[ECDU]: Season in Review

[Corey Balint]

Well, I really dont feel like going through all the matches of every regional, so i just wanna hear how you guys did this year. Just like state your record from each regional, if you won any awards, how you felt you did, disappointments, crowning part of the year, and just anythign that goes with how you did.

and for you alum, if u want you could post this years, or you can post your last season's.

[Michael Leicht]

nats was a let down for my team but i have learned from it and hope to do better next year.

at nats we did not get picked. this bumed me out and on top of that a team that is was close to us and they got picked but we did not. but i am over it and we won the GM award at nats.

[Lisa Rodriguez]

NJ: We did fairly well, really good considering we had not driven our robot. I don't know our exact record, but we were from 65%-35%. We got picked by 195 for finals, and lost in the semis. Good start to the season.
UTC:Very good regional, prolly about 75%-25%. Picked by 126 for finals and lost in the finals to 571 and 716, very good teams. Got the Sportsmanship award

nationals: HUGE disappointment, we lost all but 2 or 3 matches, our latch for hanging kept failing, and it just got everyone angry, also, our drive team mentor kept insisting on trying to switch people around, etc etc, and everyone just argued. We had to lock ourselves in a room one night and just yell at each other for awhile to make things better. Didn't end up getting picked for finals, but with our preformance, it was a slim chance anyway.

looking forward to improvement next year

[Corey Balint]

I guess ill do mine now.

Well at NJ-we did great for the shape our robot was in-we ended up 5-3-but about 4 rounds are arm sheared its gears-making it impossible for us to hang. We still ended up seeding 8th and going up against 237-303-56 in the QF. We were with 103 365. We won the first match with 103, then our partners lost the 2nd. Then in the third-it was a very tight match-if we got the hang, we wouldve won, but as we went to hang-the arm sheared-and we lost to the eventual NJ champs.
At annapolis-we did really great, we had fixed our arm and went 6-1 over the weekend-seeding 4th. We ended up picking 1403 and 007. We had some problems in the finals again, getting stuck on a platform that was crooked and popping a tread. And there definitely was some screaming going on after that round, everyone was mad, b/c appearantly something was done to the robot in the pits that the drive team was not aware of, or something like that, i dont remember the exacts-maybe bharat can clear that up.
Nats-huge disappointment. We went 3-4 but all in all we had great matches. We ended up tying the most QP in the division even after losing 4 times. We thought we had a shot at getting picked, but we did not, so many people were upset, it just was a tough weekend.

Offseason-we broke at PARC-ended up seeding 4th/5th-picked 1403 and 11-us and 11 couldnt hang-our major goals-and 1403 had some probs throughtout the day. Lost to 222(finalists).
First Frenzy-Insane day-we broke again-but ended up winning the competition with 1089 and 19-we beat 1403 after alligning with em twice.

AT Nj-we Won Leadership in Control and at Ches we won Engineering Inspiration, so not a bad start for a rookie drive team.

[Coco the Monkey]

New Jersey: This was a big learning experience for our team. We went into it with a virtually unproven robot. We had to change some things around on the practice day and our record was I believe 4-3 or 3-4, I cant remember. But we were picked by 25 and as you read above we didnt perform as well as we'd hoped.

Philadelphia: We came into this regional with a little bit of experience and more practice time than NJ. It was pretty much the same story, we were really low in the standings and at the end of Friday we were lower than we ever were at NJ. 1-3-1. We came back on Saturday to win our two qualifying matches and got picked by the 8th seeded alliance again. We lost in the Quarters.

Nationals: This was the highlight of our season. We made even more changes to the robot, and it performed beautifully. We went through our matches and seeded in the top 30 of our division. 4-3. We were picked by 177 and 27 for the 7th seeded alliance. We blasted through the quarter finals 1, 2. Then through the Semi-Finals 1, 2 (Against 222 Tigertrons) It was great, we went up against 469 and their alliance. We came close, but no cigar. They swept us in two rounds.

All in all this was my favorite year in FIRST, not just because of what we accomplished, but from all the fun experiences I had.

[Corey Balint]

anyone else gonna post about there seasons experiences?
'

[Bcahn836]

Team 836's year in review.

We started our first event at VCU, had a great time until 15 of the 20 people on the trip got sick. We placed in the top 50, didn't win any awards and had to decline an invitation to be an alliance partner in the finals. However the robot did great the only thing we broke was a 7 inch caster that we didn't have a replacement for ( hince why we had to decline the invite). But we broke the caster testing our auto mode on the practice field 20 mins before alliance pairings.

On to Chesapeake we went, we placed 46th won no awards and spirits were very low.

Our season ended at nats, where we got in on the first tear. Very lucky. We were in Archimedes we won one match and lost six and finished 70th out of 73. And again no awards.

I am glad this season is over and i look forward to the 2005 season. This season was a learning experience and gives way to many improvements on the team.

[Steve Howland]

571's year:

NJ: We learned a lot at this competition and realized that we had tried to do too much with our robot by hanging. So we lost the hook and concentrated on ball-gathering and capping, which worked very well for us, although we finished in 42nd with a 2-6 record...However 181 picked us (4th pick in 1st round!)and we then lost in the quarterfinals [edit]may have been semifinals, come to think of it[/edit].

UTC New England: Despite losing our first match we then won 7 more before losing our last qualification. As second seed we allied with 716 and 230 and went straight through the eliminations without a loss! (I wish I had driven for these matches )

Nationals: Undefeated in qualifications and some very exciting matches, but we ended up seed fourth. We lost in the Semis to 716 and their allies, but it was a great experience for all and a great way for our drive team (all four of them) to finish off their careers.

[Michael Leicht]

For 303 we won NJ with 237 and 56.

Then went to Annapolis for that regional teamed up with 222 and 291. fell short of winning that but congrats to the winning teams. Think it was 16, 1405, and the Blair robot project.

[MikeT]

On our team, (Team 384)... we had a 4 year veteran driver who left for college... and left our team with no drivers. So i was a rookie driver my senior year last year and had no experience on the playing field. I was nervous at times and didnt know what to do. But a big boost of confidence came to me after watching every single regional webcast to understand how to play the game. This definitely improves ur driving skills and allows to think better and faster. So we didnt do so well at the VCU regional... we won 2 matches and lost the rest. WE got picked into the quarterfinals but lost the arm operator do to the "gastro" virus outbreak (if u have heard about it). But we didnt get past the quarterfinals with a replacement driver. When the champs came around (no sicknesses, thank god) but we all drove a lot better after watching all those matches. At champs we won 3 matches and lost 4 (the 4 losses were very very close to wins) We had more confidence on how to play da game better and strategize more.