagine 254 and 47 on the same alliance! The San Jose Regional should be quite an event!!!

-dave

Hey guys - all hope is not lost - the video of the finals is in much better shape then I thought originally, and I may get an archive of it up later today.

To summarize the Poof robot - it is extremely fast and manuverable. It was 8 and 1 in the qualifiers - the one match it lost was when it's ally fell over unassisted in front of one of the ball corrals. they scored about 80 ball points
(capped the goal) but lost to 2 hangers (one of them I think that was the only match they were successful hanging.) During their first qualifier, they were up againt a basket bot that was a very effective small ball handler - it's strategy was to wait under the ball drop. The Poofs usually trigger both ball drops, but didn't go for that on this match - they grabbed a big ball and put it right in their opponent's net - entirely shutting them down from scoring. Everyone just laughed and shook their heads. They have one technical problem to solve their hanging cable snapped several times during hoisting - the plan is to replace the 1200 lb test braided steel with kevlar or spiderwire. Up against a very capable alliance anchored by 945 (The Hulk) they just were faster, more manuverable, a better small ball handler about equal in big ball handling and less consistent as a hanger. Their autonomous mode worked about 75% of the time. I don't think they were ever penalized.

The robot is just a wonderful all-round competitor - I was worried about durablilty but it took a number of hard knocks with out any problem. They tend to avoid pushing and shoving matches with other robots. If one side of the bar is blocked they'll just circle to the other side - If both sides of the bar are blocked, they'll uncap the opponents goal.

For the record, I think the Poofs have won every regional they ever competed in except the 2003 Sacramento where they ended up as the finalists.

[Ken Leung]

Originally Posted by Joe Johnson

Will someone who saw it first hand give a thumbnail sketch of how the Elimination Rounds went in Sacramento?

On the surface, the story is simple: Cheesy Poofs win ANOTHER regional.

But, I suppose that it was more complicated than that.

Anybody willing to fill us in?

Joe J.

P.S. By the way, how many regionals have Cheesy Poofs won now 8, 9, more? Do tell...

It is actually quite simple really. The Poofs have a bot that can get the 2 10pts balls in less than 8 seconds in autonomous mode, will not get stuck on small balls at all when they herd at least 8 of them to the human player each match, grab the big ball with 1 minute remaining in the match and cap it within 15 seconds, and drive by the side of the bar and hang in 20 more seconds. Imagine their bot from 2001 and you will have a good idea how speedy they accomplish each task.

Their alliance partners were bots that consistantly hang in each match giving them 50 points, plus 50 more pts when they hang their robot, and 5-11 balls with cap that give them 50-110 more points.

Their opponents are usually busy moving small balls and big balls when the poof's partners hang, and by the time the 254 bot finish capping the goal, you either try to block them from hanging (and not get the 50 pts yourself), or you both hang and get out-scored by their capped goal and 2 robot hanging.

The only times when the Poofs didn't hang in a match was when their cable snapped after getting pushed really hard while winching up, but I am sure they came up with a way to fix that problem by now.

Oh, by the way, Jay has been driving for the Poofs since their winning streaks at 2001. Try training your driver with 3 years of competition experience, and you may have a chance to beat them.

Either that or come up with a robot that can decap the big ball and block them from hanging from the steps. ;-) It is too bad the robot call "tiny tank" at the Sacramento regional didn't have a big ball poker, I thought they had a chance in stopping the Poofs when they kept driving on the Poof's bot from the first step with their wedge shape bot.

I think we need to see some serious defensive strategy in SVR or there is no stopping 254.

[10intheCrunch]

Originally Posted by Joe Johnson

Will someone who saw it first hand give a thumbnail sketch of how the Elimination Rounds went in Sacramento?

On the surface, the story is simple: Cheesy Poofs win ANOTHER regional.

But, I suppose that it was more complicated than that.

Anybody willing to fill us in?

Joe J.

P.S. By the way, how many regionals have Cheesy Poofs won now 8, 9, more? Do tell...

Well I can give you the elim rounds from a Cheesy Poof perspective, but I don't have the full story, down near the robot as I was (I didn't watch all the matches).

We started out winning the QF pretty easily against the 8th seeded alliance, with 955 showing that they were a whole lot better than their 29th seed said they were. The higher seed won every other QF pairing. After fixing a broken chain and rerouting a relay connection that had been cut, we stepped out for semis and faced alliance 4, but their lack of a good hanger or herder hurt them badly, and we moved on again. In the other semifinal round, 835 (nice autonomous), 869 (ball catcher) and 1072 squared off against Florida's 945, 1120 and 481. Thankfully for us, they put up a hell of a fight, and a tie breaker match gave us Poofs some more time to fix our robot. Eventually, 945's alliance prevailed and the final round was set up.

The first round of finals was an amazing show, with all four robots hanging at the end, and our goal capped with 11 balls! 254 and 753 won 210-125, and the entire place went crazy (lots of people running around and jumping on each other on our side of the field...). Our cable was fraying, though, and we had to replace it, but some snags meant we weren't going to make it on time. 753 and 955 stepped out to play, but as we were finishing repairs, the field coordinator gave us one last chance to call timeout...so we did and got our robot out on the field. One of 481's coaches came over to our side and amazingly told us that if we needed it, their alliance would call timeout to make sure we played in this round. The last round of finals was a nailbiter, as 955 defended 945 from the top platform and our hanging cable snapped (didn't we just replace it? ), and our last second decapping effort failed. 945, however, wasn't able to get on the platform fast enough, and couldn't get themselves in the air as the buzzer rang. 254, 753 and 955 took that final match 95 to 70. An amazing end to an amazing regional .

Complete Match List

[Joe Johnson]

Originally Posted by dlavery

Hmmm... Sounds like a "throw-down in the making" between 254 and 47! Or, for one of the most amazing pairings ever, imagine 254 and 47 on the same alliance! The San Jose Regional should be quite an event!!!

-dave

Well I suppose that was not my most subtle posting...

...while I wouldn't say there is a rivalry as such, I AM dying to play with (or against) the famed Cheesy Poofs.


By the way, I did a little digging on "The Regional Race":
Team #47 -- 8

1. Great Lakes Regional 1998
2. Southwest Regional 1998
3. New England Regional 1998
4. Great Lakes Regional 2000
5. Motorola Midwest Regional 2000
6. New York City FIRST! Regional 2001
7. Western Michigan Regional 2002
8. Detroit Regional 2004

Team #254 -- 8

1. NASA Ames Regional 1999
2. Lone Star Regional 2000
3. NASA Ames Regional 2000
4. Silicon Valley Regional 2001
5. Southern California Regional 2001
6. Silicon Valley Regional 2002
7. Silicon Valley Regional 2003
8. Sacramento Regional 2004

If you count "Division Champs" at the Nationals as a regional, 254 is ahead, but if you think that that was the year that the Cheesy Poofs were a National Finalist and that the Chief Delphi Team was a National Finalist in 1997 (before divisions existed at the Nationals), I suppose that things are still pretty much a tie.

As Dave Lavery said, "The San Jose Regionals should be quite an event!!!"

Joe J.

P.S. Has anyone kept up and/or improved the attached file (which was the source for the data above -- though it had a mistake in it for our team -- it did not have the New England Regional win in 1998)?

[badbugs]

Originally Posted by Joe Johnson

Will someone who saw it first hand give a thumbnail sketch of how the Elimination Rounds went in Sacramento?

On the surface, the story is simple: Cheesy Poofs win ANOTHER regional.

But, I suppose that it was more complicated than that.

Anybody willing to fill us in?

Joe J.

P.S. By the way, how many regionals have Cheesy Poofs won now 8, 9, more? Do tell...

It appears that 254 has a pretty good robot this year.....lets hear a little about the Detroit Regional playoffs....Joe, can you or someone fill us in?