Make FRC History: WVROX

[Brian Maher]

Originally Posted by orangemoore

So...Who Won?

2) 4954 (3), 1325(7), 4505(23) (W)

Glad to see a MAR team on the winning alliance

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Fletch1373

We were playing with a slightly modified version of the standard rules. Truss-shot goals were allowed for this event(Source, I was at the scoring table for about 23 hours of it...). The reason for the replay was simply due to shear confusion. The refs dropped the ball(not literally) by not catching it happening at the time and stopping it. The field reset crew dropped the ball(again, not literally) by not realizing what should've happened instead of what did happen. [...] It's unfortunate that it happened, but the replay was the correct course of action, and I believe it was well executed.

IRI rules, as I noted. (Or a variant.) I agree, correct course of action just because of all the confusion, probably at least partly brought on by tiredness. I fully understand that part.

[rutzman]

Head ref for the elimination shift here, just waking up. I'll try to clarify what happened to the best of my memory- almost every elimination match had multiple teams in the question box, and a lot of deliberation on close calls.

In the driver meeting, we announced that the pedestal would be done on the honor rule and that bounce-ins over the truss would count as goals.

This match was a hectic one. Before the bounce-in, I had called 5 fouls. The added confusion of the bounce-in made it difficult for the referees to reach a consensus on what fouls we saw. I didn't want to double count a foul, and I didn't want to punish a student for playing the game the way they had played it all year, in case there had been a miscommunication about the rule change, so after huddling with the refs, I called for a replay.

[nomad725]

We had a great time competing through all of our qualification matches and then making it to the finals and winning. We stayed in the top 3 ranking spots for most of the qualifiers. We want to thank FRC Team 2614, MARS, for organizing such a great event and also West Virginia University for hosting it. Our biggest thanks goes to our amazing alliance partners FRC Team 1325 and FRC Team 4505. We had a lot of intense and close matches in the eliminations. I got to say that the 8th Alliance was amazing. From winning against the 1st Alliance and then making it all the way to the finals. The finals matches were really close.

[sraque]

I was the red-side scoring ref for the match with the bounce-in replay. Even though we had said that pulling balls from the pedestal was on the honor system, I tried to punch up the score in each cycle as fast as possible to give the human players that extra level of comfort that they were being fair when they saw the pedestal light up. That ball bounced in; I punched the score; the screen reset; I watch the screen for a second or two to ensure that it actually took the button pushes, and then I saw the human player across from me calling for the ball. I tried to flag that it was scored (but honestly not effectively enough and quickly enough), and before anyone saw or heard me, the ball was back in play, and the human player at the other end of the field saw the lighted pedestal and got the new ball. It was impossible to recover from there forward with two balls in play to come up with what the score should-be in a fair manner.

With the length of the event, I think it's pretty understandable that we had players on the field who didn't recall that nuance from the drivers meeting. I think it's pretty understandable that we had many volunteers who were not familiar with the off-nominal rules situations and had less experience in the game than most of the players, so when they see a player calling for something, they would tend to react.

[escime]

On behalf of MARS, thanks to all the teams who attended this event. These were the first FRC matches ever played in the state of WV. We couldn't be more proud of the students of MARS, their friends and families, and all the out of town volunteers who showed up to make this event a success. West Virginia University really came through with an incredible venue and support for the event. Congratulations to the winning alliance and to the students who will receive academic scholarships to WVU. Also congratulations to all the teams that won judged awards. We were a tad over 26 hours and 14 minutes, but we came really close to hitting our time target. Next time I'll remember to shift into low gear in the mentor match.....

[ArzaanK]

Team 1325 had an amazing time competing at WVROX. We would like to thank Team 2614 for hosting the event. Everything was very well organized, and the venue was great! In addition, we would like to thank every single team who came out to the event and made the experience of the inaugural WVROX event special. We would also like to thank our alliance partners, Team 4954 and Team 4505, the three of us worked very well together, and all contributed towards the big win. Moreover, we would really like to thank Team 3504, Girls of Steel and Team 4467, Titanium Titans for using their timeouts in the elimination rounds to give us time to fix our robot.

[Kevin Selavko]

I have a little bit of footage from the event's special matches here: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...ST1dQxo96zHtpq

[ChuckDickerson]

Team 456 would like to extend our sincere appreciation to the host team, 2614, West Virginia University, the army of volunteers, the AndyMark crew and other FTAs, scoring table crew, field crew, referees, judges, and everyone else that had a roll, no matter how small, in making this inaugural WVROX such a wonderful, outstanding, incredible, memorable, and just plain epically fun event that it was. If you weren’t there you missed out! Team 456 could not have had a better time and I suspect the feeling is mutual with all the teams there. The WVU venue was outstanding and provided some welcome distractions including an awesome rock climbing wall. The music was excellent and kept everyone pumped up and excited from beginning to end. Everyone played 26 qualifying matches at one event which is unheard of in FRC and that was at a leisurely 10 minute turn around. This was only possible due to the truly tireless effort put forth by all involved in planning and executing this event. As an example, I know for a fact the Jerry Budd (FTA) and the AndyMark team and 456’s own Eddie Melton (FTA) kept the field running flawlessly throughout the entire event without once laying down or taking a nap from Friday morning until Saturday evening. Folks, that is true dedication to FIRST! All of the “special matches” (6 ball, mentor, flashlight, silent) were a blast! I think the flashlight matches were my personal favorite. Kudos to Team 2614 and WVU for pulling off the first FRC endurance event in spectacular fashion. Their off season event model is one to emulate and I highly support this 24+ hour endurance concept for more off season events. Hopefully WVROX will return in the future! 456 drove over 1000 miles each way to go to this event and we are ready to do it all over again! 2614 has raised the bar, so now, who’s going to be the first to pull off a 48+ hour FRC event???

Congrats to 4954, 1325, and 4505 for pulling off the well-deserved win in the first ever FRC endurance event!

[ks68]

Final Results

Alliances:
1) 340(1), 1629(2), 291 (20) (QF)
2) 4954 (3), 1325(7), 4505(23) (W)
3) 2614(4), 4265(6), 888(21) (QF)
4) 132(5), 356(8), 4080 (22) (QF)
5) 1249(9), 3492(16), 1708 (19) (SF)
6) 3504(10), 3260(15), 2641(18) (SF)
7) 686(11), 1731(14), 4924 (24) (QF)
8) 4467(12), 3193 (13), 2655 (17) (F)

[Alex2614]

I'd like to thank everyone for the generous words. We are all still recovering here at MARS, and we can't wait to see what happens in the future. We have been planning this event for more than a year, and I couldn't have been happier with the way it turned out.

I would like to thank WVU for all their generous support, even if they won't see it here. We approached them with the idea, not really expecting much, and they really went above and beyond. Not only did they provide arguably the nicest facility on campus, but they also provided four full-tuition scholarships to the winning alliance teams and the Earl Scime Award winner's team. The facility is incredible. I have never been to another FRC event with a track three stories above the field and pits, a climbing wall, and awesome swimming pool all open to participants. WVU even fed all the participants, mentors, and volunteers! All for a $100 entry fee! President Gee and the Mountaineer (late at night) even showed up. When the Mountaineer started up a match with his musket, it finally became a "real" Mountaineer event.

I was working at the scoring table, and I can attest that each and every person there, whether from AndyMark or those volunteering their time are some of the greatest in FIRST. We could not have had this event without their (literally) tireless dedication to the students at the event. While we all had a lot of fun, they really put the teams and students first, and on the technical side, everything ran flawlessly for 26 hours.

This was WVU's first experience with FRC, but also the first FRC event EVER to take place in the state of West Virginia. We have really opened some doors for the future of FIRST here, and I would like to thank each team for making that happen. But, because there were a lot of firsts here (no pun intended), we all knew going in that there would be some mishaps (like when WVU realized that the grandstands wouldn't fit through the doors... sorry about that everyone). We all knew that we would have to run the event with very inexperienced volunteers (even down to the reffing), but people still decided to compete here!! I am incredibly thankful that everyone was very understanding through the whole event, even in the elimination rounds. You truly helped us in a way that cannot be expressed. And, as Earl said in the opening ceremonies, the mentors at MARS will have a long "lessons learned" meeting to make sure that if we do this event again, it will be even better! Thanks to the whole FIRST community for being so great! Now we got to show our community how great FIRST is!

[1629GaCo]

1629 had a wonderful time at this event, everything was well run and very well organized. We would like to thank 2614 MARS for the countless time and effort they put into running this crazy off season event. Another thank you goes to WVU for recognizing the importance of this competition and for offering a full academic scholarship to one student from each of the winning alliance teams. That is huge.

The volunteers were amazing, full of energy and always ready to help. The field seemed to work the whole time with no issues (other than the flashlight matches) where the field had to be reset due to too much bandwidth being consumed from the cameras!!! But once that was fixed, they went off without a hitch! More explanation on penalties would have been nice, but hey, you can't have it all!!

All around a great job, and we look forward to doing this again next year!

[blakeelias]

Hey, is this event happening again? Cause I'd love to see if I could go/volunteer this time around, didn't end up going last year though I'd really gotten excited at the possibility.

[Alex2614]

Originally Posted by blakeelias

Hey, is this event happening again? Cause I'd love to see if I could go/volunteer this time around, didn't end up going last year though I'd really gotten excited at the possibility.

Unfortunately, not this year. We decided to hold the event on a bi-annual basis, so keep an eye out for WVROX 2016! Registration site for 2016 will be open soon.

[carpedav000]

Originally Posted by Alex2614

Unfortunately, not this year. We decided to hold the event on a bi-annual basis, so keep an eye out for WVROX 2016! Registration site for 2016 will be open soon.

Woo! Now to convince our coach to register...

EDIT: Wouldn't it be interesting if FIRST required (as part of competition season) that teams go to at least one endurance event?