2012 Wisconsin Regional

[Travis Hoffman]

Originally Posted by cgmv123

The FMS output and the cameras were only SD. 5Nines, the company from here in Madison that donated the stream/equipment/personnel, was a little ticked off when they found that out. I saw the equipment and was blown away. I think I was able to get them to consider doing the Championship as well.

Very impressed by the level of competition and all the award winners.

Can you also ask them to release archive footage of the regional online?

[trilogy2826]

It was fantastic to make new friends with 48 and 269. We could not have asked for a better alliance from teamwork and compatibility to skill and robot reliability.

It was a pretty rough road for Wave during quals. Due to an unanticipated software interaction with FMS overhead during 3 of our matches that left us driving and acting in a completely uncontrolled state, we were almost resigned to call this a failed event. Thanks to an unrelenting and impressive fix by our software team, Ashwin, Kellie and Marcus, we were able to get back in the game. A special thanks to Nick from 93 and Chris from 269 for providing support and insight into our issues.

Immediately after alliance pick, we knew as a 2 long and one wide alliance, we had a tough path ahead of us, dreading the triple balance ease of some of our competition in practice over lunch. We stuck to our plan of 2 score, one feed, double balance at 20 seconds throughout elims.

Once we arrived at finals against 2481, 2169 and 167, we knew we had an extreme challenge ahead. 2169 and 2481 were nothing but flawless in their execution in hybrid and their speed in delivering three consecutive 3 pointers was frightening throughout quals, quarters and semis.

Thank you to 2481, 2169 and 167 for providing the most exciting gameplay I have ever been a part of.

I was amazed at how close the successful strategies for this year were to 2011. Perfect auto from the alliance, 2 score like crazy, a smart and effective human player that can feed balls across the field efficiently and a 3rd bot that can cross the field and deliver/starve game pieces, followed by a quick end game. I know this can generally apply to most past frc games, but is particularly uncanny when compared with 2011.

To complete my excited rambling, a big thank you to 48 and 269 and all my fellow team on FIRST 2826, Wave Robotics! I could not be more proud.

[cgmv123]

Originally Posted by Travis Hoffman

Can you also ask them to release archive footage of the regional online?

Not directly, but they said it would be up.

[maddoctor90]

Originally Posted by trilogy2826

Thank you to 2481, 2169 and 167 for providing the most exciting gameplay I have ever been a part of.

Your welcome, we had a blast!

Congratulations to 48, 269, and 2826 and good luck at Nationals.

[Travis Hoffman]

Originally Posted by trilogy2826

It was fantastic to make new friends with 48 and 269. We could not have asked for a better alliance from teamwork and compatibility to skill and robot reliability.

QFT. I found myself uttering "this is awesome" on the video I shot of SF2-3 (link below). Never before have we been a part of an alliance that clicked so efficiently. The fact that the fewest points we scored in an elimination round match was 52 is a testament to that teamwork.

It was a pretty rough road for Wave during quals. Due to an unanticipated software interaction with FMS overhead during 3 of our matches that left us driving and acting in a completely uncontrolled state, we were almost resigned to call this a failed event. Thanks to an unrelenting and impressive fix by our software team, Ashwin, Kellie and Marcus, we were able to get back in the game. A special thanks to Nick from 93 and Chris from 269 for providing support and insight into our issues.

Kudos to battling through qualifying - your robot was still most impressive despite any software issues. And your eliminations performance was nothing short of astounding. With 269 providing excellent support to you in the almost-victory in the 3 vs. 2 match in SF2-2 while we were finishing replacing our drive chain, 2826's effort in that match was perhaps the single greatest example of offensive execution under the gun I've ever witnessed. Truly clutch. I only wish I had recorded it to share it with the world - if you have video of that match, I encourage you to share it online!

Regardless, we regrouped in SF2-3 (finished the repair 30 seconds after the 3 vs. 2 decision was made), and this resulted - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyEa-Sb74Gs

Congratulations to a seriously-awesome #1 seed finalist alliance of 2481, 2169, 167, and 4174 (original 2nd pick) - your scoring prowess was extremely impressive!

Immediately after alliance pick, we knew as a 2 long and one wide alliance, we had a tough path ahead of us, dreading the triple balance ease of some of our competition in practice over lunch. We stuck to our plan of 2 score, one feed, double balance at 20 seconds throughout elims.

Heck - I was surprised at the lack of DOUBLE balancing attempts by some opponents, let alone triple balance efforts. But some of these teams were so adept at scoring, I'm guessing they thought they could overcome the extra 10 balance points by racking up the 3's.

Once we arrived at finals against 2481, 2169 and 167, we knew we had an extreme challenge ahead. 2169 and 2481 were nothing but flawless in their execution in hybrid and their speed in delivering three consecutive 3 pointers was frightening throughout quals, quarters and semis.

Thank you to 2481, 2169 and 167 for providing the most exciting gameplay I have ever been a part of.

I thought the quarters and semis were no slouch matchups, either! My congrats again to the finalist alliance - the 98-77, no-penalty match #1 was likely one of the greatest combined elimination round performances at any event so far this season.

Here is video of Finals Match 1, although it is blue alliance-centric: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSChOG_CB6Y

And here is the link to vid of no-slouch Finals Match 2 - another 98 point score (3 penalty points): http://youtu.be/nv1EgRuSDXA

I was amazed at how close the successful strategies for this year were to 2011. Perfect auto from the alliance, 2 score like crazy, a smart and effective human player that can feed balls across the field efficiently and a 3rd bot that can cross the field and deliver/starve game pieces, followed by a quick end game. I know this can generally apply to most past frc games, but is particularly uncanny when compared with 2011.

Word. A formula for an enjoyable and successful game - 2011/12 have been two of my favorites!

269 was simply awesome as a third bot who could hit a ball in auton, tend bridges, double balance with 48, and most importantly, steal and lob countless ammo bombs for 48 and 2826 to score - you brought the rain, and we were happy to wash ourselves in it!

To complete my excited rambling, a big thank you to 48 and 269 and all my fellow team on FIRST 2826, Wave Robotics! I could not be more proud.

I would also like to provide other thanks/congrats/comments from the Wisconsin Regional:

The whole experience was absolute maximum excitement throughout - congrats to the ENTIRE Wisconsin Regional field of teams for putting on an outstanding show for the crowd - you showed spectators what FIRST can and should be all about!

We knew coming in that Wisconsin would be a far more competitive challenge for us than Pittsburgh. The teams there did not disappoint - Wisconsin and surrounding states should be VERY proud for building such a vibrant FIRST community in your region!

We were off our teleop game through much of the qualifying (our polycord belts in the feed conveyor had stretched and required trimming and re-welding to return additional shot consistency), but thanks to a reliable hybrid mode and the pneumatic bridge tender we developed and installed after Pittsburgh (mad props to Luke Scime and our Pittsburgh alliance partners MARS 2614 for inspiring the design and sharing CAD info), we were able to make up for any deficiencies. The 18 bridge CP we earned in balancing 9 of 11 co-op bridges were critical to securing the #2 seed.

This put us in a position to select 2826, Wave Robotics. Dudes - when we signed up for Wisconsin, you were one of the select teams I wanted to work with while there. Your CD teaser pics only added to that anticipation. I was ecstatic to have this opportunity to work alongside such a class program. Your robot and people were everything we expected and then some. We'll see you in St. Louis - I expect great things out of you there!

269 - yet again, we were blessed to have an AWESOME second pick waiting for us at the back end of the draft. You did everything we asked of you with excellence and skill, and your people are first-class all the way. Enjoy the victory - you deserve it! We're proud to help make your Lieutenant Governor happy!

To our drive team and pit crew - you dug very, very deep to operate at near flawless execution levels during the semis and the finals. You found the switch and flipped it...now just keep it flipped for IRI (hopefully)...and oh yeah, Queen City and the Championship.

Side note - Tyler and Sammy, our robot operators, aim and fire shots with no camera assistance. I think it is worth mentioning the time they put in to practicing to become skilled at gathering and scoring without any software or sensor aiming assistance. We even removed the camera and the live dashboard feed in Wisconsin because they said they do not use it - we might redeploy it rearward to assist with locating balls on the field during collecting. Keep up the great work!

Some additional recognition:

Thank you to the event staff and volunteers for being courteous, friendly, and professional throughout the competition.

Congratulations to all award winners but especially to 537 on their Chairman's win. I believe there were TWENTY-FOUR Chairman's Award submissions at Wisconsin? That is amazing and impressive - again, a testament to the healthy Wisconsin FIRST community - congrats to Charger Robotics for coming out on top! See you in Cincinnati!

Thanks to Mexican rookie Team 4371, ART: Advanced Robotics Team & UNIVERSIDAD TECMILENIO, for providing so much spirit and flair to the event - thank you especially for coming over and cheering alongside us during the elims. Congratulations on winning the Rookie Inspiration Award at the competition - you definitely deserve this recognition!

Thank you to the judges for recognizing us with the Motorola Quality Award - that is one of the select technical awards we really get revved up about as it validates the credibility of our engineering project solution and all the hard work and decisions we made in making the robot a reality.

It was great seeing our good friends 1732 on their home turf. Class people and program and a unique, solid robot design.

Finally, something a bit out of the ordinary. Thank you to Price Engineering (www.priceeng.com) for going out of your way to set up and process a critical overnight Bimba cylinder order on Thursday afternoon. The sales rep even called me in the evening from her home to provide a status report on the order tracking. The items delivered to our hotel before we even left on Friday were critical to our success this weekend (hurray to staying at a hotel near the airport). Wisconsin teams - buy stuff from this fine company!

I would gladly return to the Wisconsin Regional in future years, especially if they don't hold it the same weekend as Midwest (and vice versa).

[McGurky]

I as well as the rest of the students on Team 1716 had an amazing time at this years Wisconsin Regional. The team had the best performance that it has ever had in its 7 year history, and we are very thankful for all of the teams that we were able to work with.

Thank you for all of the volunteers for making such a remarkable event possible, the team is really inspired for next year!

There was such a great level of competition throughout the weekend, and it really made for some exciting finals.

Being honored to receive the judges award meant a lot to our growing team, and really invigorated the freshmen that make up over half of the team. I have never seen such bright smiles on all of their faces, it was truly priceless.

Again, thank you for everyone that made this event possible!

[snowmobiler9]

I have attended the Wisconsin Regional three years now, finally being a driver this year, and it is safe to say that we have become one of the toughest regionals in first. Even with loosing elite teams like Wildstang, teams like 1714, 1716, 2826, 2481 (Great Alliance Partners In 2010), 2056, etc. continue to improve. Pretty soon the State of Wisconsin will become one giant powerhouse! The competition is fierce, and I wish our problems with our bot had been a little less prevalent. We had a great run with 3418 and 4143.

3418- You guys were amazing captains. All I can say is the amount talent on that team far exceeds many that I have seen. Every time I walked past your pit, at least 6 students were running test, trouble shooting, and fixing problems. I don't remember a single time when a mentor touched your robot(which was an excellent bot at that).

4143- It didn't even cross my mind that your team were rookies until closing ceremonies. A well organized/active team, a competitive bot, and knowledge seen in veteran teams truly defined your team as contenders for years to come.

I hope that 706 can work with both of you guys in the future. (St.Louis might be an option )

Congrats to Wave, Delphi, and Cooney for a well deserved win.

As always 537 shined off the field as well as on. The Chairman's couldn't have been given to a better team.

p.s. Our triple balance with 2481 on the practice field may become a reality in a month

[barn34]

Echoing what many have already said, our experience at Wisconsin was absolutely amazing this year. We were able to fly through inspection with no issues on Thursday and only a mindbending software bug related to our autonomous caused any added Thursday stress. Once we got out on the field for the final practice match of Thursday (successfully coopertating with 706), everything clicked for our run through the competition. Our drive team put on an amazing performance (I still can't believe Luke managed to pull off that clutch coop balance with 4143 without half of our drivetrain working which kept our 1st place seeding alive), the quick fix work of our pit crew (fixing that chain/sprocket in record time and keeping up with all the regular maintenance inbetween matches), all the way down to our strategy and scout teams who allowed us to keep on pace with the other amazing teams such as:

48, 2826, 269 (congratulations on an perfectly cohesive winning alliance. you guys clicked from the start of elims and we knew we were in for one heck of a battle in the finals. back-to-back 98 point performances...that's absolutely surreal, guys. good luck to all of you at nationals!)

2169 (absolutely amazing alliance partners in every respect)
167 (you guys stepped up when we needed you as a replacement in elims and did awesome.)
4174 (great job in QF-1 and it was sad to see that we needed to go with a replacement afterwards. congrats on a great rookie season!)

868 (that human player shot was incredible)
2062/3418 (the perfect 36 point autonomous we collectively pulled off was EPIC!)
1714 (awesome pit neighbors and great coop/practice bridge partners)
4143 (amazing coop partners in the match I already mentioned and also on the practice field triple balancing with us and 706. great showing all around and we're all so proud of you guys!)
706 (great partners on the coop bridge [twice!] and on the practice bridge with some pro-level triple balancing skill which we were hoping to be able to bust out with you in elims, but you were off the board long before we had our 2nd pick).

I honestly feel I could continue on to include every team that competed this weekend. Absolutely stacked field of great robots and teams this year. Special shoutout to everyone who met us on the coopertition bridge: 706(twice), 1714, 1675, 1306, 4143, 167, 135, 171, 967, and 868/537/93...sorry, but I can't remember who was on the coop bridge with us during that match because of that crazy human player shot in the final seconds that won you the match...regardless, it doesn't matter because all three of you guys are awesome!

My personal favorite highlight of the weekend was the 3 point shot we hit from the coop bridge while balancing with 1306 in our final qualifier match. That put the perfect celebratory cap on an absolutely storybook run to the #1 seed. Hopefully we'll have some video of this moment to post links to and some other highlights from the weekend shortly, but I just wanted to make sure I expressed my thanks and congratulations to everyone that competed/volunteered/etc. in Wisconsin this weekend. Awesome job!

Finally, congrats again to the awesome winning alliance of 2826, 48, and 267, the chairman's winner of 537, and the awesome rookie (semi-sister) team of 4143! Tear it up at nationals, guys!

[i3randon]

Thanks for an amazing regional!

Going the first 10 matches unbeaten was fun but sadly we(3418) had to lose sometime.

Thanks to teams 706 and 4143 for joining us on our alliance.

Also, nice job 1716! Good to see my old team is still growing stronger.

Congratulations to the winners 48, 269, and 2826 and good luck at Nationals!

[maddoctor90]

Originally Posted by snowmobiler9

p.s. Our triple balance with 2481 on the practice field may become a reality in a month

I hope to see you get a triple balance at nationals, although it won't be with us unless we magically make it off the wait list.

[RyanShoff]

As a rookie team 4143, we had a great time. I was a little surprised by our success, being in the top 10 all weekend before 48 and crew demolished us. They were great teams.

Thanks to 706 and 3418 for the great alliance.

Thanks to 2481 for asking us to practice the triple balance with them.
Here is a link to that feat. http://youtu.be/Fq7gH1k1MgY The video was the third attempt. All three were successful but got progressively worse looking. The first one just tipped over and stuck.

Our attempts with 706 and 3418 never quite worked. Anybody have video?

And finally, thanks to the FIRST community for making this rookie team's rookie event a great success.


Ryan Shoff
Mentor 4143 Mars Wars

[Donut]

I want to say thank you to all the teams and volunteers at Wisconsin this year for a great regional. This was my first time attending a regional outside of Arizona and wow what a regional it was. The competition level here was INSANE, making the accomplishments of the top seeded teams that much more impressive.

Thank you to the alliance of 2481, 2169, and 4174 for asking us to come in as a replacement after QF-1 (though I wish you wouldn't have had to have a replacement come in), getting to play with such a strong alliance was awesome. After a tough season last year the students on 167 were a little bummed to miss eliminations again despite a much better performance this year, and being able to come in and help you get to the Finals really pumped up the team's morale. It's been a long time since the team has brought any awards home and I was already getting questions during awards as to what we can do for next year. I think our team is really energized from the experience this year and I look forward to competing with and against you guys next year.

Congratulations to the alliance of 48, 2826, and 269 on the much deserved regional win, and thanks for one of the most intense elimination matches I've ever seen in the finals. I never expected to say our team would be part of a losing effort scoring 77 points! I was already anticipating a good 48 robot after their earlier undefeated performance, and 2826 just blew me away with how good they got as the regional progressed. 269 was phenomenal at feeding a supply of balls for the alliance to pump into the baskets and your whole alliance just seemed to get better with each passing match.


Congratulations to 537 for winning the Chairman's award against 24 ( ) other entries, and congratulations to all the teams on having half the regional enter for Chairman's!

4143, you guys had one of the most impressive rookie bots I've ever seen, and I also loved the light show on the back every time you played.

Thanks again to everyone, I'll be shocked if I don't see at least one of the top teams from this event on Einstein in a couple of weeks. Good luck with the rest of the season and we'll see you all again next year!

[~Cory~]

Teams from FWR going to CMP so far:

537 RCA
48 - Win
2826 - Win
269 -Win
1306 - EI
4143 RAS
706 (our second "regional")

Anyone else?

[RMiller]

Originally Posted by ~Cory~

Teams from FWR going to CMP so far:

537 RCA
48 - Win
2826 - Win
269 -Win
1306 - EI
4143 RAS
706 (our second "regional")

Anyone else?

Based on Lake Superior, I would think 2169 and 1714 would be going.
1732 looks to be going with their RCA at Boilermaker.
2194 and 2062 appear to be going.

[Renee Becker-Blau]

It's all be mentioned before me, but it was such a great regional I have to comment.

I thought that the 2012 Wisconsin Regional competition, team spirit, and the running of the event was fantastic. My first year was in 2006 which was first year they had a WI regional event, and I'm proud to say I haven't missed the regional since it began!

This was one of the most competitive regional's I've ever seen! In the end teams were matching each other point for point in the finals, you'd watch the score and the Blue Alliance could be down by two points one second and a moment later they'd be up by three! It honestly reminded me how competitive the matches at IRI can be.

The team spirit was also off the charts. I think part of the reason I love coming back is because through the whole week the mascots are dancing, teams are cheering for their team AND for their friends teams, and by the time finals rolls around the WHOLE ARENA is cheering on their favorite team. The DJ was also spectacular.

Finally a big THANK YOU to the volunteers! The event went so smoothly, everyone had a ton of fun, and it was all because of how well the volunteers have been running that regional since it started. I'd also like to specifically thank Kari Woods (aka- Mamma Woods!) for finding me the space to hold a NEMO meeting at the event. It went incredibly well, thank you so much.

Congratulations to:

Tyler Olds for the Volunteer of The Year award
Charger Robotics- FRC 537 for the Chairmans Award (24 teams submitted WOW!)
Badger Bots- FRC 1306 for the Engineering Inspiration Award AND your mentor for the Woodie Flowers Award!
Delphi Elite, Wave Robotics, and CooneyTech Robotics for Winning the regional together
FRC 4143 for the Rookie All-Star award

Can't wait to come back next year!

Renee