Michigan State Championship

[Craig Roys]

Originally Posted by AMYO

Wow what a great event... One big official mistake was elimination match 2-1 EngiNERDs clearly won this match but it looks like the refs or the score keepers got it wrong in the mini bot race. 245 did deploy a mini bot, but it finished 2nd!!! 1718 score there's first. The 30 points went Team Rush with 20 going to the EngiNERDs alliance. Finial score 101 - 98 The EngiNERDs alliance went on to win the next match. It should have been over. Competition VS GP you telling me after watching 3 days worth of mini bot racing that anyone would get this wrong? 1718 clearly had a faster mini bot they demonstrated it throughout the event. So sorry for the EngiNERDs alliance 1718 and 326 you guys got robbed. I did not check but I am sure this changed who is qualifying for nationals.

VID: http://www.youtube.com/user/FIRSTinM...33/LTnOYwfay34

Maybe I did not see this correctly it would be nice if we could get some GP out of teams 27 245 1023 lets hear from you guys.

245's tower was disabled because the ref said they deployed early so that wasn't even a factor in the match - after rewatching a couple of times, it seems they did in fact deploy early. The race between our minibot (1718) and RUSH's was very close. I know that we deployed a split second after RUSH, but I didn't see who hit first. Even though our tower showed first place, the refs saw RUSH's hit first - their tower malfunctioned (what a surprise that one of the towers might malfuntion). It was a judgement call and I didn't see anything to contradict it. The real problem is the inconsistency of the towers in important close races like that one. No one was robbed. Make no mistake - 27, 245, and 1023 deserved that win as evidenced by their performance the rest of the way.

[74Robotmom]

Originally Posted by Wayne TenBrink

Congratulations to Ken Platteshorre for winning the Woodie Flowers award. Ken is a quiet guy who works tirelessly for the West Michigan robotics community. He is a role model for other mentors as well as the students on his team.

I'll second the congratulations! My family has been involved for 5 years now with Team 74-Holland CHAOS, and most importantly Ken and his fabulous team of coaches and mentors. Ken is one of the most giving people I know, and his almost limitless generosity and contagious love for FIRST is unmatched. CHAOS has had an awesome season this year, and it's wonderful to know that we'll be going to St. Louis not only to represent Michigan on the Championship field, but to also cheer on Michigan's Woodie Flowers recipient!

Way to go Ken-the Refresh Family is very proud of you!

[flippy147852]

Originally Posted by Jay TenBrink

It was also my pleasure to work with team 3539 Electro Eagles. You guys are a class act.

Just to clarify, 3539 are The Byting Bulldogs, not the Electro Eagles (3536).

There were so many 35xx teams at state, so your confusion is understandable.

Thanks for picking us both to join you. We were so close to moving on!

[J@GMFlint]

Congrats to all who qualified & attended MSC, you (we) all have a lot to be proud of. One of our high points was being a part of the 6-tube Autonomous!

To those who made it into the eliminations, absolutely outstanding work! Regardless of the outcome, don't sweat the ref. calls, etc. You were the best of the best in MI! Those of you who are going to the CMP will do quite well. I know it's been said before, and debated, but as those who have been there can attest, and support by the numbers, the MSC is by far the toughest Official FIRST event in the world- look out St. Louis!

Team #1243 would also like to extend special thanks & congratulations to Team #326 for teaming up with us in the mini-bot race & adding some extra-firepower to pull-off a couple of surprises, your m-bot was awesome! Also, on your winning the Gracious Professionalism Award! After the experience our team had with you guys, and the positive impact it had on our team (a couple students in particular) we were all so happy you guys had won. Great Work for such a small team!!

Re: #1 being beat by#8 and booing/cheering. To anyone who's beein in FIRST for a while in MI, there are a few teams who always seem to be in the elims, because they are truly awesome teams. When some of them pair together, it paints an almost perfect picture of the "high-powered" alliance just by name. Having been an under-dog several times before, pulling off an upset creates a huge release of energy and emotions in everyone at the event as it is simply unexpected. Not that anyone is necessarily "pleased" that a good team lost, afterall everyone loses sooner or later. I wonder, if it would have gone the other way -as some might have expected- would the subject have even came up because the release of energy and cheering might not have been as loud?

[pathew100]

I was your scorekeeper at MSC this past weekend. I should be able to clear up some confusion about the tower lights vs minibot order.

We have to change the order of the minibot race when host robots hit the tower and trigger the scoring inadvertently.

This happened a couple times in the eliminations. We can adjust the scoring correctly but we can't change the tower lights to show the correct finish order. So it can be confusing if you are just watching a video and looking at the lights.

We had refs, the FTA, FTAA and myself watching all of the "drag races" to ensure we got the order correct. There are also refs assigned to each tower to determine early deployment and tower disables.

We had many matches where four minibots scored in 4 seconds so this was very challenging!

[PaW]

Originally Posted by Jim Zondag

Amazing event! That was the most competitive action I have ever seen in 15 years of FIRST. It was a real Championship. All 8 Alliances were stacked. Giant scores, major strategy, serious fun.

The HOT team lived up to their long standing reputation of being the best team in the world. Adam, Jim, it was great finally playing with you guys, after 12 years of playing against each other. You have a great team, great strategy, and a great robot. You are an inspiration to us.

More Martians were a steal. I could not believe that your team was still available at the 15th pick. Great job with the defense, tube delivery and minibot. You were the key to our victory. Excellent grace under pressure doing a Crio swap in 5 minutes in the Semifinals.

IKE is right, the finals could have gone either way. ONE POINT determined the winner. ONE POINT in 3 matches with totals over 200! Split second finishes on the minibots made the difference. Amazing.

Great Job by RUSH, Adambots, and Bedford Express! Your alliance was great and it was an honor to play against you. I hope at least one of you is in our division in St Louis.

I can't wait to see the ABC program next weekend.

Congratulations to ALL the MSC participants. Viewing from afar, this was definitely edge-of-my-seat entertainment. Kudos to all, especially the refs & the field crew!

Insanely efficient tube scoring...
Incredible human players...
Tenacious defense...
Photo-finish minibot races...
Record-setting combined scores...

...and Mr. David Verbrugge... wow.

[Ether]

Originally Posted by Jim Zondag

I can't wait to see the ABC program next weekend.

What ABC program are you referring to?

[Chris Hibner]

Originally Posted by Ether

What ABC program are you referring to?

FIRST In Michigan Championship Powered By Chevrolet

All ABC affiliates in Michigan on Saturday, April 16 at 1 p.m. WJRT in Flint will air it on Sunday. (I have my TiVo set for it, so if you have TiVo it should already be in the database.)

[BJC]

ABC videotaped the event. They are making a 1 hour video which will show the semi finals and finals. It was really cool. They put a high def. camera on all of the captain robots. I know they got video of the Martians shanging their cRIO. I also believe that Paul Copioli was commentating. It'll definatly be worth watching.

[Refresh]

They also put camera's on the minibot towers so there should be some great footage on that. Especially the matches where the tower was shaken a bit from contact.

[R3P0]

Originally Posted by Craig Roys

(what a surprise that one of the towers might malfuntion). It was a judgement call and I didn't see anything to contradict it. The real problem is the inconsistency of the towers in important close races like that one. .

They should have used at least these bolts from the underside of the tower plastic disk so that minibots could not hit the bolt heads. Better yet an elevator bolt or shoulder bolt.

[Craig Roys]

Originally Posted by R3P0

They should have used at least these bolts from the underside of the tower plastic disk so that minibots could not hit the bolt heads. Better yet an elevator bolt or shoulder bolt.

I don't think it was a bolt problem - I believe 27's minibot, like ours, is not wide enough to hit one of the bolts. I think the problem (at least from my understanding) comes from the delay programed in to prevent false triggers. FIRST didn't expect minibots to hit and be gone so fast not giving the tower enough time to trigger.

[Adam Freeman]

WOW…what an insane event!

I can honestly say that I have never seen a more deserving collection of teams at a competition. There were teams that should and would have made elimination rounds at any other tournament in the country, that weren’t in these eliminations.

Unfortunately for some teams, there were some amazingly stacked qualification alliances…this lead to some awesome displays of offensive power and some unique defensive strategies for how to counter act it. It was a joy to watch all of the qualification matches that I could.

To all our friends, it was great to be able to see and play with everyone again. One thing I love about this event is that there is almost never a time where you can’t find someone interesting to talk to about robots.

As everyone has already mentioned, the elimination were incredible. The strength of that #8 alliance was unreal. I couldn’t decide which team I wanted to win in that last SF match.

Congratulations to 27, 245, and 1023…you guys were awesome. 3 matches…1pt victory, crazy tube scoring, awesome human players, minibot “drag races”….just crazy!

To RUSH, I hope there will come a time soon where we can work together instead of competing against each other. You guys are awesome, and we would love an opportunity to play with you.

Killer Bees and HOT…finally….what (?) 12 years in the making. I mentioned to the other mentors before the season started this was the year we finally play with 33. We were denied at Kettering, but this is even better. Jim, it was awesome to be on the same side of the glass with you! I think we worked great together. It was great to know our scouting teams worked well together, also.

More Martians, you guys are always great to work with. Last year at Kettering and again this year…you guys do whatever we need you to do. Your tube running in the quarters and semis was awesome and your defense in the last match was outstanding. Plus the versatility you gave us on the minibots was great. I have never seen a cRIO fixed that quickly. I am really glad Jim kept believing in you guys, I was really nervous that something was going to happen. You guys earned it!

Congrats to all the Chairman’s teams and all the other teams that qualified for St. Louis. Let’s keep the streak of Michigan teams in the Championship match going!

[Steve Ketron]

Originally Posted by Adam Freeman

WOW…what an insane event!

I can honestly say that I have never seen a more deserving collection of teams at a competition. There were teams that should and would have made elimination rounds at any other tournament in the country, that weren’t in these eliminations.

I agree, our team (1528) had an awesome time. We were on 4 alliances that scored over 100 points and another match were we hung 10 tubes and still didn't get picked. That says a lot for the teams that did. Great job Michigan in putting together such a great competitive competition.

[J_Miles]

I'll continue to congratulate everyone who made the eliminations rounds, considering the fact that EVERYONE deserved to be there (evidenced by #8 upsetting #1, #7 giving #2 a ROUGH time, and #4 coming close to the upset victory in the finals); however, special congrats go to Teams 67, 33, and 70 for being champions; 503, 1023, and 548 for winning the State Championship Chairman's Award; and all of the other award winners for representing the best of the FIRST in Michigan powerhouse.