2004 Robot Rodeo results

[George1902]

Awards:
Team Spirit Award: 179, Children of the Swamp
Driving Tomorrow's Technology: 180, S.P.A.M.
Finalists: 233 and 945
Champions: 179 and 1402
Principle's Award: 1065, Tatsu

Recap:
Another Rodeo finished. Where do I begin?

Some things went wrong (field mafunctions; goat on the loose), but good things came of them (teams graciously donating dongles and OI power cables; "The Great Goat Chase").

As a result of our field mishaps, we made one major change to the game: we eliminated autonomous mode. The game was played with the same rules, except that the humans controlled the whole match. This transformed the game! New strategies emmerged. Some teams defended the yellow balls fiercely; others ran straight for the ramp to camp out under the bar.

The elimination rounds were tightly contested. These were the seedings:
1 - 179, 1402
2 - 233, 945
3 - 180, 79
4 - 1369, 1083

In Semifinal 1, 1396 and 179 danced quite a bit while 1402 and 1083 each worked their specialties (hanging and ball collecting, respectively). The first match was hard-fought, but #1 seed won easily after 1369 lost power during the second match.

In both SF2 matches, teams spent most of the first 1:30 jockeying for position around the bar. In both matches, we almost had four robots hanging. In both matches, the #2 seed won by a narrow margin. The crowd was cheering like crazy. After the close matches and pure excitement of SF2, I thought the finals were going to be a let-down.

I was wrong. The first match of the finals had 179 attempting a last-second cap on their mobile goal which came up just short. Each alliance had one robot hanging; the #2 seed had more balls, but the #1 seed had their stationary goal capped. The crowd waited in anticipation, then roared to life when the #1 seed was announced the winner. The second match had much more defense. 1402 was on 945 constantly. 233 tried to to the same to 179. the #1 alliance's defense proved stronger as the took match number two and the championship.

Editorial:
I had a great time, and I hope everyone else did, too.

This was our second straight year of not running autonomous at the Rodeo. I think the games were much better without autonomous. This isn't the place for that discussion, though. I will start another thread on that.

Thank you to everyone for coming!

Oh... I don't want to say too much, but keep a Friday and Saturday in June 2005 open if you can. ;-]

[Barry Bonzack]

I don't believe the field mishaps kept anyone from having a good time, it certainly didn't for me.

Congrats to all teams that made it to the finals

[Stephen Kowski]

Originally Posted by Bonzack1390

I don't believe the field mishaps kept anyone from having a good time, it certainly didn't for me.

See George I told you ^^

[Jimmy Huynh]

our team could won the " Most handicap award " after our Robot grabber broken 2 times during the elimination round and 2 times during the Final match

[tiffany34990]

CONGRADS TO ALL TEAMS WHO CAME! great to see you all again of course

i'm glad some new teams were able to come and use other teams' bots-- very nice of those to lended them out

well CONGRADS TO ALL THE FINALISTS!!! YAY FOR SWAMPTHING FOR SPIRIT!!

And the rodeo champs--congrads to u guys--hats off to u!! both teams worked hard to be 1st so congrads!! good ending to a good year

and a HUGE THANK YOU TO TEAM 1083 FOR HOSTING!!! THANKS!!!

enjoy y'all--cya next year

[Dan Richardson]

Another great rodeo.. hats off to 1083 for all its hard work ( noteably George, Nathan, Andrew and crew )

Can't wait for next years :-)

[Leonas]

I wasn't able to attend the rodeo because of a lot of homework and tests that I have next week but its great to hear that my team (179) won!

[Billfred]

(decides to make his "Hey, I'm not dead!" post here)

It was a bash. And by that, I don't mean Mike with a pipe and the control system.

I'd also like to send a few shoutouts, mainly to Gary Dillard (whose plotting helped us keep on schedule), and everyone there for not bashing me on the handwriting when I wrote out the final seeding. (Yep, that was me applying the things I've learned from watching Tim Russert. Whiteboards and Florida are now like peanut butter and jelly.)

[Arefin Bari]

(just a similar repeat to the other thread)...

I want to thank the whole 1083 crew, Nathan Pell, Mike Walker, Andrew Rudolph, George Wallace, Referees, Judges and all the volunteers. it was an awesome event.

I still say, George should be announcing at events...

[Amanda 179]

1083- thanks for the hosting you are all great!
George- I'm sure i can speak for my whold team is saying that we had an awesome time.
All the other teams- thats fir the competitiion, it was alot of fun and we look forward to seeing everyone an regionals, and hopefully nats.
Is 945's robot okay, i wasnt sure if they took any damage, and couldnt really go see at the time.
Thank to you all!
Amanda

[Ryan Albright]

Hey guys,

It was fun times, sorry i had to dip out at one because of work. MM we are getting used to these field mishaps. Thanks to everyone for the support we got while we tried to work out the bugs. Thanks for Billfred for coming down and helping us, even tho he thinks Floridians are crazy hmm i wonder who gave him that idea .:cough:. tytus, arfin

[Gary Dillard]

We definitely had a blast! We had 18 veterans and 18 rookies make the trip, and several rookie parents drove up to see what it was about. Through qualifying we never had a driver or operator who had ever driven the robot - some had never even seen it (our rookie classes in the fall so far have been separate from the pit) - and we let the veteran students be the coaches. The mentors got to sit in the stands and just watch all day (except a couple of times to help troubleshoot problems) so it was a great experience for everyone. The excitement and spirit of this competition are great - that's what makes it contagious and why we promote it for the rookies to get them hooked.

Thanks to Nathan, Jason, George, Arefin, Tytus, Mike W, Billfred for the LONG hours you put in to get things up and running. Truly it's alot of work to put on a competition. I'm sure we'll be back next year.

[Nathan Pell]

I am very glad that everyone had a great time, I know that I did! We will be sending out surveys to the teams that attended so we can get some feedback for our next adventure!

Plans are in the works for a June event (close to the end of June) that will be two days long... so get ready!

Thanks!
Nathan Pell

[Tytus Gerrish]

Will somone PLEASE!!!!! Post pictures of the rodeo already?

[Barry Bonzack]

Originally Posted by Tytus Gerrish

Will somone PLEASE!!!!! Post pictures of the rodeo already?

Goodness, didn't realize I was in such high demand. I'll get to it, and pic out some of my best. I have a BUNCH of almost every team, swamp especially included. IM me tytus and I'll try to figure out how to get these pics too you... I haven't decided yet how I am going to distribute all of my pics, any ideas? e-mail does not seem like the best way to go.