2011 Minnesota North Star Regional

[Jon Stratis]

First, to AlexGrant - I was the inspector you guys were working with there, and I have to tell you that working with your team there was a real joy. You were all open to the process and open to learning how to do things right. It was great watching you guys drive out on the field, and from hearing other teams talk, you guys were definitely noticed by a lot of teams as a great defensive robot. Keep working towards it, and with your attitude, you guys have a great future ahead of you.

Next, to our alliance members (3278, 2549) - You guys were awesome out there. After talking with our drive team, I really want to make sure you guys know what sort of affect you had on us. The amount of respect and team work both of you offered really meant a lot, and it's not something we always get. At some past events (I'm not going to list years/events), the drive team has come back (both from quals and elims) to tell us that their alliance members were condescending and refusing to listen to anything our team had to say - you guys were different. For once, the drive team truly felt like equals on the alliance, not like "that girls team".

To our competitors, I'll say this - you all gave us some great games. In the quarter finals, the semi finals, and the finals, it came out to three very rough games. You were all great competitors, and I can't wait to see you guys at Championship or next year.

And lastly, for this issue that's been raised about the last two matches... I agree with dna4engr about the minibot issue - The tower not triggering was a pretty big deal. I don't think any of us can say 100% sure why it didn't trigger - something wrong with the field, the minibot not hitting with the required force (as outlined in the rules), or the minibot simply hitting the tower at exactly the wrong point with respect to the sensors.

The question about "several should-be red cards on the blue alliance"... All I can say is I didn't see it - but I also didn't see a lot that happened on the field. We've all seen questionable calls in sporting events, and cases where calls should have happened but didn't. The refs only have so many eyes, and they can't look everywhere at once. For those that are really passionate about it, I would strongly encourage you to work on designing a cost-effective video review system that would allow the refs to review questionable calls on the field (maybe even give each alliance a "challenge" card during the elims). The problem with such a system is the number and angles of views that would be needed to provide coverage of the field and properly show penalties refs have missed, or penalties that were called incorrectly. This would be an excellent engineering challenge for anyone to tackle, and I'm sure a lot could be learned by anyone attempting to tackle it.

Our team had a great time this week, and the end was very emotional for all of us. It's our first time qualifying for Championship, and it's amazing to see how far the team has come over the past 5 years - both technically and team structure/ student leadership. It's gotten to the point where myself and another mentor on the team have the opportunity to expand out to volunteer at the events, while knowing that the team can handle any problems that come up.