BunnyBots 2012 - Ping Pong Panic

[Dale]

We’re happy to announce that BunnyBots 2012, “Ping Pong Panic” is now officially underway. Registration, rules, and details can be found at http://www.team1540.org/bunnybots. The competition is Dec 15th.

This pre-season FRC-style competition is a great way to get new members up to speed before the more stressful FRC build season starts. It’s also a handy way for existing members to learn new skills and for teams to bond as a unit. Registration is first come first served. Last year we maxed out at 24 teams so if you want to take part, register now at the above link. You can bring as many robots as you like, the fee is $100 per robot which covers materials, wear and tear on the carpet, janitorial, etc.

Our event is hosted in Portland, Oregon by team 1540, the Flaming Chickens. Teams interested in running a BunnyBot event in their area should PM me for information on what it takes and logistical details. There's nothing that says you have to do this year's game. We have game designs from previous years online at www.oregonfirst.org under the "events" pulldown.

You can see fragments last year's BunnyBot finals at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gX5szIwyvQ

[Dale]

Some updates to the BunnyBots 2012 pre-season competition in Portland, OR.

VENUE CHANGE
We had such good response to using the Catin Gabel gym instead of the covered tennis court for Girls’ Generation last weekend that we’ve been able to work out a way to use it for BunnyBots 2012 as well! That means, for the first time in human history, there will be seating at BunnyBots! The pit area will be in Tennis Court 1, like it was for Girls’ Generation, with a tent tunnel between them. Visitors should NOT bring their own folding chairs for the gym but they are welcome to bring cushions if they like since the seating will consist of bleachers. There’s a basketball game in the gym that Friday night but our team is confident we can get set up after it finishes at 9:30pm. We’ll sleep over winter break.

3 vs 3
We now have 25 robots signed up for BunnyBots 2012, the most ever. That means we can go to 3 vs 3 competition for all the matches, including qualification matches. This will up the number of rounds available for each team and make the matches more interesting. BunnyBot robots are less debugged than their FRC counterparts so at any given time a third of them are typically down for repairs. That means when you return from the pit area you are likely to be within a match or two of being on the field.

PIT AREA AND QUEUE
The way queues work at BunnyBots are quite different than a FRC competition. When your robot goes to the pit area you are dropped out of the queue and will be in no matches until you return. When you return to the gym your robot is reentered into the queue. The robots play in first in, first out order from the robots in the gym. We typically don’t play matches with less than six robots so if there aren’t that many ready we’ll hold the match until there are. It is to your advantage to build reliable robots as the more matches you play, the higher your qualification score.

SEMIFINALS
Another lesson from Girls’ Generation that we have resisted until now is semifinals. Previously, we just had the top two teams pick two other teams to play with. That makes for more play time for all the teams but results in less competitive play at the end of the day. This year we’d like to try having the top four teams pick alliance partners and playing a typical FRC semifinal + finals and see how it goes. That will mean some teams get one fewer match if they don’t get picked but the other half of the teams will play some pretty exciting games from 3:15-4:15pm. That was one of the other reasons for going with 3v3 play, more play time.

BALL DISTANCE RULE CHANGE
With the new venue we won’t have a screen around the course to catch ping pong balls. Teams instead must insure that any balls they shoot will not go more than 15’ outside of the boundaries of the field before hitting the ground. It’s a ten point per ball penalty for violation of that rule.

TIME CHANGE
Since we don’t need to setup the ramp between the tennis courts, the pit areas will open at 8:00am on Dec 15th. The gym will open from 8:30am to 9:45am for practice. Teams are also welcome to drop robots and pit equipment off the evening before between 7:30pm and 10:00pm.

REVISED RULE DOCUMENT
A new revision of the rules with these changes and a few edits are now at http://www.team1540.org/bunnybots. You can get a word version there if you like with change tracking turned on.

REGISTRATION FEES
Also on the web now are the teams from which we have received the registration fee. That is at http://www.team1540.org/bunnybot-payments. Please get those processed as soon as you can or bring checks to FIRSTFare.

QUESTIONS
If you have any questions, I’ll be leading a Q&A session at FIRSTFare on the Oct 27th or drop me a line. If you have rules questions that would apply to other teams, please enter them at http://www.team1540.org/BunnyBotQA

[Marina Dimitrov]

BUNNYBOTS 2012 T-SHIRTS
There will be a limited number of BunnyBots 2012 T-Shirts available for purchase this year at the event (no pre-ordering like last year, apologies). First come first served. $10 cash. Please let your teammates know so whoever wants one comes prepared.

FINAL CALL FOR REGISTRATIONS
In nailing down the final logistics for BunnyBots 2012 in Portland, we discovered some people sending us registration fees without having registered. That was surprising so it got us thinking... are there others? Just to confirm, below are the teams we THINK are coming to BunnyBots Portland Dec 15th (as of Friday, Nov. 30). If you are working on a BunnyBot but aren't on this list, register ASAP at http://www.team1540.org/bunnybots. If you registered but have discovered you won't be coming after all, let us know that as well (email robotics@catlin.edu). We've received $100 registration payment from the teams with a star in front of them:

*955 CV Robotics
1425 Wilsonville Robotics
1432 Mahr's Metal Beavers
*1540 Flaming Chickens (x4)
*1823 New Victorians (x2)
2002 Tualatin Robotics
2147 Chuck
*2374 Crusaderbots
*2411 Rebel @lliance
*2471 Team Mean Machine
*2517 The Green Wrenches
2542 Go4bots
2635 Lake Oswego Lake Monsters
*2733 Pigmice
2915 Riverdale Robotics
3131 Gladstone Robotics
3192 TigerBytes
3636 General Robotics
3674 4-H CloverBots
*4457 Ace Academy

[Fe_Will]

24 Robots Sweet

Have you figured out how long it will take to reset the field? It would be awesome to play a match every 15 minutes.

[Dale]

We're experimenting with different ways of collecting the ping pong balls at the end of each match. Garden rakes and specially cut boxes look promising. Our fervent hope is to play one game every 10 minutes maybe approaching 8 minutes towards the end. We hope to get lots of volunteers from the kids in the audience to collect balls to achieve that rate.