2016 Sacramento Regional

[niklas674]

As the 2016 Sacramento Regional is on the horizon, it looks like it will be a great competition. Here is the team list for this upcoming regional.

100 The WildHats
114 Eagle Strike
295 Grizzly Robotics Team
581 Blazing Bulldogs
597 The Wolverines
604 Quixilver
668 The Apes of Wrath
692 The Fembots
701 Robovikes
766 M-A Bears
841 The BioMechs
852 The Athenian Robotics Collective
971 Spartan Robotics
1056 Hot Rocks
1072 Harker Robotics
1280 Ragin' C- Biscuits of San Ramon Valley High
1323 MadTown Robotics
1351 TKO
1458 Red Tie Robotics
1671 Buchanan Bird Brains
1678 Citrus Circuits
2035 Robo Rockin' Bots
2073 EagleForce
2085 RoboDogs
2102 Team Paradox
2141 Spartonics
2144 Gators
2204 Rambots
2367 Lancer Robotics
2551 Penguin Empire
2854 The Prototypes
3189 Circuit Breakers
3250 Kennedy Robotics
3257 Vortechs
3501 Firebots
3598 SEStematic Eliminators
3615 Reavers
3669 RoboKnights
3859 Wolfpack Robotics
4135 Iron Patriots
4159 CardinalBotics
4186 Alameda Aztechs
4543 The Illuminators
4643 Thunderbird Robotics
4669 ESM Robotics
4698 Rio Raidicons
4904 Bot-Provoking
4973 Gator Gears
5026 Iron Panthers
5134 RoboWolves
5250 Kinetic
5274 Wolverines
5430 Pirate Robolution
5458 Digital Minds
5496 Robo Knights
5507 Robotic Eagles
5808 Revive Robotics
5869 Radical Robotics
5924 Cat Machine
6174 Kaprekar's Constants

Good Luck to everyone at the competition!

[Doug G]

Holy Smokes... 60 teams!! I think this is the largest Sac/Davis event so far!!

21 teams have already competed. Should be a great event with some wildcards in play!!

597 - LA - GP Award - Going to CHAMPS! (2015 HOF team)
701 - CVR - QF - Judges Award
1323 - CVR - Finalist - Earned WildCard spot to CHAMPS!
1458 - CVR
1671 - CVR - QF - EI Award - Going to CHAMPS! (2015 Champs Winner)
1678 - CVR - Winner - Quality Award - Going to CHAMPS!
2073 - CVR - QF
2102 - SD - Winner - Going to CHAMPS!
2144 - AZ North
3189 - CVR
3250 - AZ North - QF - ID Award, IS Award
3501 - CVR - Spirit Award
3598 - AZ North
3669 - AZ North
3859 - CVR - QF
4135 - CVR
4543 - CVR
4973 - CVR
5134 - CVR
5458 - CVR
5496 - CVR

[Citrus Dad]

A fun promo video for the event, created one of our mentors:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxB16_4kM9c

[kmehta]

604 is super excited to be back at Davis for the first time since 2013! And we'll be bringing our bumper repair kit with us ;-)

[bEdhEd]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

A fun promo video for the event, created one of our mentors:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxB16_4kM9c

That was awesome!

[asid61]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

A fun promo video for the event, created one of our mentors:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxB16_4kM9c

Better than most of the reveals I've seen, although it was rather hard to read all the words.
115 will be watching Sac reaaaallly closely, although we are sorry we can't join you guys this year!

[4135matt]

Fantastic event as always and a fantastic, and definitely surprising result for my team as we won the Engineering Inspiration award.
Huge shoutout to everyone on 1678 for all of the help they gave us both at this competition and at CVR, especially to Kelly for spending almost her entire day Thursday working with my team. See you guys at champs!

[AustinSchuh]

Thanks everyone for a fantastic event! 971 had a blast. The volunteers were awesome, the event was well run, and we got to play a bunch of matches with all our friends. I know the competitions are supposed to be competitions, but sometimes they seem like social events.

Thanks 1678 and 5274 for playing with us in the elimination matches. 1678 put up some good points and 5274 played some wicked D. It takes a special alliance to break 200.

[hionwind]

Originally Posted by AustinSchuh

Thanks everyone for a fantastic event! 971 had a blast. The volunteers were awesome, the event was well run, and we got to play a bunch of matches with all our friends. I know the competitions are supposed to be competitions, but sometimes they seem like social events.

Thanks 1678 and 5274 for playing with us in the elimination matches. 1678 put up some good points and 5274 played some wicked D. It takes a special alliance to break 200.

Team 1678 had a fun time at this event with a few ups and downs. Despite failing miserably in our penultimate qualification match, 971 still believed in us enough to pick us. Thank you for asking us to join your alliance. The elimination matches were a blast and 5274 played some stellar defense in the finals.

Thanks to all of the teams who competed so hard and especially to some of the perennial and emerging CA powerhouses (1323, 1671, 701, 2073 and 3250) who kept us all biting our nails to the end.

Finally, a huge shout out to Rookie All Star Award winner, team 5924, who came out looking like a seasoned veteran. I'm anticipating a great future from this awesome team.

[Dr. Robot]

The students and mentors of Team 5924 can't thank all of you enough for the wisdom shared with us at this event. While we had a unique vantage point of the current no-penalty world record score as you dropped that score on us, we would have it no other way than to go out fighting against a world class alliance with the defending world champs leading the charge.

Trying to defend 1678 and 971 at the same time felt like a cross between acting as John Conner in "Terminator: Rise of the Machines" and the feeling of being a single defender trying to simultaneously guard Steph Curry and Klay Thompson with someone feeding them an endless supply of basketballs. I can still hear the chains from the high goal jingling in my ear. lol

Seriously though, I truly understand "Gracious Professionalism" after:
- the advice from Steve (1678) on the practice field
- the curricular resources from Tyler (1678)
- the help cutting a polycarbonate sheet from Devin (1678) while we tried giving rookie cheesecake to another rookie team during qualifications
- the extra VersaPlanetary gearbox we needed given to us by Bryan (4159)
- the ethernet to USB adapter provided by Clint (2144)
- all of the great advice from Mike (1678) and Austin (971)
- the epic teamwork & synergy we felt with ALL of the RoboVikes (701) that started with our first caravan through the portcullis in that great match we lost at the last second when 3250 beat us by climbing with that epic Batman-style grappling hook
- the offseason help from Rob (3250)
- and the huge amount of advice and hands-on practice time on their field given to us by Travis, Cory, Jared, Nick, and the rest of the mentors and student leaders from the Poofs (254) from day 1 when we didn't even know you were allowed to build a second robot, until the Friday before the competition when we busted our robot up real good on their practice field and found the weak points of the robot that needed to be fixed before Sacramento.

We're ecstatic to compete with all of you again, honored to win the Rookie All-Star Award and be chosen for the playoffs (thanks 3669!), and can't wait to go to SVR & Champs in St. Louis. Thanks for the memories and good luck the rest of the way to all of you.

[Ubiquity]

Lessons learned.

I saw many teams leave that 1 QP on the floor by quickly defeating 3.5 outer works, and then spend a minute or more trying to score one ball or defend against a team who was clearly far ahead of them. Often they would ignore an easily breached defense and repeatedly cross a more difficult already defeated defense. This results in a zero QPs for your alliance. 3 QPs difference is a 20 point ranking difference. Plus it shows a well run dependable team. I also saw one team, with 2 disabled allies patiently clear 3 defenses solo, and then make it to the batter for a 55 point score and 1 QP. Driver and coach situational awareness is very important.

Very few teams used the human player spy - I am not sure why, but a spy can very very effective for a low profile machine. Several teams used high camera on a pole for seeing over the outer works.

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by 4135matt

Fantastic event as always and a fantastic, and definitely surprising result for my team as we won the Engineering Inspiration award.
Huge shoutout to everyone on 1678 for all of the help they gave us both at this competition and at CVR, especially to Kelly for spending almost her entire day Thursday working with my team. See you guys at champs!

You're welcome. Helping other teams is a big part of what this is about.

And we get to see you at Champs!

[4135matt]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

You're welcome. Helping other teams is a big part of what this is about.

And we get to see you at Champs!

We will definitely be stopping by your pit while we are there, your team is great to work with, gracious professionalism at its finest!