Greater Toronto Central Regional

[Josh Goodman]

Originally Posted by Karthik

Congratulations to Team 1511 on winning their 7th Regional Chairman's Award! I had a chance to see a video of their presentation prior to the event and I met their presenters briefly on Friday; suffice to say I was thoroughly impressed with what I saw.

Thank you! That's very kind. I'm sure our presenters were able to learn a lot!

On behalf of 1511, a huge thank you to FIRST Canada and the warm welcome that we were given. It is such a fantastic community that we were very lucky to be adopted into for this past weekend.

Thank you to 2609 and 4951 for being the best alliance partners we could have asked for. You all were incredibly flexible with changing strategies and working around problems that arose (read: broken scaler arm). We hope to work with you both again soon!

Congratulations to 3683, 4001, and 5039! We knew that was going to be the ultimate challenge and started preparing for that match as soon as alliances were selected. You guys absolutely deserved the gold this weekend and we also hope we get the privilege to play with you in the future as well.

Also a congratulations to our new friends part of #teamIMAX, 1325, on their EI win along with a deserving WFFA to Roland Sing!

We will definitely not be waiting another 11 years to make the short trip to one of the Toronto regionals. Thank you to all the volunteers and staff who made the event run smoothly despite a number of setbacks. In the meantime, I hope to see most of you coming down for Ruckus this upcoming fall!

[MaGiC_PiKaChU]

Originally Posted by mrnoble

3360 looked great in the matches I watched, but it was hard for even them to hit the high goal. This is a fun but tough game.

our vision processing was not working properly during practice matches on thursday, because the reflective tape was not conform as in team update 7 (1ft height instead of the original 1ft 2inches). The field crew changed it for qualification matches, but it did not work for us like it worked at school, so we started lining up manually or doing low goals

[mman1506]

I'm super sorry for anyone who wasn't able to access the machine shop Thursday morning. We had some issues getting power to shop as the Ryerson venue staff didn't approve of our usual generator setup that we used last year.

Also if anyone had any issues with the machine shop please PM me. We try to keep the shop and the team independent from each other during the events and none of the people working in the shop are on team 865 so it can be hard to know how we did.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by EricH

My bet--haven't seen the videos--would be stepping over the defenses.

You step on/over a defense, you get a yellow card. (Unless you're fishing a robot out of the defense, but that's another situation.)

Stepping over defenses and sides. Also intentionally damaging field elements with the robot will quickly draw the head refs ire (772 shattered the portcullis by ramming it several times trying to get through it)

[Irwin772]

In our defense, if the game design committee had made the defenses out of Lexan instead of plexiglass no one would be having these issues. We broke 2 pieces of the chaval de frise on Thursday and we didn't even hit it that hard. Lexan bends at worst, Plexiglass breaks.

[smistthegreat]

Originally Posted by Irwin772

In our defense, if the game design committee had made the defenses out of Lexan instead of plexiglass no one would be having these issues. We broke 2 pieces of the chaval de frise on Thursday and we didn't even hit it that hard. Lexan bends at worst, Plexiglass breaks.

From the game manual: "The door is constructed of a steel frame with a 1/8 in. thick polycarbonate sheet covering the opening in the frame.", "The Cheval de Frise is a series of four (4) independently tilting, weighted polycarbonate platforms."

Lexan is a trade name for polycarbonate, so unless the manual is different than the official field drawings, the defenses are definitely made of Lexan (or some other brand of polycarbonate).

[cadandcookies]

Originally Posted by Irwin772

In our defense, if the game design committee had made the defenses out of Lexan instead of plexiglass no one would be having these issues. We broke 2 pieces of the chaval de frise on Thursday and we didn't even hit it that hard. Lexan bends at worst, Plexiglass breaks.

No, Lexan breaks as well, it just doesn't shatter. When the drawbridge broke at Northern Lights we didn't have to pick up shards of plastic, just the two pieces of polycarb that broke off.

Yes, polycarbonate is better than acrylic/plexiglas, but it isn't magic. It will still break if you (or 40-60 150 pound robots) put excessive stress/fatigue on weakened points (such as bolt holes).

[happy]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

Stepping over defenses and sides. Also intentionally damaging field elements with the robot will quickly draw the head refs ire (772 shattered the portcullis by ramming it several times trying to get through it)

"intentionally" come on Ed give your head a shake. Drivers have obstructed views and game pieces that are obviously not designed to take a hit from a 150lbs robot. I think intentionally is a poor choice of words. I'll bet they were intentionally doing it in SC too!

[Irwin772]

Originally Posted by smistthegreat

From the game manual: "The door is constructed of a steel frame with a 1/8 in. thick polycarbonate sheet covering the opening in the frame.", "The Cheval de Frise is a series of four (4) independently tilting, weighted polycarbonate platforms."

Lexan is a trade name for polycarbonate, so unless the manual is different than the official field drawings, the defenses are definitely made of Lexan (or some other brand of polycarbonate).

not sure what type of polycarb they used, but it isnt the right kind, case and point here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hsls5ZPCUnE#t=48

I work with lexan almost everyday, it doesnt break very easily, they definitely arent using something that would make it into industrial use for impact resistance.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by happy

"intentionally" come on Ed give your head a shake. Drivers have obstructed views and game pieces that are obviously not designed to take a hit from a 150lbs robot. I think intentionally is a poor choice of words. I'll bet they were intentionally doing it in SC too!

I didn't see any mechanism to lift the portcullis. They just kept crashing into repeatedly as hard as they could and they shattered it. Intentional or not when we run out of stuff to play with by week three everyone is gonna wish they weren't so rough with the field. Ray Willick can't be everywhere to save us at every event.

[Irwin772]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

I didn't see any mechanism to lift the portcullis. They just kept crashing into repeatedly as hard as they could and they shattered it. .

The pickup is the mechanism in our case, there are grippy pads on the end of the intake that allow us to push against and lift the porticullis, the system may need some practice tho, we put that on part way through the regional so our drivers did not have a chance to play with it at the school.

[EddyG]

Pics from the event

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1124758394255879.1073741889.125661567498905 &type=3&ref=notif&notif_t=like

[CVR]

Originally Posted by Irwin772

The pickup is the mechanism in our case, there are grippy pads on the end of the intake that allow us to push against and lift the porticullis, the system may need some practice tho, we put that on part way through the regional so our drivers did not have a chance to play with it at the school.

I would recommend larger, soft wheels. They'll cushion some of the impact and give you a better chance of hitting the lexan with wheels rather than metal. Just my $0.02.

I'd also like to back up Koko Ed on the "intentional" field damage. If you do it once, it may not be intentional. If you do it twice and were warned the first time, you should have learned the first time. Bots that bent the low bar or ripped the fabric (or otherwise damaged the field) were warned the first time, and if they did it again were penalized. This should give teams ample time to fix the problem or re-evaluate if they actually can fit under the low bar (or cross the other defenses).

[gregzetko]

Does anyone know a place where I can find the VOD from the full event? Including the awards, breaks, etc.? watchfirstnow.com only has an archive from the matches.