Best Matches caught on Tape

[Tom Bottiglieri]

dont know if anyone has it.. but

this match

[J Flex 188]

archimedes QF 1.1. watch 33, 60 and 1241's first rounds. that was one of the scariest alliances I have ever seen picked!

QF 1.2 was even weirder with 2 popped 2X's

[sanddrag]

Here's one you DEFINITELY need to get. I'm not sure where to get the video but if anyone has it/finds it please PM me.

2003 Los Angeles regional. Last match of the regional (final match of the finals). 696 and 294 vs 60 and ??? Absolutely incredible. I'll never forget it. "Heather" the 696 robot is pushing and slamming against 60 for the last 1/4 of the match trying to break them free and get on top of the platform. Pieces of robots are flying everywhere. Then with about 15 or 20 seconds left "Heather" dies due to extremely low battery voltage. The controller resests and Heather moves a couple inches up the ramp, then it dies and she falls back down. Meanwhile 294 is trying their best with only 1 side driving to beat on 60. All the robots are becoming fairly crippled. The clock shows only 2 seconds of match left. The crowd is going wild.<insert>I'm getting chills as I write this, seriously</insert> MO, the 696 driver makes one last attempt to achive the platform and slams the joysticks forward. Out of the blue, Heather comes back to life and leaps up the ramp and shoves 60 off the other side and now 294 and 696 are both on the platform and the buzzer sounds just as the last wheel of Heather makes it on. Half the crowd is cheering 20 times as loud as at the two second remaining mark. The other half the crowd is "awww"-ing even louder than that. No one is sure what the outcome of the match is. Each side still thinks they have more points for the win. As it turns out, the metal grate was ripped from its mounting and raised such that it was touching 294, not 294 was touching it. Then 696, was barely touching 294. The refs took about TEN MINUTES examining the robots and their positions before they came to the above conclusion. Then, they took another 15 MINUTES on how to score it. During this time, the crowd was very full of emotions. Some were screaming "What's the score" "who wins" "that robot broke the field" Others waited anxiously while biting their nails. Some just stared in silence. And some even cried.

A phone call was even made to a head person in FIRST to try to figure out how the situation should be scored. In the end, it turned out that that 696 and 294 were not given points because regardless of the field being damaged and perhaps not properly constructed/maintained, they were still touching the grate. To this day, no one knows if that was the right call, but the call was made and the decision lay final.

There's pics in the gallery of the end of this match.

For more exciting matches, I would suggest any of Heather's (696) winning matches at Phoenix in 2003. This is how it would usually go down. Heather would go out and flip both opponents right at the start of the match. Then she'd move some bins and once that got boring, she'd go to the top of the platform and spin and wave her arms wildly in the happy dance.

Heather was one bad girl.

[theory6]

Originally Posted by J Flex 188

archimedes QF 1.1. watch 33, 60 and 1241's first rounds. that was one of the scariest alliances I have ever seen picked!

QF 1.2 was even weirder with 2 popped 2X's

Do you happen to know of any video links to those specific matches?

Thanks in advance

[Karthik]

Originally Posted by theory6

Do you happen to know of any video links to those specific matches?

Thanks in advance

Here ya go.

Archimedes Quarterfinal Match 1
Archimedes Quarterfinal Match 2

Match 2 is definitely one of the saddest matches I've ever witnessed. The alliance of Team 60 and 1241 have the match easily under control, but at the end Team 60 get's caught on a popped ball preventing them from hanging, and 1241 accidently makes contact with a yellow ball, changing the score from 155-85, to 80-85. I was right down on the field for that match, and the range of emotions was intense.

[Paul H]

Originally Posted by Karthik

Match 2 is definitely one of the saddest matches I've ever witnessed. The alliance of Team 60 and 1241 have the match easily under control, but at the end Team 60 get's caught on a popped ball preventing them from hanging, and 1241 accidently makes contact with a yellow ball, changing the score from 155-85, to 80-85. I was right down on the field for that match, and the range of emotions was intense.

Man, you said it. I was operator, and that was DEFINATELY my saddest moment in FIRST....that alliance was dangerous, and no offense to any other alliances, but I believe we were the best alliance at the competition with the worst luck (a little biased, I know).

In the first one, watch team 60 capping our goal just as we unload about 15 balls to our human player. If you watch closely, our HP actually had to try to shoot into the mobile goal, which was in front of Team 60's driver station. Aw man, those were some sad times. I watched those videos a couple of times, and they're painful, to say the least.

After I watch those, I watch This match to cheer myself up. We were about 2 seconds away from the national high score. If 71 would have hung, we would have had 240 points.

Other good ones, all at the 2004 IRI:
33 and 980 vs. 47 and 111...need I say more?
Chief Delphi barely decaps, winning the match
We block 45 from capping...still loose the match by 1 ball, but it was crazy

[Heretic121]

Originally Posted by Karthik

Here ya go.

Archimedes Quarterfinal Match 1
Archimedes Quarterfinal Match 2

Match 2 is definitely one of the saddest matches I've ever witnessed. The alliance of Team 60 and 1241 have the match easily under control, but at the end Team 60 get's caught on a popped ball preventing them from hanging, and 1241 accidently makes contact with a yellow ball, changing the score from 155-85, to 80-85. I was right down on the field for that match, and the range of emotions was intense.

Yeah, unfortunatley being apart of the #8 aliiance with teams 237, and 386, i did not get to see the match, as from the first match if you watch it you see team 33 ramming into our bot, and you just see the hook twisting and bending... we had to spend the enxt 5-10 min straight taking off the hook and fixing it... it was only when i heard a huge uproar in the crowds and the 386 engineers running over yelling that we had won and we did not have to rush to finish the hook. our bot was 90* to the bar (i just watched it again and if we hadnt decapped the mobile goal, the 33/60 allaince would have won the match by 5 pts... the most exciting match i have ever participated in as HP or Driver... (link above)

[suneel112]

QF 4 match 2 on Curie. Watch it now. That was definitely a high point in our team. Also watch any 190 match (except when they touched the 2x and didn't advance).

[pakrat]

We are looking for the best videos, not the best descriptions of matches.

Thread re-focus:

PLease give any and all links you have to exceptional matches, not just descriptions. an example might be the post by Karthik.


Thanks all!!

[J Flex 188]

sorry bout that, you are right. need to include the acutal links. karthik fixed that though =). talk about heartbreakers, look at 188's final match in 2003 in Houston. We had lost the first match pretty badly, and needed a huge heap of points to win (over differential) and we along with 121 devised a great strategy, with an inital 6 stack of HP bins and another 2 stack, while we would both roar over in autonomous, knocking more bins onto our side. After that, 121 and 188 proceeded to lock in and trap 781 and 126 in the gap between the ramp and the side, and the entire match was fought that way, we just kept pushing back in forth. However, by the last 15-20 seconds it was crazy how much power we lost, and 781 broke free and headed straight towards the 6 stack. With about 1 second to go, they reached it, and it wobbled forever, but held firm. Those of us watching on webcast were left open mouthed, because we could not believe that the stack stood up. However, the results werent being posted, and it was later shown that we had received a score of 0, mainly due to a ruling that 121 had intentionally flipped the other robot. Controversy aside, the fact that the 6 stack stood up and ACTUALLY DIDNT FALL at the last second was insane. I'm told that actually being there, the stack looked even more like it was going to fall than in this video

Last Match of 188 2003 Nationals