2012 Midwest Regional

[Vision]

A legendary event at the Midwest Regional! Team Hammond 71 and Team 111 Wildstang have teamed up for the first time since 2005! Watch it LIVE at The Red Alliance.com and chat with alumni, team members, and parents. Come see wildstang's game-stopping device! It's sure to be Legendary.

[nikeairmancurry]

Originally Posted by Vision

A legendary event at the Midwest Regional! Team Hammond 71 and Team 111 Wildstang have teamed up for the first time since 2005! Watch it LIVE at The Red Alliance.com and chat with alumni, team members, and parents. Come see wildstang's game-stopping device! It's sure to be Legendary.

7 World Championships in that alliance.

[gyroscopeRaptor]

What's Wildstang's game-stopping device that Vision alluded to?

[Grim Tuesday]

Originally Posted by gyroscopeRaptor

What's Wildstang's game-stopping device that Vision alluded to?

Someone on EWCP alluded to it as well; looks like they didn't take it out at this competition...

[gyroscopeRaptor]

Originally Posted by Grim Tuesday

Someone on EWCP alluded to it as well; looks like they didn't take it out at this competition...

I suppose I'll be seeing it in person at North Star next week.

Great job 16 for showing people that you don't need a wheel shooter to win.

[its da PAT!!!]

They attached a bar to their third pick and their bridge device had a hook to hold onto the other robot. I don't know if thats game stopping. And they did four balls in auto. That could be some what game stopping..

[Justin447]

i'm not sure if i read this right but is it just like what 1720 did with the other two robots at boilermaker to get the triple?

[its da PAT!!!]

No I don't think the designed it to actually do that, just happen to be a happy accident. But I could be wrong.

[Walter Deitzler]

Is there video footage of this regional? I cannot find it anywhere.

Thanks!

[AlecMataloni]

I'd like to thank teams 71 and 2151 for playing with us. I have to say, both us and Beatty improved drastically during eliminations, and we played very hard.
Seeing 71 on our alliance is normally unheard of, yet we always have a great run when we're together. 2151, thanks for letting us attach to you and for being able to feed us in autonomous, which was crucial.

If there's anyone I'm happy to lose to, it's gotta be Bomb Squad and the Robowranglers. Congratulations to the winning alliance of 16, 148, and 2022.
16 was by far the best team there, and really deserved their undefeated streak at UIC. 148 meshed flawlessly with their strategy, shooting rapid 2 pointers to complement 16's catapult. 2022 was a great 3rd pick, as they were able to balance, and I even saw them score in hybrid.

This was the most fun Midwest regional that I've ever been to, and probably the most exciting (and stacked) finals matches I've seen at the regional level. If anyone didn't watch the webcast or in person, they really missed out.

[popnbrown]

Being a first year team, we could not have had more fun. I see in the students on this team, what I felt 6 years ago. So many thanks to give around so I'll try to get to all of them.

Thank you to 2358, for picking us, and 3067 for making a great alliance partner. No joke, 111, 71, 2151, we were rooting for you after you guys handed us a tough loss (we started a blue alliance chant for you ). The tough competition 16, 148 and 2022 put up was fantastic, congrats to you guys.

Congrats to all of the other rookies there, that had a bot out there, I know how tough it is and I think the Midwest rookies were fricking awesome. Shoutout to 4212 for letting us switch seats with them, 4213 for our sister 4-H team winning Rookie Inspiration, also congrats to 3936 for the All-Star win!!!

Congrats to 1625 for their great run through QFs and a very very close loss, having your alum as one of our mentor is fantastic and we're very proud to have your team as an influence.

Congrats to 1710 for their chairman's win, and all of the great things you guys have been doing. Notably working with 2725 all weekend long and letting us also get our students some experience helping out.

A special thank you particularly to members of Team 16 and 111, for IRSTing more with our students. I know they talked to some of you guys and on the way home, they were aspiring to do the great things you guys do year after year.

[engunneer]

2151 wants to thank all of the teams that competed this weekend. We had a great time, and were extremely happy to be invited to join the 111/71 alliance. 111's robot had a clamp that can grab other robots, and we didn't even need to mount extra hardware to make it work on ours. They just grabbed our frame and brought us up the bridge with them. A quick change to autonomous to give them our two balls was a great 12 point bonus for our matches. Our only job in the in meantime was to block balls from the inbounders from bouncing to the opponent's side, and try to deflect them to the key for 111 and 71 to pick up.

Every team we saw in Elims at UIC played great matches and inspired 2151 with their great robots and great people.

I must say my two memories from our alliance are going to be:
1) We didn't shoot a single ball through eliminations.
2) Going back to the pit after selections to find Raul and two 111 students trying to figure out where they can mount the bar to our robot for them to clamp to. We removed one shield to find that they didn't need to mount anything.

Thanks everyone for a great competition. I can't wait to see the match videos!

[RRLedford]

Originally Posted by popnbrown

...
Congrats to 1625 for their great run through QFs and a very very close loss, having your alum as one of our mentor is fantastic and we're very proud to have your team as an influence.
...

Team 3135 offers our thanks for being chosen to be part of the 1625 and 2949 alliance.
Though on the field, we did not really execute up to our full potential as an alliance, the three triple balances in four tries at the pits practice bridge, with the last one in 30 seconds, made it clear that we could have gone all the way with the excellent shooting of you guys as our two partners.

From the lack of 3-bot balances in the Midwest Regional, clearly the scores were lower than I had expected. Our bot was a specialty design, intended mainly for ensuring consistent successful 3-bot balances by hanging well off the side of the bridge, so that two typical narrow bots could still drive right past us, up a pre-tilted (by us) bridge. We had perhaps the sturdiest bridge arm, and could frequently get up the bridge and balanced in a few seconds, as well as pre-tip the bridge while holding position half way down it.

When we realized we had been picked by a pair of wide bots, we thought our 3-bot balance plans were doomed. However, by us being first in queue at the pits practice bridge, we were able to discover that because most of our bot's 115 lb.weight was so seriously shifted to the right-front quadrant, our 6-wheel tank with brake could still back up at the middle of the bridge as 1625 and 2949 pushed us, and then by creeping our middle wheels right up to the end of the bridge, using intermittent braking, we could still allow our alliance partners to fit and make it up with us. Needless to say, at that point we were feeling very optimistic.

Then in our first-of-three QF matches, at the end we were up by more than 10 points. With us on the bridge and balanced, somehow, seeing that our opponents had two bots balanced, our alliance got panicked into thinking we needed to get a 2nd bot up on our bridge to win, which resulted instead in us getting no bots balanced for a loss.

Our 2nd QF match was a shoot out that was nearly ending with us trailing by one point, and with each alliance already having only one bot balanced. Our sharp shooting partners felt their chances for a win were better by continuing to shoot right up to the end, rather than go for the 2nd bot on our bridge, but they just could not manage to hit any last few seconds shot to get the lead. So, we went down 38-37 in a hard fought effort.

Had our bot only brought a little more ball shooting ability to the alliance, instead of just bridge skill, we would have been a much tougher alliance to eliminate, but congrats also to our 7th seed opponents, who hung in there and did exactly what they needed to do to squeak right past us into the semifinals

Our team had to complete major mods in the pits, including narrowing out bot's width by 2" (for better side hang balance) mounting our shooter and brake, along with chain issues & replacing several bent axles. We only made one practice match and had no practice in the pit area until qualifying was over. So, we are really thrilled by having accomplished the 3 out of the 4 triple balances we tried with our partners on the pit bridge. This 3rd year was our most exciting and successful, and wee felt like the game design was outstanding.

All the best to those teams moving on to nationals or waiting for their regional.

-Dick Ledford

[neshera]

I'd like to thank the Regional Planning Committee for another great Midwest Regional! Great MC, Great announcers, terrific pit layout (rookies next to veterans), no technical glitches, and we even finished a few minutes early!

The best robots were in the finals, and I think everyone is proud of the outcome for 16, 148, and 2022 (we expect great things from 2022 at the next Flapjack Challenge, given your championship status)!

A note to the Robotic Colonels: There is always lots of hindsight, but we thought you performed very well, and I would hate to think you or your team are blaming yourselves for our elimination. We win as an alliance, and we lose as an alliance. The thought of you taking our defeat all on your shoulders is as odd as if a winning alliance claimed they alone, without their alliance partners, were responsible for a victory. I hope we get to play with you next year!
BTW, my son posted video of a practice triple balance at:

http://m.facebook.com/login.php?next=http%3A%2F%2Fm.facebook.com%2Fhome. php&refsrc=http%3A%2F%2Fm.facebook.com%2Fhome.php& _rdr#!http://video.ak.fbcdn.net/cfs-ak-ash4/438942/462/2601908780677_37296.mp4?oh=dfe21fe68606052fd3d9e13 1122835d6&oe=4F70B000&__gda__=1332785152_1c976e8eb 46188ff64e6cb2b833310ac

[avanboekel]

I would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who made this Midwest 2012 regional a great one. The planning committee did a great job preparing everything, and all of the volunteers kept everything running smoothly.

I would also like to thank our alliance partners, 2781 for picking us, and 2709 for being a reliable 3rd bot.

2781- Your simple design, and dead consistent autonomous was a great thing to have in both qualifications and eliminations.

2709- Your ability to double balance ensured our victory in the 1st quarterfinals and made us competitive with the best of the best in the semifinals.

To alliance 5- You guys really gave us a run for our money, and were a tough matchup for the first round. 3928 will be fun to watch in the coming years, good luck to you!

To alliance 1- If we were to lose to anybody in the eliminations, I'm glad it was you. Your bots were elegant, and drivers were calm and professional. Congratulations on winning Midwest, and good luck at championships.

Thank you to everyone who attended.