Mayhem in Merrimack 2016

[Jay O'Donnell]

Thanks to everyone for making Mayhem in Merrimack 2016 an awesome event! Chop Shop did a great job as always running the event, and I had a blast MCing and Game Announcing with Brandon and Adam. It was also fun to watch so many good teams duke it out late in the day, it seemed like the top 4 alliances all had a good chance. Congrats to 133, 1519 and 4906 on the win!

[kstl99]

Thanks to 166 Chop Shop for a great event. Jay, Brandon and Adam did a fine job as MC/Announcers. I figure that to be one of the harder jobs in FIRST and you guys nailed it.

[kstl99]

Would it be possible to post what the awards were and what they were for?

[demosthenes2k8]

Thank you, all, for attending Mayhem in Merrimack in our twelfth year!

I was one of the judges this year (the goofy one, if you don't recognize the face), and expecting that question I made sure to get a copy of our poems.

Herbie Award
The Herbie Award is for the robot that the judges consider to be the "cutest".

It has lights and it fights
and it brawls with them all,
It shows off its arches
and triumphantly marches.
Above all of this, they look good too.
This award is for you, Team 1922!

It's tough to figure out what makes a robot "cute". Sometimes it's googly eyes, sometimes it's something that we think just looks nice. The arches, as well as the lights, made this robot stand out in our eyes.

Gracious Professionalism
Voted on by other teams for the team that best embodies Gracious Professionalism.

Even under pressure, this team gives it all,
Hex shafts, bread, and parts big and small.
Embracing the spirit, as all teams should,
They are, truly, a force for good.

The winner of the Gracious Professionalism award is team 1073, The Force Team!

This one was the first poem finished. By sheer coincidence, we didn't realize until afterward that nearly all of the poems used the -all rhymes... I only realized it as I was typing them up.
The nominations for this team mentioned people going around giving out free hugs, as well as sharing many parts (hex shafts were specifically mentioned) and bread (not sure I want to know the story about this).

All That and a Bag of Chips
This award is for the robot we consider to be the "best feat of engineering"

Everyone knows they can't be stopped.
With their elevator arm they climb to the top.
Their system can make a call, or aim the ball.
Atop the tower, they rule them all.

The All That and a Bag of Chips award goes to Team 1768, the RoboChiefs!

If you're unaware, we DO normally give a bag of chips with this award. The judges were impressed with the extremely efficient use of space on the robot, as well as the stylish two-stage elevator system. The robot was sleek, and the students showed pride in their work.

Cotton-Eyed Joe
This award is for the team that we felt showed the most spirit.

A team with spirit shines with great might.
Just as the sun breaks the dark, blue Knight.
Standing out ahead of their peers,
this team functions like a set of matched gears.
The Cotton-Eyed Joe team spirit award goes to Team 1289, the Gearheadz!

The judges loved the spirit that this team showed during the competition. Unfortunately, it appeared that they had headed out before getting to receive their award, but their representative had enough spirit to make up for it.

Judges' Award
The Judges' Award is tough to describe. It's up the judges' discretion, and can be awarded for anything from "creative design" to "entrepreneurship" to "innovation in control" - sort of acting like any of the awards given out during official events.

The judges' award this year goes to a team that captured our attention in many different areas.
They have a diverse team with gender equality.
Despite mentors' doubts they still hit the mark,
this team really seems to have a spark.
Their rotating turret is nothing to mock,
Their team is sure to make waves and shock.
This year's Judges' Award goes to Team 4546, Dover Shockwave Robotics!

The judges were all impressed with all aspects of this team. At the end of their fourth year, they've prepared for next year when there are no more founding members remaining as students. They've implemented fantastic training, and by the time we had talked to them every one of their underclassmen had driven in a match. On top of that, their team had inspired a large number of women to join the team - they estimated 50%.
Their robot was well-organized and had an innovative turret design with clever counterweight usage. Not only did it look like a puppy (at the right angle), but it was well-positioned and brilliantly wired with an organized centralized box that both protected the control system and made it easy to swap out parts if needed.



If you have any feedback for the judges (even if it involves telling us that you hate our attempts at poetry), feel free to let me know!

[kstl99]

Great explanations. Thanks.

[EmileH]

Originally Posted by demosthenes2k8

All That and a Bag of Chips
This award is for the robot we consider to be the "best feat of engineering"


If you're unaware, we DO normally give a bag of chips with this award. The judges were impressed with the extremely efficient use of space on the robot, as well as the stylish two-stage elevator system. The robot was sleek, and the students showed pride in their work.

Is this for team 1768 last year?

[demosthenes2k8]

Elevator really was the best way to describe it... an interesting retracting arm.

[DinerKid]

Originally Posted by EmileH

Is this for team 1768 last year?

Elevators all day, every day.

~DK

[EmileH]

Originally Posted by DinerKid

Elevators all day, every day.

~DK

Ahhhhh, that. Pardon my ignorance, now I really look dumb.

[Zac Schofield]

Originally Posted by demosthenes2k8

The nominations for this team mentioned people going around giving out free hugs, as well as sharing many parts (hex shafts were specifically mentioned) and bread (not sure I want to know the story about this).

I will happily share the story with you! This goes way back to week zero, when our team had to dropout early due to us bending a huge part of our side plate while crossing the rock wall. We were all kinda moping around in the cafeteria, and someone was talking about how good the bread he had bought was. So some of us bought some bread, and then the team bought almost ALL the bread you were selling. It made a frustrating day better. At Mayhem in Merrimack, a bunch of us were all talking and I decided I was hungry, so I bought two loaves of bread for like $2.50, sat with my team, and they all remembered Week 0, so they all got up and bought bread. And that's the story of how we ate all of your bread

[Aboudy Dairi]

Originally Posted by demosthenes2k8

All That and a Bag of Chips

If you're unaware, we DO normally give a bag of chips with this award.

They were some good chips too...

I had loads of fun driving at this event for a second time, the double bracket elims meant a lot of pressure fighting through the losers bracket. It was also fun to play with 9319, that alone brought plenty of laughs.

Any idea when match videos will be up? TBA has no records of the matches either. I was told there was a qual where we scored 9 high goals, thats definitely something Id like to watch again.

The food was awesome, too!

[DinerKid]

Originally Posted by Aboudy Dairi

Any idea when match videos will be up? TBA has no records of the matches either. I was told there was a qual where we scored 9 high goals, thats definitely something Id like to watch again.

https://www.twitch.tv/nefirst_red/v/70464806

If memory serves me right, 2:55:00 should be about where you want to start watching for that match.

~DK

[Greg Woelki]

Huge thanks to team 166 and to all of the volunteers, I had a blast! Will the match data be making its way onto TBA?

Originally Posted by EmileH

Is this for team 1768 last year?

It was a risky strategy for FIRST Stronghold, but the judges really appreciated that.

[Dan Petrovic]

Thank you all for the kind words and thank you to the teams coming out to join us last weekend! We're happy to hear that teams had such a good time.

Originally Posted by kstl99

Thanks to 166 Chop Shop for a great event. Jay, Brandon and Adam did a fine job as MC/Announcers. I figure that to be one of the harder jobs in FIRST and you guys nailed it.

Yes, Jay O'Donnell, Brandon, and Adam were excellent this weekend. I look forward to seeing them volunteer at official events in the future!

And yes, it is definitely a difficult job, but the person with the most challenging job this weekend that we cannot thank enough was our FTA, Matt McQuaid. He had a rather stressful weekend (including set-up) with some FMS faults. He was also very flexible when working with us to implement our rule changes.

Originally Posted by Aboudy Dairi

I had loads of fun driving at this event for a second time, the double bracket elims meant a lot of pressure fighting through the losers bracket. It was also fun to play with 9319, that alone brought plenty of laughs.

1768 may have found itself at the top of my "Favorite Teams" list after that selection. For those that don't know the whole story, 9319 was assigned to a potential practice robot brought by 319 (we also had 9519 and 9467 ready). However, none of these practice robots were available so we had to turn to the robot our team members had been preparing for the last few weeks in order to fill up the 24th spot on the team list.

This robot was made from the chassis of our 2015 machine and a pneumatic catapult that wound up not being nearly strong enough to score. This robot could only cross the low bar and couldn't carry a ball under the low bar, much less pick one up off the floor. Its bumpers were made from old t-shirts Saturday morning (2015 was bumper-less, remember?).

Despite all of this, 1768 selected this robot as their second pick for fun. 1768, 811, and 9319 (aka Teh Simbots, High Rollers, and other teams that Adam decided to mention) actually wound up eliminating our own Stronghold robot later in the tournament. 9319 couldn't score, but they could play some punishing defense.

Any idea when match videos will be up? TBA has no records of the matches either. I was told there was a qual where we scored 9 high goals, thats definitely something Id like to watch again.

Francis told me that we can expect videos to be uploaded to our Youtube channel tonight, but I can't make any guarantees on his behalf. I'm not sure how the match data will get added to TBA since we used an irregular playoff structure. Francis might have a better answer.

The food was awesome, too!

Again, thank you for the kind words. We have many dedicated parents that run the concessions and they have been doing a great job at various events throughout the year for a very long time!

[plnyyanks]

Originally Posted by Dan Petrovic

Francis told me that we can expect videos to be uploaded to our Youtube channel tonight, but I can't make any guarantees on his behalf. I'm not sure how the match data will get added to TBA since we used an irregular playoff structure. Francis might have a better answer.

We're trying to support more nonstandard playoff types on TBA - if someone (Francis?) has the data, I'd be happy to help work with them to get everything represented accurately on TBA. We can tweak how we display some events, as well (it's a benefit of being open source ) Match data for all!