2016 Smoky Mountains Regional

[Alex2614]

I just want to say how wonderful this event truly is. I love coming back to SMR every year, and even though we are 6 hours away, it really feels like our home regional.

Titanium and Fellowship of the Spring were tremendous alliance partners, and we couldn't ask for better teams to work with. HVA Rohawktics 3824, 2481, and 4740 you were a tough team to beat, and you proved yourself as the better alliance in the end. We'll see you at worlds! (Maybe next year, we can continue our SMR, lose-against-HVA, win-with HVA, lose-against-HVA streak next year).

(For those that don't know, every team in the finals is going to championship due to wild cards and pre-qualifying). We were hoping for a 3-peat at SMR, but we are incredibly happy with the way things happened.

This was a very emotional time for MARS, with our late mentor and founder Phil Tucker having been awarded with the WFFA last year, just four months before his death. It was very hard being there again for a fourth year, but for the first without him. Thank you to all the volunteers, teams, coaches, and students who continue to make this regional the BEST in FRC! I have been involved in FIRST for nine years now, and this the most well-run and most hospitable regional I have ever been to. A truly inspiring group of people involved down there, and I hope it works out that we can come back next year.

[samfruth]

1710 had a truly awesome time at SMR and our hats go off to the crew that organized the regional. I don't think I have ever been in a better arena for an FRC regional than Thompson Boling. We would like to give a huge shout out to 3937 for picking us on the third seed. Our team was ecstatic when you called our number! It was a bummer to go down the way we did but we have been able to identify the issue and we are working towards a resolution for champs.

Huge congrats to 1986 for the EI award! It was awesome to see our fellow KC teams take away some prizes! Hopefully we can get a match WITH you instead of AGAINST you at Champs .

See you then!

[Breakaway3937]

Originally Posted by samfruth

It was a bummer to go down the way we did but we have been able to identify the issue and we are working towards a resolution for champs.

See you then!

So what ended up being the culprit?

[samfruth]

Originally Posted by Breakaway3937

So what ended up being the culprit?

It was definitely a brownout. I attached a folder with 4 screenshots of our logs. The first one is of a random match from Friday to show what a normal match would look like for us. The other two are from the elim matches.

What we've seen from looking at the match logs is that we were playing with fire in almost all our quals matches. In nearly every match our voltage would drop to under 7v at one point or another. I guess just through normal wear and tear our gearboxes and drive train got less efficient over the competition making it harder for the motors to drive us forward as things slowly got misaligned or loosened. Somehow it lasted through quals just fine and just through bad luck failed during the elims.

Hopefully that made sense.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1...TVkckxvYk85aDA

[akmess01]

There have been over 200 photos from this year's Smoky Mountain Regional posted to the regional facebook page by the regional's photographer: https://www.facebook.com/FIRSTRoboti...ountains/?_rdr.

[SoccerTaco]

I'm a little late to the after-party but wanted to offer some thoughts / thanks from 3824...

Many thanks to the University of TN for all the support with the venue!

1710 - Congrats on the Chairman's Award - you have an amazing program. Good luck with Chairman's in St Louis.

1986 - Our qualifying match together was a blast. I think the tower ended up at -6 that match. Congrats on the Engineering Inspiration award. It was great to have a traditional powerhouse program like yours at SMR and I hope we get to play together again someday.

Knoxville area teams - Wow! What a great regional! 4 of the 8 alliance captains were Knoxville area teams (3824, 1466, 4265, 3140). 2393 had a rough draw in quals and may have been the most underrated team at SMR - they have a great robot.

2614 - It is always a pleasure! Thanks for letting us team up with you on running the Help Desk and showing us the ropes. Congrats on the #1 seed and being the only undefeated team in quals.

2614, 1986, 4264 - The finals were intense! Great competition all the way around.

2481, 4740 - We really enjoyed this alliance! 4740, you guys were playing tough defense all weekend and we were excited you were still available in the draft. Great driving! 2481, what an amazing robot. Your unblock-able / accurate outer works shot is awesome. Arguably the strongest robot at SMR this year. We look forward to crossing paths again in the future.

And last, but certainly not least, thanks to ALL the people that volunteer. Many of you take vacation from work to volunteer. This inspiring event would just not be possible without you. We really appreciate you!

[414cnewq]

Wow. Two Einstein bots and a Champion from this Regional. Wow.