Smoky Mountain Regional 2011

[XaulZan11]

Congrats to 71-48 and 2974. It was fun to root for two of my favorite teams. Was 71 broken in the third finals match or did strategy call for them to play defense?

[jtus]

Congratulations to 79 for winning Chairman's.

[Chris Fultz]

This was a great event.

The depth of high performing teams was awesome - I think there were 8 very strong and very balanced alliances and any one of them had a shot at winning this event.

The venue and organization was top notch. I really like beign able to easily move from the stands to the pits to the playing field all at one level.

My only suggestion would be more places for food purchase and more options. With limited time to go anywhere outside of the venue the concession area got very crowded.

I hope this event fits into our 2012 schedule - we would love to go back.

[Travis Hoffman]

What a great rookie event!

I first would like to thank all the veteran team students and mentors who swarmed all over the pits helping out the rookies and younger teams, of which there were many. That is always a great dynamic to see when a bunch of vets travel to first-year events, where the percentage of rookie and "first and only event of the season" teams is usually high. Many smiles were generated among the young teams as a result of your efforts.

Thanks also to the volunteers (including those of the non-Tennessee variety - Rocky Top!) and sponsors who made this event possible. The venue was wonderful (although I second the more/cheaper food options request), the city excellent, and the experience most fun. We also hope to return to Knoxville in future seasons.

Congratulations to Kevin Kelly of 234 for the Regional Woodie Flowers Finalist award, and a big congrats to Team Krunch 79 on their Chairman's Award. Your team members were *everywhere* helping out this weekend - much deserved!

Next, I want to thank the great Team Hammond 71 for selecting us as alliance partners. Thank you for putting your trust in us.

I enjoyed how 71's coach Brian Beatty worked so well with our coach Keith Rising and 2974. All complemented each other well, keeping the strategy flexible to keep us on the rails. According to Brian, this was the "hardest he had to work" at coaching in a long time. When you see the Beatty Beast having to instantaneously switch to playing DEFENSE (can I get three smiles up ) after an autonomous mishap damaged their arm...and then absolutely ROCKING at it...and then quickly fixing their arm before the next match...and then STILL deciding to play a lot of defense later on in the finals...you know it was quite an unusual event! Tube starvation for the win!

Thanks to Team 2974 for serving as an excellent partner. Creating traffic for the opponents, setting picks to free 71 and 48 from the equally-strong opposing defense, scoring in autonomous exactly when we needed it - y'all did a great job - welcome to St. Louis!

Thanks to all we faced in the elimination rounds, especially our outstanding finals opponents 801, 234, and 1747, and all 24 elimination round teams really, for putting on a VERY entertaining, hard-fought show for the crowd. So many close matches, all kinds of strategies, both offensive and defensive - we had em all hanging on the edges of their seats to the end!

Blair commented on the overall quality of teams at this regional. I had the same impression. Top 10 teams have 30+ OPR - this rivals Connecticut and other veteran events noted for their "high quality". Here's the list of 10+ OPR teams for TN (using OPRnet):

1      71      66.3664
2      234     58.7022
3      48      55.9505
4      801     40.4798
5      1592    38.6289
6      931     35.8018
7      337     35.395
8      1208    35.0099
9      829     33.3516
10     1024    33.1398
11     1519    25.9286
12     3824    25.8579
13     1741    24.7754
14     1421    19.9655
15     547     16.1886
16     2918    16.0502
17     34      15.6595
18     1261    15.4081
19     379     14.2061
20     79      13.3139
21     1249    11.9186
22     451     10.3362
 
22/46 teams competing = 48% of competing teams with 10+ OPR

Finally, I'd like to thank and congratulate my teammates on Team 48, especially the pit crew, minibot team (go Bubbles! - our almost all-Tetrix minibot), and drive team, whose hard work between Pittsburgh and this event surely paid off on the field. Time to focus now on even more continuous improvement at North Carolina...and then St. Louis!

[Travis Hoffman]

Originally Posted by XaulZan11

Congrats to 71-48 and 2974. It was fun to root for two of my favorite teams. Was 71 broken in the third finals match or did strategy call for them to play defense?

71 damaged their elevator in auton in SF1-2 (which they repaired before the next match), and switched to rockin', blocking D. They proved awesome at it, so much so, they actually played it at times during the final two matches.

In Finals 1, it was very evident we could not maintain a straight up scoring battle with 801/234/1747, so we went with something else. After Finals 1, the strategy tended more toward tube starvation, defense, and unleashing the 1-2 minibot punch at the end. Worked for me!

LOL, I absolutely loved this event.

[FrankJ]

What an amazing event. The way everything ran on time. You would not have thought it was a rookie regional. All the amazing machines. All the great teams. The smoothness the event ran because of all the amazing work of all the volunteers.

Thanks to teams 71 & 48 for looking way down in the seedings. and seeing us. We are proud to have played our supporting role on the winning alliance with two amazing teams.

You can say I am just amazed.

[sportzkrazzy]

Originally Posted by Nathan Streeter

A big congratulations to the winning alliance of 71, 48, and 2974, they were definitely a very strong alliance! The finalist alliance of 801, 234, and 1747 also performed very well, giving the winners a great challenge!

Similar congratulations to Chairman's winner, 79... You guys are one of those "Chairmans" teams that can always be expected to be a very strong contender for the award!

I'm really proud of Smoky Mountain's two Deans List winners, Ishi Keenum (1466) and Sarah Bell (1519)! Although I only know Sarah, I can safely say that they both do great things for their teams! Sarah's really grown and become a leader in her years on 1519; she also has helped several FLL teams personally. Congratulations to both!

The #6 seeded alliance - 1592, 1024, 829 - also merits congratulations, they put together an alliance to match any other from the 6 spot! Having the red-card call reversed after several matches for that first quarter-final between their alliance and our alliance (1741, 1519, 451) must've been really hard... Having been on the "wrong" side of a very similar situation, I know it's really rough! The #6 alliance showed that red-card or not, they had what it took! They performed very well, winning the QF's and nearly making it to the Finals (in which I think they'd have stood as good a chance as #1 or #2 did). I hope there's no hard feelings on either side... 1592, 1024, and 829 showed they were the stronger alliance regardless!

For the record, seeing all 6 ubertubes hanging in QF4-2 was great!! :-)

On behalf of 1519, many thanks to the event volunteers and organizers! I believe I can speak for all on our team, when I say it was a great experience, despite our own on-field mishaps!

No hard feelings at all. Thanks for the compliments as well. All six ubertubes and all 4 minibots being deployed was a pretty awesome thing to witness. Hope we can be on the same side of the glass as you guys someday because you guys are definitely a team that can compete with the best. You should really try coming down to Florida one year and we will show you around.

[torihoelscher]

COngrats to all the teams participating!! I had a blast watching all of you guys competing.

Congrats to the winning alliance, you guys really did a great job.
Congrats to all of the award winners
I have videos of some of the awards but not all because of the room on my SD card but I will have them up on Youtube soon. !!!

[sportzkrazzy]

The regional as a whole was probably the best first year event we have ever attended. Team 1592 had an awesome time and will probably be coming back sometime in the future. The kids had a blast in the very relaxed atmosphere and also loved the competition that the veteran teams brought to the table. Thank you to all who made this event possible.

I would also like to thank our alliance partners

Team 1024- You guys are probably the lowest seeded scoring powerhouse I have even seen. Luck did not fall your way on quite a few things that weekend but our scouts did not over look you. With a mini bot that could climb the pole in the blink of an eye and a top tear scoring robot to match it we were lucky to pick you up that late in the alliance selection. You guys where a very valuable asset to our alliance and when you switch over to defense it looked like you had been playing it for a lifetime. You definitely slowed down our opposition and gave us a chance to keep up with the best. As soon as i saw the three of us score all of our ubertubes with the aid of the golden foot of truth I knew we would be a difficult alliance to beat.
P.S. defiantly the most unique arm design I have seen all year.

Team 829- All i can say is wow. How were you guys still available.... You were on our first pick list. I don't know what the other teams were thinking passing you guys up. Your ability to floor load coupled with your consistent ubertube scoring made you a valuable asset not to be missed by our scouts. Not to mention the fact that you guys had 931 minibot. Whats not to like?
(shout out to other teams going to the championships- If you have the chance stop by there pit and check out the honey combed aluminum they use. It is probably the most unique building materiel I have ever seen used on a FRC robot)

You guys our awesome people and we really hope to be on the same side of the glass as you guys again someday. Who knows maybe we will get lucky and make it off the late notice wait-list lol.

Also would like to congratulate the first place alliance on the win(71,48,2974). They deserve it because the second place alliance(801,234,1747) was a scoring power house.

[IndySam]

This was a rookie regional? You would never know it. Fantastic venue and volunteers (even though the pit announcer's Elmo imitation got old by Thursday afternoon I would recommend this regional to all teams. I hope this regional fits our schedule again next year.

Even though our qualification schedule was reminiscent of the 2007 AOD, I was very proud of how our team pushed through and never stopped trying to do our best.

Special thanks to 931 for loaning us a minibot. They even let us use it against them. GP at it's finest.

What a great alliance, I really thought we had a chance to win out of the sixth spot. My friends on the #1 alliance told me they were rooting for the #2 alliance to beat us because they didn't want to face us in the finals.

1592, thanks for picking us. Your whole team was a joy to work with and it was so much fun being aligned with our practice partners from 1024. As a group we battled through great adversity after that first match fiasco and showed what we were made of.

To our buddies from 1741, absolutely no hard feelings, we love you guys.

[Travis Hoffman]

Originally Posted by IndySam

...(even though the pit announcer's Elmo imitation got old by Thursday afternoon)...

Elmo? I thought it was more like a possessed version of Mickey Mouse. I was about to go find some D-con.

Sorry I jinxed your arm/auton that one round, by the way. You obviously got it together after that - fine showing by the Goats in TN!

Also, gotta say, if we hadn't been picked by 71, all three of the teams in your alliance were high on our list, starting with 1592 at the top.

[IndySam]

Originally Posted by Travis Hoffman

Elmo? I thought it was more like a possessed version of Mickey Mouse. I was about to go find some D-con.

Sorry I jinxed your arm/auton that one round, by the way. You obviously got it together after that - fine showing by the Goats in TN!

Also, gotta say, if we hadn't been picked by 71, all three of the teams in your alliance were high on our list, starting with 1592 at the top.

The jinx was OK because our minibot worked!

1592 was great, with a little luck they easily could have been the #1 seed.

They will be a force to reckon with in St Louis.

[Allison]

Thanks for all the kind words. Our luck seemed to turn around by the end of SMR hopefully it will continue in St. Louis.

The regional was very well run, I would have never guessed it was a first year event. Congratulations to all teams who made it to eliminations those were some hard fought matches.

To 1741, 1519, and 451 absolutely no hard feelings. We have always enjoyed competing with and against 1741. We also made a great new friend in 1519 this weekend, it was a lot of fun running in qualifications with you guys and hopefully we can meet up again in St. Louis.

To 1592 and 829, we made for a very strong alliance. We were on edge of our seats when it came time to pick knowing our friend 829 was still left. Figuring out how to line up to score all three uber tubes only made this alliance even stronger. It was great working with both of you and we look forward to hopefully seeing you again this summer at IRI.



Allison

[dodar]

Originally Posted by IndySam

The jinx was OK because our minibot worked!

1592 was great, with a little luck they easily could have been the #1 seed.

They will be a force to reckon with in St Louis.

Thanks for the kind words, but as of right now we are not invited to St. Louis. Our Lead Mentor on the non-mechanical half of the team told us she received an email on Friday that we are so far down the waitlist that we were picked to be put on the short notice list for attending if some teams dropout real late. *crosses fingers* Hope we get invited.

[IndySam]

Originally Posted by dodar

Thanks for the kind words, but as of right now we are not invited to St. Louis. Our Lead Mentor on the non-mechanical half of the team told us she received an email on Friday that we are so far down the waitlist that we were picked to be put on the short notice list for attending if some teams dropout real late. *crosses fingers* Hope we get invited.

That's a shame, we got the same email.

I don't think we will be able to accept a last minute invite