2013 Championship Curie Division

[themccannman]

Originally Posted by Adam Freeman

Congratulations to 1678, 148, and 862 on getting a chance to play on FRC's biggest stage!

1678 - You guys went out there and earned a #1 seed in the division. We were really impressed with your teams ability to do it all. Even playing defense in certain matches, when paired with better scores. That ability to play to your alliances strengths was very inspiring for us. I was very surprised to see you declined that many times during alliance selection. It was obvious that this was a planned move (very smart/strategic), and your student representative was very calm going through it. We were hoping to get a chance to play with you. Our styles would have been a good mix for one another, since we have similar capabilities to 148. Hard to argue with the results though. We were under the impression you were selecting 1717 first, I assumed they were going to accept your invitation. If I had known they would decline, we would have made our sales pitch much harder.

Thank you for the compliments! You are correct that we had planned for those teams to decline us in order to break up the power team alliances that would have otherwise been formed.

I actually really wish that you had come and talked to our other head-strategist (I am the other) because you were actually the first team on our list that we expected to accept, which essentially made you our first actual pick. However, after you lost your last qualification match our other head-strategist switched you and 148 at the top of our list which I disagreed with since I thought your performance was just a fluke mistake. I agree that we would have made a great alliance which is why I was extremely nervous facing you in the finals, however I'm extremely proud of 148's performance and I don't regret picking them one bit, they played killer offense and carried our alliance further than I could ever hope for.

I was also incredibly impressed by 4814, coming out of Curie in 3rd seed as a rookie team is unheard of, I really thought you guys were going to take the Curie curse to it's grave with your phenomenal teamwork with 67 and 1918. A rookie team captaining an alliance to win Einstein and break the Curie curse would have gone down as a legendary moment in history, and the best part is that it actually almost happened, I really thought you guys were going to take home the gold.

[msaunders]

http://youtu.be/5_khdRfl11w

Curie Finals Match 1-3 of the 2013 FIRST World Championship
Red - FRC1678 FRC148 FRC862
Blue - FRC4814 FRC67 FRC1918
Score: Red 0 - DQ Blue 186
@1:23 862 runs over the collector of 1918 while they are setting up to climb
@1:43 67 and 1918 Tower Climbing and 1918 falls

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by themccannman

Quote:
Originally Posted by Adam Freeman
Congratulations to 1678, 148, and 862 on getting a chance to play on FRC's biggest stage!

1678 - You guys went out there and earned a #1 seed in the division. We were really impressed with your teams ability to do it all. Even playing defense in certain matches, when paired with better scores. That ability to play to your alliances strengths was very inspiring for us. I was very surprised to see you declined that many times during alliance selection. It was obvious that this was a planned move (very smart/strategic), and your student representative was very calm going through it. We were hoping to get a chance to play with you. Our styles would have been a good mix for one another, since we have similar capabilities to 148. Hard to argue with the results though. We were under the impression you were selecting 1717 first, I assumed they were going to accept your invitation. If I had known they would decline, we would have made our sales pitch much harder.
Thank you for the compliments! You are correct that we had planned for those teams to decline us in order to break up the power team alliances that would have otherwise been formed.

themccannman:
I actually really wish that you had come and talked to our other head-strategist (I am the other) because you were actually the first team on our list that we expected to accept, which essentially made you our first actual pick. However, after you lost your last qualification match our other head-strategist switched you and 148 at the top of our list which I disagreed with since I thought your performance was just a fluke mistake. I agree that we would have made a great alliance which is why I was extremely nervous facing you in the finals, however I'm extremely proud of 148's performance and I don't regret picking them one bit, they played killer offense and carried our alliance further than I could ever hope for.

Just a humorous side note: we actually gave 4814 our scouting data to help them pick since they were a rookie team so the reason they picked you was actually because you were at the top of the list we gave them.

I was also incredibly impressed by 4814, coming out of Curie in 3rd seed as a rookie team is unheard of, I really thought you guys were going to take the Curie curse to it's grave with your phenomenal teamwork with 67 and 1918. A rookie team captaining an alliance to win Einstein and break the Curie curse would have gone down as a legendary moment in history, and the best part is that it actually almost happened, I really thought you guys were going to take home the gold.

To reiterate on Jake's comment, the choice between 67 and 148 was very difficult, and we could have been swayed. On the other hand, 148 was amazing.

Truly more amazing to us was that 862 was still available. I believe they were literally our top pick (I don't have our list here) for our 2nd robot because of their driving skills combined with offensive output. We had our ground pickup, 862's cycling and 148's FCS. Hard to beat.

We gamed out the draft with the "power" teams declining, and we expected that 1983 (later confirmed--my nephew was on their team 2 years ago) would do the same thing. Given that the "punishment game" seemed fairly likely, we thought that one of those teams would recognize the situation and accept our offer instead--the optimal solution to the punishment game is to cooperate.

The whole experience was very exciting and rewarding. We got functioning an electronic scouting system that communicates using cell phone lines to a server and then to an iPhone app used by our drive team. The entire system was built by the students with no real technical assistance from mentors. I only gave them what data should be collected at the front end, and what the data summary should look like at the back end. We're interested in a shareware development process to further enhance its functionality.

But there was one additional "superpower" that we had--Mike Corsetto. His insights and analysis during the strategy session was key to our selection rankings. Jake also was a huge contributor. The quantitative data helped tremendously, but it still took the human factor.

Also, having my brother in law's team, 1983 Skunkworks finish right behind us in qualifying could not be more exciting. My sister was able to watch both of us succeed beyond anything before. Thanks to the Skunks for adding to our meager team at Einstein!

4814 assembled an "optimal" alliance. I'm sure that they supplemented what we shared to get 1918, which turned out to be a perfect partner in a defense/climb oriented alliance.

[DampRobot]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

But there was one additional "superpower" that we had--Mike Corsetto. His insights and analysis during the strategy session was key to our selection rankings. Jake also was a huge contributor. The quantitative data helped tremendously, but it still took the human factor.

Michael Corsetto is one of the coolest guys I have ever met in FRC, and a great competitor. I had no idea he was with you guys at CMP, but it seems like his and your team would work really well together (too bad it didn't play out quite as we all hoped at SAC).

Did he help you out at all during build season?

[Wayne TenBrink]

I have been with the NC Gears since their start in 2006, and haven't missed a single one of our matches - that is until the last half of CMP, including the elimination rounds. What's worse, I didn't have access to the webcast, so I had to rely on telephone updates, and I still haven't been able to see most of the matches. It sounds like I missed a lot of great matches on Saturday afternoon. It was very difficult for a guy like me. By next year most of us won't remember who beat who in what match, but we will all remember the highs and lows, the comeraderie, the productive stress, the perpetual sense of urgency, and (if you were an NC Gear) the bus ride home (except for me because I had to leave early and had a pleasant road trip). It is indeed a priveledge to be part of FIRST and to go to CMP. Never take it for granted.

Congratulations to 1678, 148, and 862. The whole was better than the sum of the parts, and the parts were each very tough! It was good to see 862 again - in a gracious loser sort of way.

Thanks to 4814 and 67. 4814 - We never saw you in quals and I had no idea who you were. Obviously you earned every bit of your way to the #3 seed by beating some of the powerhouse teams on Curie. It was an honor to be on your alliance. 67 - It was great to be allied with you at last. We have always considered you to be one of our role models - whether on the field, off the field, or in your approach to creating robots that effectively play the game.

And as for the DQ match, I don't think anybody thinks it was deserved. Fortunately, it didn't have any effect on the ultimate outcome. As it turns out, it was little more than an opportunity for competitors to come together in agreement on something. FIRST is a great environment for that sort of thing.