did any of this happen at your regional?

[matt111]

team DQ for walking under support bar for driver station

team DQ for being to close to controllers during auto mode

ref calling a penalty if human player stack falls over during human player time

get pinned literally the entire match because your oppenent backed up every 10 secs and started again

have anyone robot drive ontop of another, purposely, to get double king of the hills points

had website almost DQ becasue team voted for self

watch an animation that showed no robots at all win the award

get annoyed when parents of kids went down to receive an award and didnt even know what a robot was 5 minutes before

a team with good partners getting lucky winning the first seed, then being upset by the alliance who "randomly picked" because they were like the 16th seed

a whole FIRST team consisting of cheerleaders

girl getting sick while receiving team award

a co rookie all star award

a 42nd place team with a 66 score average winning the rookie all start award ( us)


all this and much more happened at st. louis

did anything similar or more strange happen at your regional

[Madison]

Originally posted by matt111
team DQ for walking under support bar for driver station

team DQ for being to close to controllers during auto mode

The former seems a little excessive, but maybe they considered that to be violating the latter rule, prohibiting teams from being closer than 3' to the controls.

ref calling a penalty if human player stack falls over during human player time

I don't agree with this at all. At other regionals, to my knowledge, this did not happen. There was a lack of consistency to human player rules across the country, and I think FIRST should provide some clarification as to which way was the proper way to do it.

get pinned literally the entire match because your oppenent backed up every 10 secs and started again

This is legal. Sorry.

watch an animation that showed no robots at all win the award

The animation isn't about robots.

a co rookie all star award

Every regional gives out two Rookie All-Star awards; one on Friday and one on Saturday.

a 42nd place team with a 66 score average winning the rookie all start award ( us)

Rookie All-Star isn't for teams that win, it's for team's that exhibit the organization, drive and potential to be a lasting, competitive team. Congratulations!

[Gadget470]

team DQ for walking under support bar for driver station
...
get annoyed when parents of kids went down to receive an award and didnt even know what a robot was 5 minutes before

I know DJ got flagged for going under the support bar, I don't know if it was a DQ or a warning/penelty. He was walking back and the cameraman said "GET OUT OF THE WAY" and gave him a shove. The shove led to DJ having to go under the bar or through the bar. I don't think DJ should have been given the penalty.. faulty FIRST 'equipment'

On the parents aspect..
Some parents do help build. It's really hard to say which ones did and which ones didn't unless it's your team that won the award. If my mom or dad were to come with me to recieve an award, I think I would be angry. Moreso my mom than my dad, he's helped me when I've gotten stuck with designs (he is a machinist). He also really wanted to help us out but my team is 45 min away from where I live would have been too hard to get out there semi-frequently.

Parents are appreciated, they do support the team by supporting their kids. I don't think they should use "i'm a supporter of the team" as an excuse to go on field and get an award with the team. Many parents don't know which robot is their kid's bot until the second day. Then again, many parents could disassemble and reassemble the bot without help or writing down what went where because they have worked so much on it.

Just as I don't think a team member that just shows up to competition (i.e. hasn't helped in any facet of the team except spirit.. if that) should not be allowed to go onfield for an award, same should be with the parent.

Last year, with 247, we recieved a few awards. I was a bit perturbed by one student who had to ASK which one was ours during a competition, still went down and got a medal.

Parents: If you don't help to get the award, you shouldn't help recieve it.

There's my $0.25

[Jeff Waegelin]

Originally posted by Gadget470
Parents: If you don't help to get the award, you shouldn't help recieve it.

That's what we did last year. When we won the Buckeye Regional in 2002, we said only parents and alumni who helped during the season could go down and get a medal. That perturbed a few parents, but it was only fair. No help=no medal. It's that simple.

[Alfred Thompson]

I think that parents should be able to join the team when picking up an award. Maybe not get a medel but as a mentor I want to see previously uninvolved parents get excited. It makes them want to help more next year. And if running around the arena will do that then I am all for it.

[Redhead Jokes]

Originally posted by Alfred Thompson
I think that parents should be able to join the team when picking up an award. Maybe not get a medel but as a mentor I want to see previously uninvolved parents get excited. It makes them want to help more next year. And if running around the arena will do that then I am all for it.

That's my version too. We're hoping our school superintendent and some sponsors will be there. You can be sure I'm going to be hustling them down to run around the arena. Any parents are welcome to join us too. We want them to feel the excitement.

[Hendrix]

yeah well what happened there happened. We got DQed from a practice round because my dad jumped over that wall because he needed to get to the pit before we got on the field. Some strange things happened there that i don't agree with, and yes, someone was DQed for going under the support bar.

[Rev. Lovejoy]

1) The drive team and pit crew had there hotel room keys in there pockets, and all the electronics that were going on deleted the information on them, so no one could get in there rooms.

2) A guy from our team has been hanging out with a girl from the techno ticks for 3 years, always at competition, this year we chose them as our allies.

3) The Ticks captain was never asked if she accepted our offer as an alliance teammate, technically, it's still unresolved.

4) One of our team members eating a Code Red slushy for breakfast (broken aluminum can next to the bowl)

5) The one picture of someone from our team (on the big screen) was a picture of one of our members asleep in his chair.

6) Seeing kids from the other two Maine teams who I didn't even know DID robotics, one of which i'll be on stage with doing RHPS.

[Andrew547]

"Watch an animation that showed no robots at all win an award"

I was one of the judges. I voted highly for team 1182, which ended up winning. The animation was made not to showcase your robot, but to detail an aspect of what FIRST means to you. A team could have detailed the aspects of FIRST and used their robot to do that, which we did, but the robot was not necessary.

[Jeremy_Mc]

a foot of snow in parts in 56 degree weather

people showing off their website at competition even though the judging was supposed to be done BEFORE the competition (and no i don't mean you 538 )

really small human players!!

we got disabled cause they said our light wasn't working, but i was looking RIGHT AT IT and it was working fine. then they tried to re-enable us and it didn't work...so we were stuck on the back wall. i think it was an IFI cover-up for a computer error...cause it wasn't a ref that came up to us after the match, it was an IFI person.

people at the team social pm'ing you from two computers down

teams leaving two people to pack up their entire pit

stupid low batt. light for no reason!

i'm sure most of this stuff is stuff everyone else saw, but i thought it was a little off or something

*jeremy

[Hendrix]

Originally posted by Jeremy_Mc

people showing off their website at competition even though the judging was supposed to be done BEFORE the competition (and no i don't mean you 538 )

I didnt even know about that until it is to late, and it is now stuck there because they printed it on a big sticker and put it there. Good thing we want to build a new pit for next year.

[skitz547]

LoL. I was reading the first post answering yes to all of those and the realixing, omg. they are talking about our regional!!! Guess what though. you left out that during one of our matches all the robots were sized where we fit all 4 robots on the ramp without the need t odrive up on top of one. pretty good i thought. interesting. c-ya around!

[tiskippy]

Thanks for saying that, because I was thinking the same thing as you were, I just didn't want to admit it.

[KevinB]

Originally posted by Jeremy_Mc
stupid low batt. light for no reason!

I'll be darned if we ever get that Low Battery light working correctly (heh). Until then we cover it up with electrical tape!

[Hendrix]

the 4 bots on the top was neet, I just happened to be out of the pit when that happened.