2012 Queen City FRC Regional

[Dan 1038]

On behalf of my tiny team, I would like to offer thanks to all the teams who helped us and congratulations to the teams who competed. We had an awesome experience at Queen City; Dave, Jimmy and the rest of the planning committee deserve kudos for the result of their efforts.

1014 - Awesome job winning the Chairman's Award!
45, 781 & 3940 - You guys rocked in the eliminations, congrats
3940 - Rookies? Really? Outsanding job this year, congrats on winning RAS!
Jimmy Nichols - You deserved volunteer of the year, great job with the regional and your team emails!
3492 - You guys are doing great in your second year, great job Denise, Jacob, Dale, Josh and the rest!

Andy Baker - Thank you for helping us with our bumper issues and lending us your shelve unit, which proved to be quite usefull as a work platform. Also congrats on the success of 3940, you did a great job with them!
1038 - Thank you for lending us Josh to act as our human player, he did great in the end game and was awesome help on Thursday as we got our bot put together. Thanks also for letting me raid your tools as needed.
Ryan Reliford - Thanks for all of the Labview help, we finally got it together!
3492 - Thanks for the aluminum stock, which enabled us to keep our arm from beating up our controls!
Everyone else - thank you for offering help and support, what an awesome display of GP!

[JJackson]

I'd like like to thank team 45 and 3940, you guys were great alliance partners and extremely easy to get along with. As for our our human player he was pumped and was wearing the net that he got our final basket in the whole way home.

And by the way team 48, 3193, and 1038 you were some tough competition so thanks for making us work for it

[Travis Hoffman]

Originally Posted by JJackson

I'd like like to thank team 45 and 3940, you guys were great alliance partners and extremely easy to get along with. As for our our human player he was pumped and was wearing the net that he got our final basket in the whole way home.

And by the way team 48, 3193, and 1038 you were some tough competition so thanks for making us work for it

It was our pleasure - you guys displayed awesome teamwork and execution out there.

We were so close to sending it to a third match. After your HP made his long shot, 3193 had two balls chambered up with seconds left. We needed both for a last second win. The first one made it, the second rimmed out. Very, very close!

I've complimented them all many times over already, but congratulations to all involved with the planning and execution of this event, along with all the great teams competing. I think QCR (it's cool enough to be called by its own acronym now) will become a big draw for many veteran teams from all over for a very long time. You have a fan in Team 48!

[Renee Becker-Blau]

Congrats to 1014 for winning the Chairman's Award, 1741 for winning EI, and Cybertooth for winning Rookie-All Star.

The matches and finals at the regional were fantastic! I was sorry I wasn't able to be there in person.

FRC1014 let us know more about that ibook you're making it sounds really interesting!

[Deetman]

Originally Posted by Littleswimmer14

Congrats to 1014 for winning the Chairman's Award, 1741 for winning EI, and Cybertooth for winning Rookie-All Star.

The matches and finals at the regional were fantastic! I was sorry I wasn't able to be there in person.

FRC1014 let us know more about that ibook you're making it sounds really interesting!

As a 1014 alum with a write up in the iBook you could say I've got a vested interest in it. I'm sure they will make a post about it when it is completed, but if not I'll make sure info gets put up here on ChiefDelphi.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Grim Tuesday

Did...Did an inbounder just win a regional?

Without those two points, the win would still have gone the same way, but it sure made for some real excitement! I'd actually give partial credit for the win to the other alliance's foul that match.

Originally Posted by dodar

This is not a put down to the number 8 alliance, this is just an unbiased observation. But Queen City is proof that an average alliance that can coordinate a triple balance is deadly.

Perhaps the three teams making it up were average or slightly better, but the alliance itself was obviously superior. Being able to make the triple balance look simple (but still not easy) is not a sign of an average alliance.

Originally Posted by Kyle Love

The inspections for this event were, by far, the most thorough of inspections that I have ever seen. This is both good and bad. I am glad to see all teams passing inspection. This will be a great attribute for those competing in St. Louis.

None of the volunteer robot inspectors had ever inspected a robot before this event. We had help from two previous Lead Robot Inspectors, and some good experience with being inspected in prior years. With very little in the way of preconceived notions from the inspectors, the process ended up being very consistent.

[Duke461]

Originally Posted by Grim Tuesday

I have a question about FTC teams: If they're meant to be an 'in between' for FLL and FRC, why aren't they aimed at a middle school audience?

EDIT: It's related to this thread because Dean just gave out new homework for every FRC team to help start FTC teams in a speech at Queen City.

Originally Posted by Drivencrazy

I noticed that too. It seems as if FTC is a smaller scale and more affordable way for schools to have FIRST teams. Dean pitched it as the step up from FLL and then FTC students can progress on to FRC. But if FTC is made for high school students as well it doesn't make a lot of sense.
.

FTC is an extremely important competition. You are both correct in what you have said. FTC is designed to be both 1) a middle man between the competitions, and 2) to serve as a low-budget FRC team.

1) FLL is from elementary through 8th grade, so all of those years are covered. One of FTC's purpose is to make the step from FLL to FRC much easier. This can easily be accomplished by making your FTC team primarily a freshman-sophomore-/new-kid team, where the students are still learning a lot about FRC. This allows them to already be in a leadership, design-focused role and mindset without having to know as much about robotics "dynamics". In other words, they can be the seniors of FRC at an FTC level. This way, they're learning the basics of FRC, this being the more rigid, complex and creative design, while they are in FTC. By the time they take a large role in FRC, they have already learned the leadership and teamwork skills necessary to achieve in FRC through FTC.

2) Many schools cannot afford/have the manpower for an FRC team, so an easy step back (not meant in a negative or critical way) from that is to participate in FTC. FTC obviously saves you a very large amount of money, so schools with budget problems can much more easily afford to run an FTC program. This here is the primary reason that FTC is a 9-12 program, so that high schools that can't afford FRC can still run a higher-learning based program, or FTC. Granted, it's no FRC, but it's much further ahead of FLL, and is basically the best "compromise" between skill level and money. The skill level for the top teams of FTC exceeds the middle school level, and FTC provides a better low-budget replacement for FRC.

If you have any more questions or that was too confusing, please ask.

Hope this helps,
-Duke

[mathking]

Originally Posted by Deetman

As a 1014 alum with a write up in the iBook you could say I've got a vested interest in it. I'm sure they will make a post about it when it is completed, but if not I'll make sure info gets put up here on ChiefDelphi.

Here is the quick synopsis of what we are doing with the iBook. This is our tenth year, so we wanted to do something to commemorate that. Also, in our feedback the last couple of years it was suggested that we needed a more coherent documentation plan going forward. We do a lot of documentation but it has been pretty ad hoc. So we decided to create an iBook (we are a Mac school and iBook author is free software) of the team. We have chapters for each season, another about the Central Ohio Robotics Initiative and a final chapter with profiles of our alumni. We are in the process of getting as many of those alumni to submit profiles as possible. And we are still writing up our summary of this season. In the future we plan to add a chapter to the book each year, and have departing seniors each year submit their profiles. When the season is done we will be publishing it in the iBookstore. In addition we will have a PDF version (which has everything but the videos) available for download to anyone who wants it.

It has been fun to put it together. It also made me realize how much of our history we were in danger of losing. (For example, we have no pictures of the robot from Stack Attack. My son was born at the end of January that year so I had other things on my mind.) Now we are reconstructing that history and getting our alumni to submit profiles so they can serve as role models to the students. Thank you to Deetman, and to Dan Phelps who was a volunteer at QCR and a mentor for 1024, for being among the first alumni to submit profiles. Hopefully we will also be able to include something else we want: Our first "family tree." We were founded by mentors from 128 and 677 (one of them, Dan Kiracofe was also a volunteer at QCR). Like many FRC teams our alumni have gone on to mentor other teams. We want to document all of that as well.

In any event, I will certainly post on CD when we publish and let folks know where they can take a look at the book.

Jimmy I think you did put on an excellent event. In particular your volunteers and inspectors were top notch.

Travis, thanks very much to 48 for doing the webcast. And for getting it posted to YouTube so quickly.

Another personal note, Ryan Reliford it was good to see you again.

[Taylor]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

None of the volunteer robot inspectors had ever inspected a robot before this event. We had help from two previous Lead Robot Inspectors, and some good experience with being inspected in prior years. With very little in the way of preconceived notions from the inspectors, the process ended up being very consistent.

I'd have to take both hands out of my pockets to count the number of volunteers who came by our pits to see how we were doing. If the inspectors were in fact rookies, they were certainly well-studied and eager.
The two-day field communication fight we had on our hands was correctly diagnosed as corrupt firmware on the router (thanks to 3193 and Ryan Reliford for their advice and support), and the robot performed admirably the last two matches. Too late for the scouts to take notice, but as it turned out we got to watch some amazing teams battle in some astonishing elimination rounds. At the end of each match, I thought, "Wow. That alliance is TOUGH. They'll surely be champions." Then the next match, with different teams, I thought the same thing.

I thought the XU president and Mr. Kamen had wonderful and on-point messages to share with us. As Mr. Miller hinted at a water game, excitement washed over the crowd, but I suspect he was dripping with sarcasm. Koko Ed led a fantastic queuing crew - firm but friendly; quick with a glare and a smile, sometimes simultaneously. The referees were fair and just; there's no doubt that there were some tough and controversial calls to be made, and I thought they did so with grace.

JonDarr is the real deal. I had heard of his prowess, but he absolutely blew me away. His delivery was inspiring, informational, entertaining, and seamless.

Once again, I thought all the awards went to the right people and teams. Congratulations to all our friends who deservedly earned the honors.

Budget willing, we'll definitely be back next year.

[autox_vette]

Originally Posted by Drivencrazy

The one thing about the venue I didn't like was the splitting of the pits into two sections. While I understand that it was the only way to fit almost 60 teams into a space that size it felt like teams were segregated for most of the weekend.

I agree on this point. I felt kind of isolated and in the dark on what was going on in the other section. I'm probably just spoiled with MidWest with the jumbo-tron screen at the end of the pits so you can see what's going on the other side of the black curtain, but the only feedback we got was random numbers being announced over the PA as teams were being called to stage. After a while it just became a sea of numbers and it was hard to keep track of where you were...

Kenton

[Jimmy Nichols]

We plan on trying to get video feeds in the Auxillary Pit for next year.

[Ryan Reliford]

What a great event...I had a blast. I was happy to be able to help out some teams as CSA and see so many great robots. Can't wait til next year.

Congrats to all the award winners. Special thanks and congrats go out to one of the best teachers I had as a high school student, Mr. King, and his team from Dublin, 1014. It was great meeting up with you here at Cintas and seeing your team not only compete well but also win the Chairman's award. Well done. I look forward to seeing the iBook as well.

And of course, congrats to all the finalists and the winners of the QCR. Hope to see you all again in St. Louis and again next year at the QCR.

[M. Mellott]

So now that I’ve had a chance to catch up on work (and sleep), I finally have a chance to mention a few people:

Jimmy, Dave, and the planning committee - Congratulations on a fantastic inaugural QC Regional. You and the Event Volunteers had everything running as smooth as a veteran event.

Machine shop crew – I know many other teams took advantage of your services, but thanks especially for being so readily available in our time of need on Thursday.

Andy Baker and the Inspectors (new band name?) – Thank you for all of your efforts, including your assistance in a torn-bag-during-transport issue.

1014 – Congratulations on winning the Chairman’s Award

45, 781, and 3940 – A great display of teamwork and tenacity out there to win one of the most competitive and balanced eliminations I’ve seen. It was an honor to compete against you.

379 – Our NEOFRA friends. Nothing annoyed me more than to have to face you so early in the elimination rounds. Your drive team had that robot dialed in, taking the first QF match and forcing us to come back in a second and third hard-fought win. I always enjoy working with your kids—great to play both with and against you.

1038 – We have partnered with you at least one regional a year in every year of our existence, so I’m glad we could finally come away with some hardware together. You were a great alliance partner.

48 – Well, what can I say that I haven’t already? I’ve been a part of this team for 10 long years now, and I’m so happy to be a part of this truly memorable season. Sorry we couldn’t go 3-for-3, but there’s always the World Championships. Much pride and warm fuzzies go out to the students who have worked hard this season—your efforts are being rewarded.

3193 – The other half of my FIRST family. This was the first-ever FIRST award in our short 3-year existence as a team, and I have so much pride and love for each and every one of you. You really came together as a team last weekend, and you finally turned all of your trials and struggles into success. To our drive team…simply an amazing effort!

I want to especially thank an unsung hero: Keith Rising, Team 48’s drive team coach. Though he’s been a great friend for many years, I’ve never had a chance to work with him from the other side as an alliance partner. The calmness and positive vibe that he brings to everyone during the strategy sessions is amazing. Win or lose, he’s so upbeat and supportive of everyone, especially of the students. His effort to go seek out 3193’s drive team after they missed the last-second basket that would have won the second Final’s match and make sure they weren’t feeling down about the loss brought tears. He’s a great teacher and someone that every team should have a chance to work with.

Thank you all for a great event and here’s looking forward to seeing everyone in St. Louis!

[Kyle Love]

Originally Posted by Jimmy Nichols

We plan on trying to get video feeds in the Auxillary Pit for next year.

Going along these lines, I would also ask that there be a way to turn the pit volume down. At times it was horribly annoying to here some of the pit announcements at extreme levels. But like I said before, QCR had a lot of great things that you normally do not see at rookie regionals. Good job Jimmy and crew.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by Kyle Love

Going along these lines, I would also ask that there be a way to turn the pit volume down. At times it was horribly annoying to here some of the pit announcements at extreme levels. But like I said before, QCR had a lot of great things that you normally do not see at rookie regionals. Good job Jimmy and crew.

People at the front of the Outcast Pit said the PA Speakers were too loud and the people at the back end said it was too low. This is a familiar complaint at many regionals actually. Not sure if there is anyway you won't have someone who is unhappy.