2015 Central Illinois Regional

[Arevan]

The Central Illinois Regional is only a couple days away and it looks like a very promising event! It's moved out of the "Snow Globe" and into Bradley University's Renaissance Coliseum. Hopefully this move will only aid in heating up the competition . Speaking of competition, this event is going to be crazy! There are multiple teams who have already won their spot in the championship through either winning regionals, receiving the Regional Chairman's Award, or getting the Engineering Inspiration award.

Website: http://www.ilfirst.org/frc/events/ce...nois-regional/
Webstream: http://www.ilfirst.org/frc/events/ce...webstream.html

The Lineup:
63 McDowell Robotics
111 WildStang
171 Cheese Curd Herd
648 QC Elite
876 Thunder Robotics
938 Team Botman
1701 RoboCubs
1736 Robot Casserole
1739 Chicago Knights
1756 Argos
2022 Titan Robotics
2039 Rockford Robotics
2040 DERT
2081 Icarus
2220 Blue Twilight
2358 Bearbotics
2481 Roboteers
2512 Duluth East Daredevils
2704 Order 2 Chaos
2856 Planetary Drive
3067 Robovikes
3201 Ross Rambotics
3507 Ubotics
3528 Up Next
3928 Team Neutrino
4009 Denfeld DNA Robotics
4028 The Beak Squad
4096 Ctrl-Z
4143 MARS/WARS
4156 Ninjaneers
4212 Techno Ferrets
4213 MetalCow Robotics
4241 Joliet Cyborgs
4314 SUL Abe-Ro-Bots
4646 Team ASAP
5442 Mechanical Monarchy
5537 Dia and the Brobots feat. J-Kwelin
5665 GoldenHorn

Who's excited!

[rmmitch]

As a rookie team we are very excited to be competing with so many great Midwest teams. It will be a great learning experience for our students to observe and work with many successful and established organizations.

Also if any teams traveling from outside the area need advice or have question about the event location surroundings, don't be afraid to ask/PM. Very familiar with the area.

[deheer_j]

2040 is very excited to compete here this year! Looking forward to a warmer venue and some excellent coopertition!

[ElvisMom]

Should be a great event this year. Timing didn't work out for our team or me personally to be there this year. Hope things align better next year.

Have a great weekend!

[Arevan]

Originally Posted by ElvisMom

Should be a great event this year. Timing didn't work out for our team or me personally to be there this year. Hope things align better next year.

Have a great weekend!

I'm not sure the Roboteers will be able to get a better alliance name than Robowinnage.

Congrats on winning the Arkansas Regional and MARS/WARS looks forward to competing with you at the Midwest Regional!

[Arevan]

A new CIR Email Blast was sent out that supplies a map of parking and other final instructions for teams. Check it out!

http://www.ilfirst.org/frc/events/ce...il-blasts.html


2 days

[LDiDomenico]

The Daredevils are excited to make the trip down to Peoria tomorrow. It is going to be an exciting competition with many great teams from 12 different states and 2 countries.

[Stark4Prez23]

Team 2022 is ready to compete and have a great time for the second year in a row!

[Carol A]

Rockford Robotics is packed up and heading down.

We look forward to playing with some old friends and making new ones this year.

[Arevan]

The event ran extremely smoothly, the venue was awesome, and volunteering was so much fun! Congratulations to the regional winners 2481, 1756, and 2220! Also, congratulations to Rockford Robotics, 2039 for being the Regional Chairman’s Award Winner and I'll most likely be volunteering at the R2OC again this year! I look forward to seeing a majority of you at the Midwest Regional and/or the Championship in St. Louis!

[kgargiulo]

Congratulations to everyone at CIR. So many to thank and praise. Organizing committee, every flavor of volunteer, the Field Team, Bradley University for hosting at a fantastic venue, Dean Kamen for visiting, and most important every student - win, lose, or draw.

Great job to awards winners and a couple special shout outs:

• Rockford Robotics/2039 - CA
  
• Thunder Robotics/876 - EI
  
• Mechanical Monarchy/5442 - Rookie All Star, Highest Rookie Seed
  
• Woodie Flowers Finalist - John Johnson, MARS/WARS 4143
  
• Volunteer of the Year - Vera Koch
  
• Dean's List Finalists - Dean himself presented the certificates on what happened to be the 26th anniversary of FIRST. Ethan Blomberg of Ninjaneers (Ethan, I'm willing to be that whenever you meet Dean he will remember the story and you'll get that photo op) and Addie Longberry of Rockford Robotics
  
• Roboteers, Argos, and Blue Twilight - Regional Winners
  
• Duluth East Daredevils, MARS/WARS, and Techno Ferrets - Runners Up
  
• Argos/1756 - Creativity
  
• Blue Twilight/2220 - Entrepreneurship
  
• MARS/WARS/4143 - Excellence in Engineering
  
• ASAP/4646 - Gracious Professionalism
  
• DERT/2040 - Imagery
  
• Beak Squad/4028 - Industrial Design
  
• Blue Twilight/2220 - Safety Award
  
• Duluth East Daredevils/2512 - Innovation in Control
  
• Chicago Knights/1739 - Judge's Award
  
• Roboteers/2481 - Quality
  
• GoldenHorn/5665 - Rookie Inspiration
  
• Up Next/3528 - Team Spirit

Special praise for our three rookie teams. Mechanical Monarchy for the well-deserved awards and also as a team we have a special tie with, Golden Horn for the Turkish Delight, the coffee, the friendship, the singing, spirit, and for the solidly-built and well-performing robot .

And a slightly longer story about 5537/Dia and the Brobots. It's worth telling because we can all go find 100 other places to build a robot, but only FIRST gives us the chance to participate in things like this. This is a story that many older teams know very well. Starting with a built robot Thursday morning but having a complete tear down by just after lunch. A lot of metal cutting ensues, and a freshly rule-compliant and rebuilt robot emerges by Thursday 8 pm. They did all that and still got out to at least one practice match. Thanks to Big Al and the Robot Inspectors for their diligence and help.

The part of the story that not every older team has had to live through is that 5537 only had about 6 students and one mentor with which to pull all that off. Remember, except for a rule violation, they showed up with a built and working robot. An accomplishment all by itself for a team of any size, but very special for an entirely (including the one mentor) rookie team with only a small handful of students.

5537 adopted "who needs 6 weeks" and"robot in a day" as their rallying cries and got to work on the problem. Of course Gracious Professionalism was in evidence. Forgive me if I miss anyone because so many offered help (and feel free to add to the post), but in particular ASAP (GP winners), Wildstang, Up Next, and MARS/WARS.

5537 then converted all of that into consistently improving performance on the field, building up to a 3-stack and always contributing to their alliances. The team exemplified a never give up spirit in the face of what surely must have felt like devastating news at that first inspection and that spirit gave real results. They students and mentor of 5537 should be very proud of themselves.

[GearsOfFury]

Awesome event and a great new venue - top notch! Looking forward to being back next year!

I wanted to add that 4143 Mars Wars earned a wild card invitation to champs due to 2481 and 2512 being previous winners (regional winner and RCA, respectively). So proud to see all the Caterpillar teams on their way to champs!

[EricLeifermann]

Congrats to the winning alliance. Especially our friends 2481 on their 2nd regional win of the season. We look forward to catching up in St. Louis.

Also congrats to our other friends on 4143 for also qualifying for champs, and we will see you in St. Louis as well.

[barn34]

Originally Posted by EricLeifermann

Congrats to the winning alliance. Especially our friends 2481 on their 2nd regional win of the season. We look forward to catching up in St. Louis.

Also congrats to our other friends on 4143 for also qualifying for champs, and we will see you in St. Louis as well.

Thanks, Eric! Congrats on the win in Wisconsin, as well. Now we just gotta hope for that 1 in 8 chance we'll be sharing a division at champs so we can get our complimentary bots to share the field this year. Lol.

[barn34]

What an amazing 2nd annual CIR event. Huge thanks to all the amazing volunteers who helped make the event run smooth as silk and kept everything an immensely enjoyable experience for all the great teams in attendance.

Big thanks go out to our amazing alliance partners from 1756 and 2220. It was great to finally get a chance to team up with our fellow local Caterpillar sponsored brethren in Argos. It's actually weird how little our paths have crossed over the years both being local teams. You've got a great robot this year and that intake serves you well at both field positions. Best of luck at Midwest in a few short weeks! 2220, you guys were great partners and played a great support role for our alliance. Your honesty in your confidence in your bin topping ability was honorable and your then earnest transition to join team tether and play RC guard dog, if needed, was inspiring. We will look forward to any opportunity we get to share the field with you guys in the future. Best of luck and we will see you again in St. Louis!

I also cannot say enough about all of our friends on the amazing finalist alliance from 2512, 4143, and 4212. Those finals matches were incredible and I'm pretty sure finals match 1 will go down as one of the most amazing matches of this entire season. A 66 point swing in the final seconds and the final point difference was only 5 when all litter was accounted for. Insane. Replays of that match need to be uploaded ASAP as that's proof that this game is capable of being exciting when played right. Great job to all of you and we look forward to seeing 2512 and 4143 in St. Louis.

Much deserved congratulations go out to our friends from 2039 on their chairman's victory. You guys are a great example of what this competition is all about and it's always an honor to see you guys at any event. We hopefully look forward to another great R2OC event this year and we will see you guys in St. Louis, as well.

I also want to give a shout out to 2 great rookie teams: 5442 and 5665.

5442, it was great to be a part of your first competition experience and your first ever qualification match. You carried yourselves like a veteran team and your much deserved rookie all star award is proof of that. We look forward to seeing you guys in St. Louis, and let us know if there's anything we can do to help that first trip to championships be as exciting as your first regional. Great job, guys!

5665, you guys are awesome! I don't think it's possible to comprehend how crazy of an experience this event must have been for you guys. 14 hours by plane all the way from Turkey, then several hours by bus from Chicago to Peoria. This would be a daunting task for even the most hardened competition veteran teams, and you guys are a true rookie inspiration! It was great to be able to share a pit border with you guys all weekend and it was a lot of fun to learn more about you guys at the team social on Friday. We hope to see you guys again and best of luck in all future competitions!