2015 Hub City Regional

[Steven Smith]

Finishing packing up the trailer and getting ready for the first two regional season in our team's history. Looking forward to seeing a number of familiar faces in Lubbock.

Few stats (feel free to correct if I'm mistaken, and I'll update):

• 46 teams in attendance mostly representing Texas and bordering states (New Mexico, Louisiana, and Arkansas. 4403 and 4842 will be joining us from Mexico, 2164 from Missouri, 2410 from Kansas, and 2815 from South Carolina)
• 6 rookie teams in attendance
• 60% of the teams (28 of 46) have already attended a regional, which is great! Hopefully inspections go quickly and we have a solid Saturday of functioning robots
• 3 potential wildcard slots coming in (double check me here), with 2468 winning at Alamo 2015, 2848 winning 2014 World Champs, and 2158 earning a 2014 Champs EI award

Look forward to seeing everyone out there tomorrow. Travel safely!

{edit} - Anyone know if there will be a stream, or if a team has the capability to set one up? I had a few folks that would be interested in watching.

[Whippet]

Originally Posted by Steven Smith

Few stats (feel free to correct if I'm mistaken, and I'll update):

• 3 wildcards up for grabs (double check me here), with 2468 bringing both a 2014 Champs EI and 2015 Regional win, 2848 bringing a 2014 World Champs win, and 2158 bringing a 2014 Champs EI

That looks like 4 wildcards to me. Did I misread the wildcard selection process?

[TDav540]

Originally Posted by Whippet

That looks like 4 wildcards to me. Did I misread the wildcard selection process?

I think 2468's 2015 Alamo Regional Winner wildcard would have been used during that same regional, so it should be only three.

[Steven Smith]

That's why Chief Delphi is awesome, always keeping me on my toes

TDav540 is correct, 2468's Champs EI wildcard would have been passed on or expired at Alamo, I originally included the nod for completeness, but it is not relevant to Hub City.

After reading the manual again (7.3.3), a better wording isn't to say a wild card is brought to a regional, as it technically is not generated until a given team earns a spot at said regional. So if any of the three teams listed wins Chairmans, EI, or is on the winning alliance, they generate a wildcard to pass on to the Regional finalists. Additionally, ANY team that were to qualify twice at Hub City (e.g. regional winner / Chairman's), would generate a wildcard slot.

I'll update the original post.

[Brian Selle]

Any news regarding a webcast?

[MattC9]

Originally Posted by Brian Selle

Any news regarding a webcast?

They will announce it tomorrow morning

[Whippet]

Team 4301 had a blast competing in Hub City this weekend. We would like to extend out thanks to every team attending the event for making it the best it could possibly be. In particular, we would like to thank our alliance partners, 4300 and 4153, for giving their all during playoffs. We weren't expecting to be in a picking position, and thanks largely to their input, we were able to give the other alliances a good run for their money. We would also like to thank our pit-mates, 4364 and 3043, for providing invaluable help to our team when we needed it.

Sometimes I begin to think that FIRST really is about the robots. Attending competition always serves as a great reminder that the people are the real driving force behind the mission.

[Coach Norm]

Hub City was a great tournament again this year. The volunteers and staff put on a wonderful tournament again. The venue is excellent for an FRC tournament of 45 teams. It was great to get to play with teams from New Mexico, Missouri, Louisiana, Kansas, South Carolina, Arkansas and Mexico.

The competition level was the highest overall it has ever been from top to bottom. The 28 teams that had played previous tournaments raised the level of play throughout the tournament not only in their performance but also in working with alliance partners on game strategy and execution. The teams who were playing their first tournament were well prepared for Recycle Rush.

FRC 2468 would like to thank FRC 3310 Blackhawk and FRC 4799 Lazbuddie Robotics for playing with us to the Tournament Championship. It was hard to believe that FRC 4799 was still available since they had been putting up 5-7 totes every single match of qualifications from the landfill. FRC 1817 RoboRaiders, FRC 2848 All Sparks and FRC 5771 Marfa Robohorns took us to the limit in the finals. Congrats to 1817 and 5771 for moving onto Championships thru wildcards.

FRC 2468 is extremely excited and honored to be representing Hub City at Championships for Chairman's.

Congrats go to George Tan for his volunteer of the year award (all while also mentoring 1817) and to Rachel Moore for her well deserved Woodie Flowers Finalists Award.

FRC 418 Purple Haze received the Engineering Inspiration award. This team has been instrumental in getting a STEM park in Austin for teams to have a practice field for the first time ever. FRC 2468 is thankful to Tony Bertucci and his team for the mentorship and friendship they have provided over the years of our participating in FRC. Tony along with David Yanoshak and Richard McClellan (FRC 2158 AusTIN Cans) were mentors of our team during our rookie season.

FRC 4063 TriKzR4Kidz continued their streak of Gracious Professionalism. This makes six times in their short four year history. Their team was everywhere as usual. Their robot proved to be very useful in grabbing containers off the step throughout the tournament and the playoffs. Shout out to Joshua for manning the web stream and getting each match in short clips that can be uploaded to Youtube and Blue Alliance (we will start on this process on Tuesday).

Dean's List Finalists of Allison Megan (FRC 2410) and Sam Selle (FRC 3310) are amazing candidates for Championships in St. Louis.

FRC 5454 Wild Fire is a great representative of Rookie All Star. They competed well throughout the tournament and acted like a veteran team coming down after their performance at Arkansas Rock City earlier this year.

Shout out to Head Referee Cruz Monreal and his refereeing staff and FTA Joe Varnell on keeping things running smooth throughout the tournament.

[JohnSchneider]

Norm covered most of the bases, but I wanted to shout out 2468 and specifically their electrical and programming teams.

We picked 4799 in part because they were a candidate to cheesecake with our bin grabbers. During lunch, 2468's students were amazing to watch, taking over programming in Labview and wiring up our grabbers for transfer. They could be seen teaching 4799's kids and it is definitely an example of how cheesecaking can be beneficial off the field.

A picture of the adorable 4799 robot with our grabbers is on Twitter, even though we never ended up using them, we appreciate their cooperation and willingness to sit out quarterfinals as we made the transfer. We definitely couldn't have won the event without them though!