Arizona Regional

[ChrisWilson]

Originally posted by DougHogg
Late in the qualifying rounds, several enterprising teams gave us some trouble in two matches by using bins to block our autonomous arm lift and rotation.

Yeah, that's the one problem with the autonomous code. It gets thrown off when someone stacks boxes in your way or runs into you *hint hint* Seriously though, it was an awsome bot design and worked very well when we weren't trying to mess it up for ya Congratulations, and we hope to play with ya again next year.

[Lindy]

Originally posted by Travis Covington
The autonomous mode should work as well (we had a few bugs and it rarely would work)

What? I told you before, Travis, my code is rock-solid! It's all the hardware's fault. Trust me.


Ahem. Yes, I tried to say that with a straight face.

Honestly, it was almost nerve-wrackingly brutal there. I barely had enough time between matches to tween the code, and the robot practically went in with broken autonomous code for several matches. And the scary part is that after three days of mental and physical exhaustion, I'm still not sure what went wrong and why (it seemed to work fine in testing and skirmishes). I'm almost starting to regret my choice of autonomous code implementation.

Although, bugs can be a good thing: In an elimination match, the robot accidentally knocked over one of the opponents' multiplier stack with a misbegotten autonomous mode. It was unexpected, but not unappreciated.

Regardless, in the end, everything turned out well for us. All I know is that I don't want to see a line of any code for a very good long time (I'm removing compilers from my machine as we speak). I'm sure many feel the same way with the physical aspects of the robot.

Oh wait. I fogot about LA. Wah! I want my blankie.


Anyway, big thanks to team 606 and 460 for the alliance team-up and congratulations to all teams that competed there.

[Travis Covington]

well... okay fine

There were no bugs, the "hardware" drove itself into the side barrier. Ill agree on that one

on a side note, the computer we did all the updated programs on was stolen along with the dewalt tool kit this morning from kirks truck, sucks to be us.

looks like our programmer is gonna be having some fun fixing up that auto code before LA

But we do have to give lindy some credit, it DID work a few times and was quite successful.

Now we just need to make it bullet-proof so when we increase speed to 15fps it will still go where it is supposed to.

TC

[Redhead Jokes]

Originally posted by Ken L on another thread
Team 481 De Anza High School recorded all the matches, and is in the process of digitizing them. It should be done in a few days, and I will talk to them about publishing them.

I know they were planning on making copies for teams at the Sacramento.

Will Arizona be doing the same?

[DougHogg]

Originally posted by ChrisWilson
Yeah, that's the one problem with the autonomous code. It gets thrown off when someone stacks boxes in your way or runs into you *hint hint* Seriously though, it was an awsome bot design and worked very well when we weren't trying to mess it up for ya Congratulations, and we hope to play with ya again next year.

You are right. I had forgotten about that. Team 962 is to be congratulated. That match was our first loss (of two) in the qualifying rounds. I surmise that being teamed up with us and winning in match 17 might have helped you to come up with that strategy. Good job. See you in Arizona again next year.

[Danaca]

Someone is talking about publishing video of the matches? Awesome. I have checked all of our cameras, but for some reason no one filmed the final match, match 102, where we managed to complete the 6-stack.

[sanddrag]

Originally posted by Danaca
Someone is talking about publishing video of the matches? Awesome. I have checked all of our cameras, but for some reason no one filmed the final match, match 102, where we managed to complete the 6-stack.

We may have that. Let us get back to you in about a week or so.

[GilAlumniMegs]

I'd like to say thanks to Team 68 and 60 for picking us for the elimination rounds. Both of you guys looked awesome out there and it was truly an honor for you guys to pick us, especially as a rookie team. I love you guys! Also, I'd like to congratulate Team 812! You guys totally deserved your award and we are so proud of you! And as far as GRT and Beach Bots go, I'm so happy that you went on to take second place. You really deserved it!

[Ken Leung]

Originally posted by Redhead Jokes
Will Arizona be doing the same?

Caroline from GRT brought a VCR to tape the FIRST feed, and all the vhs tapes are now back at California, and copies will be made. I believe I can get some of them to be sent off to SOAP to get digitized, or to De Anza High School. I will get back to you in a day or two.

[Redhead Jokes]

Originally posted by Ken L
Caroline from GRT brought a VCR to tape the FIRST feed, and all the vhs tapes are now back at California, and copies will be made. I believe I can get some of them to be sent off to SOAP to get digitized, or to De Anza High School. I will get back to you in a day or two.

Thank you so much. Our 10yo programmer and videographer has to put a video project together very soon for his school. His mom emailed me, "He confirmed what Nick knew: there were 'issues' with the feeds for videotaping, thus the taping of the first day came out all red and probably unusable. We weren't the only team to setup a VCR and not get a recording because of this feed problem."

She asked me to see what we could do.

BTW, our high school videographer was not a member of our team, joined us in AZ as a favor to my daughter, our team's captain. He is from another school, who doesn't yet have a robotics' team. He was so impressed by the whole experience, here's what he emailed me,

"Ms. Miller, I heard you were the one in charge of publications and I told Angela that I really love to do that stuff and she told me that you would love someone to help you out in that area. If you need any help I would love to help the team by helping you. I have a couple ideas you can do for publicity for your sponsors and would like to help you with the overall look of the teams information.

I also wanted to thank you for the opporitunity to film the Phoenix Regional. I had a great experience meeting the team and learn what robotics was all about, community. Without community, there is no team, and without a team, there is no robot, and without a robot there is no robotics. Thank you again for the chance to meet such an influential team.
Sincerely,
Nick Shepard"

He then asked if he could join our team. YES!!! (We have a 10yo programming whiz, 2 8th graders, 2 members from Peninsula High who wouldn't get a team off the ground, and now North High Videographer Nick. Our hope is this will motivate more local schools to start teams.)

Thank you AZ for helping other parents and students too on our team realize that the FIRST program is not only about building a robot. They were very impressed with the community and spirit.

[Ryan Dognaux]

Thanks to 962 for our victory over one of the toughest teams at the AZ regional - 980. Good job on your arm guys, I was really amazed... it's insanely fast... I think anyone who took a risk and went w/ an arm-like device meant to knock over the stacks should be commended. Great job, and to all the teams - cool bots. Some that just come off the top of my head are 192... 696... 68... I could probably go on forever... anyways, great regional!

Oh yeah, LONG LIVE SCOUTING!

[sanddrag]

Originally posted by AnimeRaul234
... 696...

Whoo hoo! That's us! We're remembered! We're remembered!

Those attending LA watch out. Fear 696. Those who were at Phoenix can certify our domination.

And 696 shatters yet another tote!

The 696 Circuit Breakers are really breaking those circuits folks!

696 has just swept the field clean and is doing the Happy Dance on top of the platform. This could be one of the highest scoring matches so far!

[DougHogg]

Originally posted by AnimeRaul234
Thanks to 962 for our victory over one of the toughest teams at the AZ regional - 980. Good job on your arm guys, I was really amazed... it's insanely fast... I think anyone who took a risk and went w/ an arm-like device meant to knock over the stacks should be commended. Great job, and to all the teams - cool bots. Some that just come off the top of my head are 192... 696... 68... I could probably go on forever... anyways, great regional!

Oh yeah, LONG LIVE SCOUTING!

Thanks for the complement. Your team was one of the toughest also. Good strategy in that match.

Since we competed twice and won a match each, I guess we will have to call it a draw.

It was definitely exciting to see the two arms swing at those bins simultaneously.

By the way, I noticed some enhancements to your performance as the competition progressed. The last time I saw your arm in action, it was very impressive. Looked like you got about 20 bins.

It would be great to see an arm robot in the finals at the Championships, yours or ours or maybe one of those other "arms" robots out there.

Good luck,

[Dave_222]

Well dave is back on the east coast where he belongs and the Az regional was great thanks to 696 for picking us and that was a tuff break with that flag.

[sanddrag]

Originally posted by Dave_222
Well dave is back on the east coast where he belongs and the Az regional was great thanks to 696 for picking us and that was a tuff break with that flag.

Yeah well with the score being 22 to 49, even had the flag not broken we still would have lost. It was ashame our other partner 987 got flipped but they put up a great fight. You know on the bus ride back we figured out that if we made our score zero in that last match we would have made it to the finals. This was becuase we would have ended up with more QP's than them in the end. Just another strange twist to FIRST. Nice job being our partner Tigertrons; you did grrrrreat!