2016 Queen City Regional (QCR)

[lynca]

Anyone willing to help upload robot pictures for the teams ?

https://www.thebluealliance.com/event/2016ohci

All of these pictures will appear on the TBA android app and make scouting easier.

[vmat14]

Hello everyone,

The TechHOUNDS would first like to congratulate everyone who competed at the Queen City Regional this past weekend.

A huge thank you goes out to 245 for picking us and maintaining awesome high goal consistency, and to 4256 for being an amazing second round pick and scoring an incredible Finals 3 auton shot!

In addition, congratulations to 3504 for EI and 1939 for Chairman's - you guys are inspirations to every team. Good luck at worlds!

Hope to see you all again next year!

Team 868

[vhcook]

On behalf of team 1939, I would like to thank all the volunteers who helped make this a great regional.

Congratulations to team 3504 Girls of Steel on your Engineering Inspiration award, to the Champions 4256, 868, and 245.

Congratulations also to 4028 The Beak Squad on your Wild Card. You were a wonderful pit neighbor, and we love your robot. Congratulations to 4145 and 3324 for a well played and hard fought elimination round.

Congratulations also to 337 on your Judges award for your humanitarian efforts. I was really touched by how you've been able to help people.

It was a pleasure to meet everyone, and we enjoyed working with you. I hope we see you all again.

[KrazyCarl92]

Congratulations to 1939 on their Chairman's Award! Your team was really helpful when different firmware and software versions weren't properly up to date on Thursday, and I was glad to see a team take the award who was constantly reaching out to other teams to help them out. Thank you!

The winning alliance of 245-868-4256 was a really powerful combination and it was great seeing your alliance play. 868's highly accurate high goal scoring and targeting coupled with their smart all-too-rare decisions to switch to low goals upon defense at the drop of a hat was a huge contributing factor to their alliance's capturing ability throughout playoffs. Lots of teams (**especially high goal scorers**) would benefit from taking notes out of their play book. 868 also shared some inspirational words with our kids on at least one occasion, so thank you for that! Congrats on the win!

Thanks to teams 3504 and 2016 for asking us to join their alliance. It was cool to have our team called by name at alliance selection rather than just a number, shows teams are starting to learn who the "BONDS" are. Thank you again for being open to our strategic input even as a rookie team and 3rd member of the alliance. 3504's defense was a tremendous asset when facing the scoring power of the #1 seed in the quarter finals. In QF 1-2 and 1-3 I count somewhere around 50-70 points from the opposing alliance prevented by their defensive play! They took an opposing alliance that "shoul've" scored 8-10 high goals and brought them down to 9 and 10 teleop boulder points in those 2 matches. It helped take us within 1 low goal boulder of advancing to the semifinals, and if nothing else helped demonstrate vulnerability in the #1 alliance's strategy and robots.

I was thrilled to see the Girls of Steel (3504) awarded the Engineering Inspiration award and advance to the World Championship; we are looking forward to seeing you there! Hopefully teams will take note of your strong defensive play and take that into account when alliance selections roll around.

Congrats to 5809 on their Rookie All-Star award. I hope both of our teams will have a wonderful experience at the Championship in a month!

Lastly, huge thanks to Team 3138. We were really hoping to see you guys awarded a spot at the World Championship and it will certainly be different for our team to compete without your helping hand every step of the way. In any case, the gracious professionalism award was very well deserved! And our team was thrilled to see Colleen and Bri both earn a Dean's List Finalist award! You've both been an inspiration to our team and even if the robot won't necessarily be in St. Louis, we are glad to have such close friends joining us at the Championship.

[Travis Hoffman]

First, I would like to thank the event planners and staff of the Queen City Regional for putting on a well run event.

Next, I would like to congratulate all winners on their trophies, medals, and other awards.

Finally, I would like to thank all event volunteers for their service. HOWEVER, there is one thing I feel obligated to bring up about this competition, and it involves the referee communication in Semifinal 1, Match 3. This was a pretty dang important match, as the winner would move on to the Finals, and as it turns out, the Finalist Alliance Captain would receive a Wild Card via 1939 winning EI at one event and Chairman's at another (congrats).

Please review this match - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ymz4gynmrI.

I posted my thoughts in the comments of the video, but for completeness...

YMTC - three times through the Sally Port - only credited for the last 2. Lost out on 25 point challenge bonus at match end due to lost time dancing with the SP a third time. Would have easily parked on the batter with 15 extra seconds. Would have won the match by (at least) one point. Would have had a shot to win in the Finals. Would have earned a WILD CARD regardless (one that was bestowed upon 4028, a worthy team no doubt, captain of the alliance who advanced as a result of this referee gaffe). Would have had a chance at blue banner that has eluded us for several years. Very, very disappointing.

Our robot was the only entity doing anything RIGHT during the gaffe:

- the opposing alliance was committing a foul
- the head ref and the penalty caller were assessing that foul
- the penalty caller neglected to witness our first sally port crossing happening right in front of him, and he neglected to notice the ref on the far side of the field holding his hand out as if waiting for confirmation.

Perhaps, FIRST, you can ditch the Disney and peel the covering off the Sally Port door such that a SINGLE REFEREE might be able to clearly judge whether a robot successfully breached the defense or not?

We're going to St. Louis anyway. Thanks, Frankie and FIRST - we got the waitlist invite Thursday morning at Queen City. ;-) Unfortunately, we were still denied a medal and a fair shot at winning our first regional since 2012, and our partners in 5413, 1308, and 2603 received NOTHING but disappointment as a result of this major, major referee communication gaffe. PLEASE DO BETTER. The teams deserve it.

This kind of oversight simply should not happen. We went to the question box and one of the refs apparently told our people that for one of the crossings, we did not fully clear the outer works boundaries. I think the video makes it eminently clear our first crossing was just hunky dory.

The game design/defense design should not require 2 separate, already overworked humans to confirm one robot crossing. Our alliance partner teams (5413, 1308, and 2603) should not have been denied their opportunity to qualify for the Championship due to these oversights. My team was fortunate to receive an invitation off the waitlist on Thursday morning shortly after arriving at Queen City; otherwise, my mood right now would be less than Stellar (sorry, bad pun). As it is, I am just extremely disappointed that these major gaffes are so frequently facilitated by the game design. I have spoken with mentors on several teams affected by similar disheartening oversights all season long. It inhales audibly every time you hear something like this happen. The more it happens, the more it shouldn't.