2013 Connecticut Regional

[skline]

2013 CT Regional Webcast:

WATCH HERE

[synth3tk]

Seems TBA was having an issue with your webcast. Was it running today?

https://github.com/gregmarra/the-blu...nce/issues/581

[Bill_B]

My eyeballs were not socketed tightly enough last night. The pits are 12x12. We should call it the Ritz Pitz deal.

[Akash Rastogi]

2168's rebuild looks awesome. Hope it performs just as well!

[MooreteP]

What a great Friday in Connecticut.

At many Regionals, you can get a feel about who will be contending and which teams will try to form alliances.
I have no idea how this will play out.

There are at least 4 decent Full Court Shooters, but the defenders showed up early and were effective in swinging matches. 195, the CyberKnights put up some impressive performances consistently filling the 3 point goal. Video is coming.

There are several great cyclers, but less than three effective floor pickups. Team 20, The Rocketeers, quietly go about their business at their end of the field, and before you knew it, they were the only undefeated team.
They have a hot match tomorrow against 195 at 10:59, Match 77.

At least two successful 30 point climbers with 20 point dumps to seduce the top alliances. 236, TechnoTicks are back with Full Court Shooting, climbing, and dumping, and the number 2 rank with two matches tomorrow morning.

The Regional will come down to scouting, batteries, sheared gears, broken keys, luck, and pluck.

One great story is the rookie team 4812, Crosby Robotics, with a paltry crew of maybe five students and mentors that felt like they had bit off more than they could chew. The team was created in December.
On Thursday, they were desperately trying to make their bumpers so they could pass inspection, which they didn't until after their first match. Teams jumped in to help, among many, 4134, Amsterdam, who with a staple gun and hammer, helped them to complete the job. 4812 team was so forlorn at this point.

Then the day began.

In their third match with 228, GUS, they were asked to go after 2170, the Titanium Tomahawks, with their climber dumper, and hit them as they transported their red disks to the pyramid. Crosby's driver did, they lost their cache, and the match was won by only two points.

No question that they are being carried. Nonetheless, they are ranked 12th (losing the first match by DQ) and are theoretically undefeated.
When asked about scouting, they seemed to think about camping.

They are in for quite the ride tomorrow, and may not even see eliminations, but the spirit of FIRST is alive and well in Connecticut this weekend.

[JackS]

I'd like to start by saying that 2013 was the most competitive Connecticut regional I have ever seen. From top to bottom, competition was fierce and high scoring.

Secondly, congrats to our close friends 20 for their second consecutive Connecticut regional victory. And of course, congrats to their alliance partners 195 and 95. Also, obligatory congrats to Chairman's winners and finalists 230. Year in and year out you do a great job. It was great spending the day in Hartford with The Rocketeers and good luck to you in St. Louis.

Thirdly, I'd like to recognize 2170 and 4134 for improving steadily over the years and completely surprising me with your skills.

Lastly, I suppose its time for us to say farewell to our friends in NE. It's been a fantastic four years competing against, learning from, and befriending many of you. Unfortunately, it is highly unlikely that NE FIRST will include the capital region moving forward. Good luck with districts next year, and we hope to see you on our home turf (the soon to be Albany regional) sometime soon.

[MooreteP]

A very fine Regional.

The CyberRocketKnighteerHoppers were formidable.

The Grasshoppers winning their first Regional since their 2001 season (with its jaw-dropping soccer ball sucker) was sweet. After meeting them at GSR with their wastebasket dumper (Take that Home Depot Buckets!), I wondered if they would ever climb. They did, all the way to the top.

Great Finalists of GaelAmsterAppleDamPiHawks. Your Semifinals against the RoBoBuzzCats were epic.

A huge thank you to The Nuts and Bolts of Fury and Sim-City for picking us to join the Seventh Alliance. We took it to three QuarterFinals against the RoBoBuzzCats. You helped our season to end on a grand note.

Videos posted here:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...hreadid=115629

Finally, a quick video of 4812 Crosby Robotics from Waterbury, behind the glass before match 60. This is a thank you video for them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyQpFT2BAGw

I wish I had some footage of their original Robot that eventually became a Scrap Wood NoodleBot after having their top sheared off in an early match

They finished as the highest ranked rookie out of four, and 17th out of 51 Their final record was 5-2-0, with one disqualification because their Robot was not completed and inspected before their first match.

The help that they received from other teams made me verklempt.

[dag0620]

Another fantastic Connecticut Regional! Always a blast and an enjoyment!

On the team side of things:

Not going to lie it was a rough year when it come for field performance for us, but we still did very well all things considered with the factors from this season.

Thanks to 1218 and 2170 for being on an alliance with us!

On the Volunteer side of things:

This was my first opportunity to Volunteer at a Regional, and boy what a blast was it! Being an Ambassador was a cool thing, and I would recommend it to any Senior student or FIRST Alum who's looking to get involved.

To all the other Volunteers, thanks for letting me into the family and showing me the ropes. I look forward to doing more of this future!

Some General things:

Congrats to 95, 20, and 195 on becoming champions.

Congrats to 230, 2067, and 4134 on becoming Finalists!

To team 230, a huge congratulations on the Regional Chairman's Award Win! Having personally seen all that you do for FIRST and for the Community, you truly deserve this award. I was very happy when it was announced you won and once again congratulations.

To the RPC thank-you for all the hard work you put in to make CTR the great event that it was.

Looking forward to next year!

[MarcD79]

I have to say, this year was one of the most fun regionals I have had the pleasure to volunteer at. Every team was indefinitely pure professional! I hope all that energy & professionalism returns next year. Congrats to teams 195, 95 & 20 for an outstanding win. I knew that from early on, if 195 could keep shooting & not get blocked they would win. I don't make predictions like that very often, but today I can say that. This doesn't mean other teams were worth less, it just means that cyberknights had the right focus & luck.

[jblay]

What a way for the CT regional to go out, some of the best competition we have seen in our trips out there, can't believe how quickly the last 5 years have rolled by. StuyPulse has had some amazing times and we wish all the NE teams the best, maybe some day when NYC is involved in a district we can jump into a few of the district competitions in the NE area.

Such an amazing weekend, from getting to play a match with 177 for the first time in our trips to CT, to getting to team up with a hall of fame team in the eliminations. I always knew 236 was an amazing team in terms of spreading FIRST, but I never really saw them make a splash at CT like they did this year, such an amazing robot, such a great group of kids, and such amazing strategy. Thanks for taking a chance on us despite our inconsistent qualification play and recognizing what we could do for you. It was really an honor working with you guys and I learned a lot from the experience. Also huge thanks to 1991 for your attitude throughout the elimination rounds, you guys had an awesome machine and our alliance was very fortunate and surprised you guys were there for us to scoop you up in the second round. The fact that you were so willing to have the alliance throw a wall on your bot so last minute really speaks to what kind of team you have, you were willing to do what it took to go all the way and that is special, I hope we cross paths again in the future.

To our QF opponents it was great playing all 4 of you, I thought you had our number. Specifically 228 and 2168 who we are both friends with, I hated the fact that we had to face you, but I had a ton of fun while it was happening and I hope you guys did too.

Congrats to the winners, 20, 195, and 95. What an amazing alliance. From practice day I knew that if 20 and 195 hooked up it would probably mean game over for everyone else. Include 195's 30 point climb and you have a deadly combo. Even when 1991 was blocking 195, those discs were on the ground for 20 to pickup. Those Semi Final matches were some of the best I have ever been a part of. You guys dominated the field and earned the win. Can't believe 195 just took their 3rd straight CT regional victory, I believe the last team to go on a streak to rival it was 1124 from 2006-2008. What an amazing accomplishment especially with the field being so deep year after year. I've loved your team ever since we joined forces on Galileo in 2011 and I hope to see you guys at champs.

Huge congratulations to 230 for their Chairman's award. You guys have really done some amazing things and really earned it, not to mention your amazing finalist run. I'm glad you were the ones to end our streak of Chairman's awards at CT, I can't think of a more deserving team. It was great working with you guys last year in the eliminations and I hope we get put in the same division at champs this year.

A side note on the drama with our headlight on Friday, just so everyone is aware of what went down. Dave, the head ref, told us our headlight was too bright after our first qualification match, so we scrambled trying to turn it down. We had very little success and were forced to turn it off for one match before the Jerry, the FTA, let us keep it on for at least one match before getting an official ruling, we of course did not wire it back in correctly and despite that had an amazing match. We quickly got an official GDC ruling that it was okay and played on with it. I'm in the process of emailing FIRST HQ about this, not to put Dave on the spot for anything, but just to make sure refs and FTAs are aware that these headlights are just fine because a significant number of teams are using them and I don't want them to go through what we did.

Also a thanks to 237 for their awesome water bottles, much better than the ones FIRST gives the volunteers, I switched it to the one I now keep in my backpack.

And most importantly a huge thanks to all the volunteers, referees and judges for making CT the best event on the east coast year after year, I will miss all the great times and look back on them fondly. From Andy Grady making his classic, awesome calls, to Peter saying AmsterDayum along with Justin calling out the slamajamas(hope I spelled that right). And on the other side of the announcing team Jack in the Hat and his amazing enthusiasm for the teams and Angry Eric bouncing around the field being the first MC to ever get electrified by our drive team. I have a feeling we are going to be doing that as our intro for a while. Also seeing Josh take his first run at MCing was awesome, clearly a great MC in the making, good luck in Maine.

Lastly I want to bring light to something special I saw yesterday during the elimination rounds. In QF2-2 our lead screw broke. We were working on it and thinking about taking a timeout when dave from 228 tells me if you need a second time out, we are ready to use ours. We had a quick fix and didn't end up needing to use our time out nor Gus', even though I'm not sure if timeouts can be taken consecutively. But it all really spoke to what kind of team 228 has. Even when we are facing them they are trying to help us out. That's just awesome.

[BrendanB]

Quick question for teams who attended CT.

Did anyone feel the pyramid was sitting too low or grabbed the dimension to the top or bottom of the bar from the floor?

Thanks!

[MarcD79]

The bars were measured & were with 1" of specs. Don't forget to take into account that measurement must include the upper carpet & Masonite below to total the 30". We measured them & they were 29.75" at the center of the bar, including the above mentioned.

[KrazyCarl92]

What a weekend. 22 seasons of FIRST Robotics history, and Team 20 has its best competition yet! So proud to be a part of that.

Congrats to Team 230 for their Regional Chairman's award; this is a team that everyone should take time to learn from, be inspired by, and emulate.

Thank you to the Cyber Knights for joining our alliance. Your robot's pyramid shooting and difficult to block, high volume full court shooting was a very nice complement to our floor-pick up frisbee scoring machine. It was a pleasure to work with you again for the second year in a row to take the regional! The level at which our teams strategize is truly uncommon and it makes for a great partnership when our teams get together.

To the Grasshoppers:
Why in the world did you fall to number 24? A 4 CIM drive train with 6 driven traction wheels, an extendable blocker to block full court shots, a 30 point climber with a potential 20 point dumper, and a smart drive team to boot. 'Nuff said. All we had to do was determine each match whether > 30 points in favor of our alliance would be contributed by some action other than purely climbing for the match. If yes, do that action. If no, climb. We then had an alliance partner that consistently gave us at least 30 points per match. That kind of versatility is rare. I thought you were exactly what we wanted when we picked you. When I visited your pit immediately after selections my expectations were blown out of the water. Congratulations on the win, you've earned it, and thank you for being such an important part of it . One word description: Clutch.

We once again performed a collaborative scouting effort with local teams in the New York Capital District with teams 1665, 4134, and 4254. Without the help of these teams, our scouting, strategy, and performance could not have been the same. Thank you for your part in our success as a team this weekend and as a community throughout this season.

Congrats to the finalist alliance of 4134, 2067, and 230! Those scores your teams were putting up throughout eliminations would have been enough to take many regionals handily.

Congrats to 4134 on your Judge's Award! Simply put, the description sounded like they gave you the award for being an all around awesome team, and I couldn't agree more, keep it up! It's always wonderful to see Capital Region teams taking home hardware.

I'd like to acknowledge a complete GP act by our neighbors: Team 2791, Shaker Robotics. They were our alliance partners as Finalists at WPI three weeks ago, and even though they weren't competing here, some of their team members made the 2 hour trip to Hartford on Saturday to cheer us on. Not only that, but they even helped our alliance strategize during eliminations! Having someone focus on how to play against all of the remaining alliances while we were busy worrying about the task at hand was a huge help in getting through a competitive set of matches. Thanks guys!

Thanks to all of the volunteers who make this event possible. It's really great to have such hard working people making sure everything goes as smoothly as possible, and it certainly shows.

Lastly, I'd like to say how proud I am of our students. We had such a cohesive drive-strategy-scouting unit, the loudest section in the stands, and plenty of our students working with other teams to pass inspection. Maybe some of that had to do with a robot that required a grand total of 4 minutes of repair all weekend. Regardless, you guys continually inspire me and make me proud to be a Rocketeer!

[JamesCH95]

95 would like to thank teams 20 and 195 for picking us and working together to deliver our first regional win since 2001. I thought it was really cool to see three extremely different robots function together as a team so effectively.

My jaw dropped at the immense and consistent level of talent and raw scoring power of all 8 alliances playing after lunch on Saturday. I have never seen so many eliminations rounds going to three matches or so many narrow margins of victory.

We had a very frustrating set of mechanical issues and set-backs at GSR that left us in 40th place of 45 teams and unable to climb past the first row. We spent Thursday and Friday of the CT event installing new parts and sorting out a few new bugs that cropped up. We were finally able to do our first climb and dump Saturday morning.

For those un-aware: the machine shop equipment, welding equipment, and volunteers to operate that equipment was all brought in last-minute when the NASA machine shop changed their schedule. The immense pile of work orders they completed every day, in record time, was stunning. A big tip of the hat to them!

[lnex1357]

On behalf of FRC 2168 the Aluminum Falcons we would like to congratulate (FRC 20, FRC 195, FRC 95) on their well-deserved regional win at CT. How 95 slipped that far in alliance selections is beyond me. A mix of great scouting and accepted risk put together a great alliance and some exciting finals on behalf of the winning alliance and the finalist (FRC 2067, FRC 230, FRC 4134). Again, a great performance from both alliances! Special thanks to GUS for picking us, and our whole alliance (FRC 228, FRC 263, FRC 3104) for competing their hearts out for 3 matches.

More importantly for the Aluminum Falcons, I would like to express our appreciation for some new and very good friends; that would of course be FRC 228 GUS Robotics. Without writing a book about our mid competition season collaboration, I can say that the entire team is a group of the most gracious, supportive, classy, sharing, skilled, and professional FRC students and mentors we have had the privilege to work with. In just a short build week and a Regional, the two teams assimilated together as friends and FIRST family working together to not only make our robots better, but our teams better. While 228 may not have quite the number of banners and awards of other esteemed teams in FRC, their robots are always a model of technical excellence and their mentors and students are bastions of gracious, humble, competitors, seeking to constantly improve and provide the best opportunities and education to their students, which at the end of the day is the best legacy to have. GUS truly doesn’t build just robots, but also people. Regarding the elimination rounds at CT, we couldn’t have been more excited to work with anybody else and are deeply saddened that GUS and one of the top “run and gun” shooters (aka the precipitator) on the east coast will not be sharing the pits with us in St. Louis. We look forward to the future and working with GUS to make a well-deserved trip to championships next year.

The CT regional this year was the most exciting and competitive in recent memory, with a large number of rookies and great group of veterans. We made lots of new friends with both, and look forward to both helping and seeing each of us grow in the future. We look forward to seeing our friends in St. Louis; may we all represent our respective programs with determination towards excellence and inspire our students towards unparalleled success.