UPDATE: AZ Regional

[Matt]

That was a really fun regional. My team had some iincredible lunk and we were able to win this regional. The strat we used was a good strat. This will be our first time going to nationals which should be really great.

[Redhead Jokes]

Originally Posted by Amber H.

Everyone says they had a blast and are now completely obsessed with starting a team. This is largely due to the example you all set with your courtesy, enthusiasm, and sportsmanship. I’d also like to thank the girl who loaned me her blue poodle/circle skirt so I could be the head ref’s example for his brief lecture on proper dress after giving our announcer friend a fashion penalty.
P.S. some of the bots earned pet names from the reset crew for their stand out performance and appearance. I’ll post them later if anyone is interested.

Oh lord amber, I was so overwhelmed I forgot you were there evaluating for Utah when you came with a big hug. Keep us updated on all that happens about that, and don't hesitate to ask us for anything you think we can do to help.

Our team loves the Phoenix regional and it's become a training ground for our new team members and to bring other teams' students/mentors and teacher reps so they can see what a wonderful intimate well-run extremely busy fun regional is like.

We had a parent/mentor and student from 2nd year team 1115, then a couple of weeks ago were able to recruit a mentor from their team to join us, and just a very few days before Phoenix were able to recruit a mentor from rookies 1453 to join us in Phoenix. We had a teacher rep from our high school who hasn't been involved with the team.

Thank you to Phoenix and all competing teams. You contributed to the people with us to being inspired to brainstorm about "connections" to get more LA Regional funding and facilities for a party in the future, to encourage their "rookie" teams to continue at their schools, to inspire using "connections" to get more rookie teams from local schools not yet in the program, for our teacher to go to the school activities teacher to get us into the pep rally from now on to demonstrate what a regional is like including impressing them with hanging from the bar because he believes people have GOT to know that there's so much more to the robotics' program than people think...

A FIRST official came by our pit and spotted a pink bag. He wanted only the bag and I emptied what was in it, still puzzled what he was up to. He asked for a button to weigh down the bag, and then told me it was a penalty flag for the emcee. I didn't get a chance to see it in action. Love the stories.

I want to hear the pet names.

Here's some more stories I can think of...

Our retired school district technology director, now a board member on the nonprofit foundation that handles our money, was so impressed with Team 60's chairman's award application that she brought me over to see it, but there wasn't a copy left. Team 60 searched down a copy and made sure she had one. Thank you for personally taking care of a VIP from our team!

Two little girls with their mom visited our pit and their mom read to them off our posters about our virtual team member Tessa. Those girls were enraptured by that and, I'm sure, the entire experience at the regional. Future team members are dreaming about their future in the program.

Thank you to Team 60 for organizing the Thursday night party. We were worried about the rain, and called the party facility to have Team 60's Amanda paged, who took care of reassuring us that the rain wasn't going to prevent the fun to be had. Despite the very light sprinkle, there was unlimited miniature golf, and 50 credits for the video games - that I thought wouldn't last long. Students and adults alike had plenty of fun for the entire evening and our team hopes that evening becomes a Phoenix tradition. They are looking forward to it not raining next year to take advantage of what would have been a wild time with the cool looking outside rides that were included in the modest $10 price. Thank you 60!

We have a new female member who'd joined very recently, only been to one meeting. At the last minute someone had to cancel out of going to the regional, and I called the girl to replace them. She was very unsure that she'd find anything to do to be useful, and she was worried she didn't know anyone. Needless to say she learned there is so much more to the competitions than just working on the robot, and we kept her very, very busy, and during the Phoenix regional she was inspired to ask to be our team's co-programmer and she was already being trained on the spot up in the bleachers with Sid, who I believe will be our head programmer for the new season.

Loved seeing Canada and Mexico recognized well by the regional, and the two country's teams participating being so visible, i.e. by singing their national anthems. Our team of course loves Jesse, the incredibly talented and inspiring trumpet player who does our national anthem.

Great to see the Woodie Flowers and the unique teacher's award given out, and how much those people meant to their students. Seeing a student fly down the bleachers, jump across the field, to hug the winner, and more students rushing out to hug and congratulate the winners - our team and others can relate to seeing the appreciation for adults' hard work in this program, and the camaraderie between adults and students that develops. Thank you adults and students for making that such a visual memory.

If I think of more stories, I'll be sharing them. Please share yours.

[Cory]

Why exactly was it that 330 shouldnt have been allowed to compete? Was it because they had to switch their RC (I don't see why this would be disallowed)?

Cory

[Redhead Jokes]

Originally Posted by Cory

Why exactly was it that 330 shouldnt have been allowed to compete? Was it because they had to switch their RC (I don't see why this would be disallowed)?

330 called a time out, a time out is for six minutes only, they barely missed the six minutes and the teams' graciously allowed them to compete anyway.

[Amber H.]

[quote=Redhead Jokes]

I want to hear the pet names.

QUOTE]

60- Taz (for the Tazmanian Devil)
190- Wings
234- Spider Man
330- The little crane that could
980- Sparky

[Marygrace]

Originally Posted by Matt

That was a really fun regional.

Ya, the regional was awesome, our team had a blast, 234, ya'll deserved the GP award. And it what topped the whole trip off for us, was in LAX on our way home we saw the origional Hulk...THE ORIGINAL HULK!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!

[sanddrag]

Originally Posted by Marygrace

Ya, the regional was awesome, our team had a blast, 234, ya'll deserved the GP award. And it what topped the whole trip off for us, was in LAX on our way home we saw the origional Hulk...THE ORIGINAL HULK!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!

Kind of strangely that was your 330th post. While we had some issues deep within our team, it was a great event and we had a lot of fun. We look forward to seeing everyone in LA!

[Libby Ritchie]

To team 980...
My husband (Scott Ritchie of 234) gave me details on you guys did. Sounds like it was quite exciting and you had a great regional experience! Congrats on doing so well and I wish you the best as you continue to compete this year. Your team was SOOO nice to us at IRI and I'm glad I got a chance to meet you! I hope you can come back again this summer to Indiana!

Congrats!

[Krystine T.]

I would like to send a great big THANK YOU to teams 234 Cyberblue and 898 Cortez High School. You guys are awesome and I hope you come back to Arizona next year!

I also want to congratulate teams 330, 585 and 1212 on winning the regional. You guys did "Wicked Awesome"

Congrats to the Beach Bots for winning the Chairman’s award!! You guys are great! I love your team! We had a blast with you throughout the Regional and at the Science Center!

Thank you to teams 498, 696, and 80 for showing everyone what sportsmanship and gracious professionalism is all about!!!

Congrats to the Highest Rookie Seed Team 1324, and Rookie All-star Team 1393.

Congratulations to team 842 for recieving the Engineering Insperation award. I appluad you for crossing the border and mentoring team 1401!

Congratulations to team 1401 Prepos Locos from Mexico City on your Judges Award. I hope to see you guys at the Arizona Regional next year!

980, you guys are a crack up! I love your team, and had a blast with you at Castles and Coasters and at the wonderful Peter Piper Pizza. Y'all had a fantastic autonomous mode and Congrats on the GM Industrial Design Award!


Most of all, thanks to everyone at the Arizona regional. Because of your gracious professionalism this regional was a Blast!

And last but not least, congratulations to Mike Rush for winning the Woodie Flowers Award. You definitely deserved it!

[Scott Ritchie]

Wow!!!!!!!!!! Great regional everyone. On the plane ride home yesterday I could here our kids telling other passengers about FIRST and describing matches they had been in. I always say your first ever regional is one you have the best memories from but after attending the AZ Regional for two years I don’t know if that is true. I am truly sorry that things didn’t work out for our alliance with 60 and 898 but we were honored to have you guys along for the ride. Since this was our first time to have the first pick in the draft I appreciated having 60 there to help us make decisions and I and my team learned a lot even though things didn’t work out the way we wanted. Thanks again to 294 for the great trophy. An award voted on by your peers has a special meaning to it and we will display this award in as visible place as we can find. Right now it is setting on the front desk in our schools office and will be on our morning announcements sometime this week. We will also display it at Chicago next week and Atlanta after that. 980 gave us a great run all the way to the end of qualifying. Go figure that it would be your team that would push us so hard for the top spot after last year with our arm battles. It is funny how two teams can build a history with one being in Indiana and the other in California but hey that’s FIRST.

As we were coming out of the stands after the Chairman’s was awarded to 330 I saw an emotional Chris Husmann and I fully understand his emotion. I don’t think it is emotion about winning the award but about the people that worked so hard along side you to get your team to this point. I have always said that I get a lot of accolades for this team but it is not me it is a lot of good people doing a lot good things. Congrats Chris and 330.

[Matt]

I really liked when I saw the four hanging robots at the same time. That was insane.

[jamapor]

Originally Posted by Cory

Ok, I talked to a member of 254 who is there helping out and this is what he told me:

190 has been able to get to the platform during auto mode, but theyve only ben able to hang 50% of the time.

190's shields, when deployed optimally, leave around 3" of the bar uncovered on either end, which allows someone with a good enough driver to get a hook on there, or to push up on the end of it to get their hook on under the shields.

60 made a new hook last night that allows them to deal with 190's shields (Im not sure what's going on with this)

I cant remember what else I heard, but it sounds like it's going to be 60+234+868 and 980+190+their partner in the finals.

Cory

Yea, the SODS (lexan shields) were hinged, but the hinges were broken from the New Hampshire regional, so they were 3 inches shorter on each shield. We didn't have them fixed for a while, and had only one also, We then fixed them (I don't know if you saw it) so that they both leave 0.5-0 inches of space on either side. We got them working pretty well in the quarter-finals when we hung autonomousely perfectly centered in the middle of the bar. Good job to all teams that participated in the Arizona regional and we hope to see you at nationals

[Redhead Jokes]

Thank you again to Phoenix cuz...

the school rep who hadn't been involved with our team at all, who we convinced to go to Phoenix, can't stop talking about the FIRST program, Phoenix, and our team.

They had a teachers' meeting today and the Principal told our captain she had to almost get the hook out to end the teacher raving about everything.

He also spoke endlessly in all his english classes about the competition, and thus 3 new members are probably joining us at our next meeting and at So Cal Regional.

The teacher was saying, "all these teams with 40 kids and I'm thinking, why don't we have that many?" "it's not like other sports competitions. On one side of the wall they're competitors, on the other side of the wall they're all helping each other!!!"

The principal has asked our captain to give her a schedule from So Cal about when our team's competing so she can be there and we're going to try to get an educational advisor to join our team at nationals.

[Amber H.]

Originally Posted by Matt

I really liked when I saw the four hanging robots at the same time. That was insane.

I think I have a picture of that from my position right by the field where we were waiting to reset. if it turns out to be a good picture and it's not too big, I'll see if I can post it.

[Matt]

Originally Posted by Amber H.

I think I have a picture of that from my position right by the field where we were waiting to reset. if it turns out to be a good picture and it's not too big, I'll see if I can post it.

I think we have one as well. I will see how it looks and see if I can post it. It was great though to see four robots hanging. Some how our robot was able to survive all those rounds. We would not have been able to win without our alliance even though both of our partners broke down in the finals.