2012 New York City Regional

[Ninja_Bait]

Originally Posted by Butter's

This was an exciting match and it couldn't have been more fun! Our bridge control strategy worked great!

We couldn't be more jealous - we tried to go for a triple balance in our second elim match, and we were just too darn big. Oh, well.

Amazing playing, guys.

[Alex Cormier]

We sold RoboTowels to a few teams in attendance of the NYC Regional. Does anyone have some good photos of them being used by any of the teams?

Thanks!

[Horsegirrl]

I hope everyone had a great time at NYC, i know i did! I figure since i was up close i would upload one of the pic's i snapped of the winning alliance and their triple balance!

[Reanna]

What is the team name of the rookie team who scored 66nd?

[huberje]

Originally Posted by Unicorns

What is the team name of the rookie team who scored 66nd?

Team 3760 - Aerospace

[jblay]

Just an amazing event. So many great teams all around and an awesome set of elimination rounds. What a weird and wildcard alliance that formed in the 7th slot to take the entire thing, every time I saw the balance, it was better and better. It was so good that the field crew left the bots on the field for the award ceremonies.

[Matt Krass]

Originally Posted by jblay

Just an amazing event. So many great teams all around and an awesome set of elimination rounds. What a weird and wildcard alliance that formed in the 7th slot to take the entire thing, every time I saw the balance, it was better and better. It was so good that the field crew left the bots on the field for the award ceremonies.

When we were competing I remember watching that balance thinking "Man, I'm not looking forward to playing against that...". Unfortunately, we were eliminated before that could happen.

Overall, it was a pretty good event, I thought the field crew did an excellent job running things and overall the event felt pretty pulled together and smooth. There were a couple things I think could have been managed better, but no event is perfect, so I'm not too concerned about it.

The only other problem, was that they kept running those gosh-darned robot matches while my students and I were trying to have our dance party. (Anyone in the stands on the blue bridge side of field might recall 263s proud and terrible dancing ) That, and I now have video evidence that I'm a really terrible dancer...

Overall, good stuff, I hope that the SBPLI event is just as fun.

Matt

[Doc Wu]

Can anyone involved (Inspectors, Queuing, Refs, etc.) tell me what happened to team 4023 at NYC? If necessary, contact me privately. I'm about 25 miles away and would like to know if they are in need of advice or assistance for next year. They have no website or contact information listed publicly.

Thanks.

[NickTosta]

*shrugs*

Well, we came close. I'm glad that I was able to put on a show, at least. I even got to do one of the wheelies on Saturday!

Originally Posted by TD912

Wow, that last-second balance in Semi 1-2 was something! Score was 28-27 and Blue managed to double balance to win 28-47, literally at the last second...

Yeah, that was crazy. Absolutely crazy. I was shocked, and I was the one balancing!

Originally Posted by Gnishi2011

I enjoyed the 195/333/369 second match strategy. Defense all the way.

Yeah, we figured that their whole process of balancing the bridge was both unstable and time-consuming. If our alliance partners could delay them for a minute or so they would either have to really rush and risk messing it all up, or simply wouldn't have enough time.


Obviously that didn't exactly work out....

Originally Posted by bduddy

Here's the video, thanks to trident for getting it up so quickly:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ifzwt...ure=plpp_video

I have no idea what 333 was trying to do... it looks like they helped blue way more than they hurt them.

...Because 333 more or less died in finals 2 AND 3. I'm not entirely sure what happened to them, but I do know that something with their robot malfunctioned horribly in both matches. It probably had something to do with the vicious hits they were taking/giving.


Speaking of vicious hits, we're not sure when it happened or what caused it but at some point either during our second semi-final match or the first final match the potentiometer on our front-left swerve module came loose and caused our swerve module to malfunction (as in, it was virtually never in the correct location). As you can imagine, that made driving really, really fun.

The only reason we got flipped that match was because of that malfunctioning swerve module. I had extremely poor control over the robot, so I was totally unable to swerve or rotate out of the way. They just kept ramming and ramming us until they finally flipped us.

All that ramming they did messed the module up to the point where the pins holding the gear and motor in place got messed up, so what we ended up doing was cutting all of the power lines going to the motors on the swerve module (both the swerve and drive motors). This turned this wheel into something of a idler, so I had a little bit more control of the robot in the next two matches (it was still plenty of fun to drive though, believe me). You could also say we turned that front-left swerve module into a very very expensive caster wheel, a mode that we are now lovingly referring to as "shopping cart mode!"


In terms of our problems Friday and Saturday, it was mostly a mystery FMS issue that will likely never be solved. Basically, any time we ran the autonomous program where we backed up to the bridge, we would run that normally then we would have no control over the robot in teleop. The times where we started moving like a minute or minute and a half into the match? Those were matches where we REBOOTED THE C-RIO in the middle of the match so that we could control it.

Eventually we just ran our two-shot autonomous program and that seemed to "fix" the problem, I guess.

Oh, and we never really attempted any 3-point shots on saturday because of an issue with our shooter code, the code that automatically sets the shooter speed based on the height of the vision target. We did eventually get that working but we still had some issues with our auto-aligning code, so I ended up manually lining up the robot throughout the entire elimination bracket on Sunday. Luckily that auto-speed code worked perfectly after a few adjustments though.


I do have to have to say now, it was pretty neat to see 125, 522, and 1625's crazy balancing method up close, and I like how over the course of the elims they got better and better. They were definitely a strong alliance. That first time they pulled the triple balance I was looking from the sidelines like "HOW DID THIS EVEN HAPPEN?!" and to be honest I was pretty surprised that they counted it, but you guys rolled with it and made it work. Pretty neat to see.

__________________________________

So, all in all, I guess we can't complain about making it to the finals after starting Sunday in FIFTY-FOURTH PLACE. Again, I'm just glad that we were able to get everything working an put on a show for everybody.

[Megalodons333]

First and foremost Team 333 would like to congratulate teams 1635, 522, 125 on their fantastic play throughout this tournament. They showed unbelievable skill and consistency in balancing their robot time after time.

Secondly we want to thank our fantastic teammates team 195 and 369 for giving us the opportunity to play with them. Team 369s robot was unbelievable and could do practically anything they wanted, a great scorer, defender and with the help of 195 managed to balance with ease. Team 195 never seized to amaze, and was the "kobe" of our team. No other team in the competition could match the consistent scoring of this robot. It was truly a pleasure playing with and watching these two robots.

When it came to the final match our robot would move in bursts. We would have moments where the robot wouldn't get any communication and just stand there. It was truly frustrating and disappointing. It was even more disappointing that we felt we let our teammates down. Honestly I don't even think our robot had communication in autonomous mode. Our robot isn't as consistent as our teammates but we managed to make in shots in prior match-ups

Coming into the finals we figured we could afford fouling as long as we stopped that triple balance like we managed to do in match 2. 40 points is just a huge obstacle to over come.

Originally Posted by bduddy

Here's the video, thanks to trident for getting it up so quickly:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ifzwt...ure=plpp_video

I have no idea what 333 was trying to do... it looks like they helped blue way more than they hurt them.

From the video if you look at our robot between the intervals of 1:30 - 1:50 you can just see our robot practically useless. We really weren't sure what the problem was, it could have been all the beating we took while playing defense in our prior matches. Even in match 2 we ended up with another robot on top of us for nearly the whole match.

Once we started moving we thought everything was working fine again and tried to resume our job at defense but by then it was almost too late because team 522 and 125 were almost in position. And once again as soon as we got there we lost connection. Frustrated we just tried moving our joystick up and down trying desperately to get it running again only to get 1 last second of burst which unfortunately put us underneath the bridge which ultimately helped our opposing team.

We do apologize for this and wish we knew exactly why our robot malfunctioned during the last match.


Thank you everyone who rooted for us and once again THANK YOU TEAM 369 AND 195. I pray we could have the opportunity to seeing you guys next year.

[Chi Meson]

Congratulations to Alliance #7, and especially the Wizards. I did not see the triple balance coming at this event, and the first time they pulled it off I was sure it was a fluke. But no, by the end it was elegant, and all three robots worked together perfectly. You all deserved it!

Now, about the Javits center: I hear it is slated for demolition.

May we help?

[AlexJamesCross]

Originally Posted by TD912

Wow, that last-second balance in Semi 1-2 was something! Score was 28-27 and Blue managed to double balance to win 28-47, literally at the last second...

Lol I am on team 369 One of the teams that balanced and nearly had a heart attack

[AlexJamesCross]

Originally Posted by Megalodons333

First and foremost Team 333 would like to congratulate teams 1635, 522, 125 on their fantastic play throughout this tournament. They showed unbelievable skill and consistency in balancing their robot time after time.
Secondly we want to thank our fantastic teammates team 195 and 369 for giving us the opportunity to play with them. Team 369s robot was unbelievable and could do practically anything they wanted, a great scorer, defender and with the help of 195 managed to balance with ease. Team 195 never seized to amaze, and was the "kobe" of our team. No other team in the competition could match the consistent scoring of this robot. It was truly a pleasure playing with and watching these two robots.
When it came to the final match our robot would move in bursts. We would have moments where the robot wouldn't get any communication and just stand there. It was truly frustrating and disappointing. It was even more disappointing that we felt we let our teammates down. Honestly I don't even think our robot had communication in autonomous mode. Our robot isn't as consistent as our teammates but we managed to make in shots in prior match-ups
Coming into the finals we figured we could afford fouling as long as we stopped that triple balance like we managed to do in match 2. 40 points is just a huge obstacle to over come.
From the video if you look at our robot between the intervals of 1:30 - 1:50 you can just see our robot practically useless. We really weren't sure what the problem was, it could have been all the beating we took while playing defense in our prior matches. Even in match 2 we ended up with another robot on top of us for nearly the whole match.
Once we started moving we thought everything was working fine again and tried to resume our job at defense but by then it was almost too late because team 522 and 125 were almost in position. And once again as soon as we got there we lost connection. Frustrated we just tried moving our joystick up and down trying desperately to get it running again only to get 1 last second of burst which unfortunately put us underneath the bridge which ultimately helped our opposing team.
We do apologize for this and wish we knew exactly why our robot malfunctioned during the last match.
Thank you everyone who rooted for us and once again THANK YOU TEAM 369 AND 195. I pray we could have the opportunity to seeing you guys next year.

We, team 369 thank both team 333 and 195 for their support and amazing game play. And we understand that team 333 were having issues and you were still amazing in your defense and offense. Also in match two when you were interlocked with 1635 you ultimately kept 1635 far from the bridge and from performing the triple balance. We did not realize how far we would make it but with a great and irreplaceable alliance selection from our team captain we made it into the finals with 195 and 333 who we have to thank for helping us not go down without a fight!!!!!

[aditya29]

Congrats to 1635, 522, and 125 on the win. Those triple balances were incredible, and the atmosphere was electric as you guys attempted and completed it for the first time It was awesome that you were able to accomplish it time after time with such ease as well.

Elimination matches in general were really quite entertaining. Lots of scoring in hybrid and always a flurry of activity at the bridges - congrats to all teams really, this regional was great.

Still, I was a little disappointed to see my team come from CA and have comms issues in every match We tried various fixes, and had several other teams, mentors, and volunteers graciously take a look at our code/electronics to see if anything stuck out, but in the end, we still couldn't figure out what happened. Our symptoms sound similar to those experienced by several teams at other regionals (based on the Bayou thread), but it's hard to tell if the underlying cause is the same. (Also, apologies to 694 and 3059 for not living up to our/your expectations in QFs; if we had comms for the entirety of our match, I think our alliance would've had the chance to pull off something special).

All in all, thanks to NYC for being so welcoming. The team had a great time (especially since we got Dean Kamen to sign our robot/shirts/etc ), and we're looking forward to competing hard at SVR in a couple weeks!

[henryBsick]

Here is a clip from the NUTRONS' GoPro showing the Finals 1-1 balance.