The Best of UTC

[Ein]

Personally, I got a kick out of being ranked 25th last year, then 1st this time.

Another congrats to 69, 126, and 1071. It was too close.

[dpasquariello]

The Best of UTC....quite an interesting thread; of course it depends on your perspective. Everything mentioned so far is certainly noteworthy, but I feel that the best part of all is to see the demonstration of Gracious Professionalism over and over and over and.... Well, you get the point.

First, thanks to Rage and Mrs. Kentfield for their help and their hospitality. As a relatively small Rookie Team it was particularly comforting to have a great resource at our disposal.

Perhaps the best demonstration of true Gracious Professionalism though, is what happened to our team (1568) just as we were packing Reggie for the trip home. The judges recognized that an error caused them to give the Highest Rookie Seed Award to Team 1665 by mistake. On their own, the entire crew from the Kaz Inc. and Hudson High School Team came over to our pit and awarded the trophy to us!

For me, especially as a new mentor who has some prior experience (parent, Team 1350 last year) with FIRST, this demonstration of true sportsmanship is simply amazing. I hope that I never take it for granted.

Congratulations to all the teams involved in the UTC event. It was a great experience. Our team is already looking forward to the off-season and planning for next year. I guess one grueling 6-week build wasn't enough!

Best of luck to all. Remember:

Dream Big.....Reach High

[Andy Grady]

Originally Posted by scottconnery

I want to put it out there now, and let him do what he wants, but Andy Grady did a great job on stage...even if he did lie about being a HUGE, HUGE Hanson fan!

Thank you for the compliments. This competition in particular may have been one of the most exciting competitions I have ever seen in my life. I am just glad that I had a front row seat for it!

I want to extend my congrats to teams 69, 126, and 1071 for taking home the gold, as well as team 20, 173, and 230 for finishing second. All of these teams are class acts and made the finals a thing to remember.

I also just wanted to give thanks to all the wonderful people I met over the weekend from teams and volunteers, you guys made this one amazing event.

A few things of note...

Aces High is a class act. When they recieved an award by mistake on friday, they were extremely gracious in turning it over to the team the judges intended to originally get the award. My hats off to you Aces, you are such a great model of what a FIRST team should be all about.

Team 19, Big Red...my hats go off to you. They struggled through thursday and half of friday trying to get a robot going after they had been abandoned earlier in the year. They stuck with it, and with some help from random people dropping in on them over the weekend, they came up with a robot that could drive and compete in a very respectable manner. Here's to never giving up and making the most of your experience.

Congrats to the Technoticks on the chairmans award...this team is a wonderful team and they do so much for FIRST in general. I think its high time that the national judges finally lock in on them and give them the big gold that they deserve. I mean seriously...how many times can a team win a regional chairmans award in a row before they get proper due? Way to go guys and gals.

Good luck to everyone in Atlanta...hope to see ya in the offseason.

-Andy Grady (Not a Hanson fan no matter what Gael Force says!)

[MisterX]

::BIAS OPINION AHEAD BE FOREWARNED::
First off, that was very impressive play with 1071 v. 230. However, I must say the defensive play of qualification matches for me, was 521 v. 20. With seconds ticking away and 20 going for a cap on the center goal closest to the auto loaders 521 was not content on letting 20 score. Having already capped 3 tetras, the L33T CREW started hounding on the Rocketeers not willing to give them any more points then thaey had laready scored. With the amazing defense of 521, 20 was forced to back away while still grasping onto a capped tetra pulling the rest tumbling down including three of thier own alliance's and granting the blue alliance ownership of the goal. When all was said and done and the refs had calculated the score, 521 rose up victorious over the previously undefeated team 20 giving them their loan defeat up until the finals by a score of 36-31. A very intense way to start the first match of Saturday if I might say so myself.

[Goya]

Thanks for the kind words, Andy.

Best moment:

My proudest moment - when a team used tetras from our tetra bank. I don't remember the time, team, or whether we won or lost, but I do remember the look on that team's face: a look of teamwork.

Thanks to the teams that helped out with spare parts and advice. In particular, I'd like to thank team 157 and a mentor named Tom on the green team. Thanks to the judges, and to all who gave support.

And, of course, the top teams were truly great, and very entertaining to watch.

Thanks to all for the fun time,

Allan
Team 19

[Jon236]

Originally Posted by Andy Grady

Thank you for the compliments. This competition in particular may have been one of the most exciting competitions I have ever seen in my life. I am just glad that I had a front row seat for it!

I want to extend my congrats to teams 69, 126, and 1071 for taking home the gold, as well as team 20, 173, and 230 for finishing second. All of these teams are class acts and made the finals a thing to remember.

I also just wanted to give thanks to all the wonderful people I met over the weekend from teams and volunteers, you guys made this one amazing event.

A few things of note...

Aces High is a class act. When they recieved an award by mistake on friday, they were extremely gracious in turning it over to the team the judges intended to originally get the award. My hats off to you Aces, you are such a great model of what a FIRST team should be all about.

Team 19, Big Red...my hats go off to you. They struggled through thursday and half of friday trying to get a robot going after they had been abandoned earlier in the year. They stuck with it, and with some help from random people dropping in on them over the weekend, they came up with a robot that could drive and compete in a very respectable manner. Here's to never giving up and making the most of your experience.

Congrats to the Technoticks on the chairmans award...this team is a wonderful team and they do so much for FIRST in general. I think its high time that the national judges finally lock in on them and give them the big gold that they deserve. I mean seriously...how many times can a team win a regional chairmans award in a row before they get proper due? Way to go guys and gals.

Good luck to everyone in Atlanta...hope to see ya in the offseason.

-Andy Grady (Not a Hanson fan no matter what Gael Force says!)

As a mentor of the Ticks from 2000, I really appreciate your kind comments. This Regional was the best ever. We had great fun competing with our various alliance partners. It is only because of all the great teams out there that we can have this great a time. When I was leaving, I noticed the beaming faces of the Rookie winners....I told them it will be only the first of many in the future.

Again, thanks to all who participated and particularly to the volunteers and staff who ran the Regional. It came off like clockwork!

See you in Atlanta!

Jon Mittelman
Mentor
Team236 The TechnoTicks

'It's in our Blood'

[akshar]

From Goya's Post
My proudest moment - when a team used tetras from our tetra bank. I don't remember the time, team, or whether we won or lost, but I do remember the look on that team's face: a look of teamwork.

This Team Was Team 1665...the team that handed their highest rookie team award to us, team 1568...this takes alot to do and i thank them for that...and i also want to wish them good luck

now my proudest moment: it was definetly the adding up of all three days, the drive team had no practice whatssoever, on thursday this is exactly what we did, and we were slowly getting better....friday was an ok day...our first match, our arm went wrong, but we managed to get the hanging tetra down (something that we did consistently even during our quarterfinals when our whole robot became disabled as i will explain later.....after match #5 our programmer and team captain was able to change our autonomous so not only did the tetra drop, but the arm extended so it was ready for the teamwork of me and the driver)

we wo a few matches, but then for 3 -4 consecutive matches, a very grave error occured, someone in pit flipped the left and right controls over so the driver had diffuuculty driving, luckily this error was fixd and we won a few matches...matches that we won were high scoring 50 or higher... at the end of the day, our record was 3-5-1

saturday rolled on by and we had three matches left...it was time to use our experience...our first match we were with 69 and we were able to put up a few points (WE HATE BEING ON THE RED SIDE) then our last two mrahes we were teamed with the TECHNO WIZARDS) and team 1568 showed everyone why we were a good team, the wizards and the mechanictz worked very well together and our two mathces had point of 79 and 86....
we were 13 out of 35...we were shoked becuse the other day we were 25....then alliance picking came around and our representative was shcocked on stage when we became the 8th seed alliance captain!!! we picked 157 and 1665 and then something went wrong with our robot, during inspections the inspector didnt notice our wirring was backwards, something which would have made our robot disable itself but it worked...some wire became disconnected and someone else put them in, this way the correct way..this disabled our robot until after our quarterfinals...

i just want to say sorry to 157 and 1665
and to the techno wizards.....WE MADE AN Awesome alliance...if you are at battle cry this year look us up...

[JamesBrown]

Originally Posted by guju4life2005

From Goya's Post
then something went wrong with our robot, during inspections the inspector didnt notice our wirring was backwards, something which would have made our robot disable itself but it worked...some wire became disconnected and someone else put them in, this way the correct way..this disabled our robot until after our quarterfinals...

For any one who foung that confusing or any one who wondered why we were dead on the feild in the first quater final(other than our autonomous mode which worked even when the bot didn't) This is what happened.

During allience selections one of the people on our team was tightening a nut on our spool when the wrench fell. It missed every thing critical but knocked out our PWM cables for the victors not a big problem but because we had a small team I was the only one who worked on programming and controls. However I was at the aliance captains meetings(we had 2 because we had a few questions they couldnt answer) By the time the second meeting was over we had to que start the first match, I literally had to put the cables in as we rolled the bot onto the field. Not having time to think or test the bot I plugged them in Black on the outside just like they should be. However this still gave us no control over the bot. After our first match I with help from the Aztechs captain an the guys from 1665 looked over the bot and couldnot I dentify the problem. After 2 minutes I made the call to call up the next team (521 i believe) to replace our bot I finished the Quaterfinals in the box as Aliance captain. When I got back to the pits I could finally relax and check out the bot and realized all 5 PWM's to the victors were plugged in the wrong way thus the pwms on the RC would have also had to be plugged in the wrong way in order for the signal to reach the motors. So in all actuality we broke the robot by wiring it write. How ever it was a great opputunity for me to learn how to trouble shoot a victor.

As for the best part It would be meeting the Guys Girls and Mentors from 1665 who quickly became our friends and in the end our alliance partners. This seems to be a relationship that will develop in our future years

[Justin]

In my mind this was probably the best UTC regional that I have been to, and I've been to all of them since the competition was moved there from the New Hampshire College field house in 1999. The competition was fierce at this regional, which is the way it should be Dean's speeches aside, there were some INCREDIBLE matches!!! 1071 with the pick maneuver enough said.

The top two alliances were made up of teams who all deserved to be there. I had a pretty good feeling that they would face each other in the finals and sure enough they did and what a finals it was. Easily up there with the most exciting I have ever seen. 1071's pick maneuver was definitely at the top of the list for top to first moments ever. Congrats to teams 69, 126, and 1071. The finals were evenly matched and I could easily have seen either alliance in the finals walking away with the competition. Teams 20, 173 and 230 gave it everything and helped make these one of the best finals I've ever witnessed and some that I will remember forever.

Thanks to everyone at UTC that I volunteered on field reset with I enjoyed meeting you all and hope to see you around.

-Justin

[out of the box]

hey team 19 i wanted to say your welcome for our help we are always glad to help anyone in need.. despite your few problems i'd like to say you guys did awesome and i would love to say also that you guys did the best job with your limited reasources and mentors. I think everyone should have reconized you for your efforts and your achievements..take care..

p.s. maybe we'll meet up in Alanta..

-Noelle a.k.a. Natzi Saftey Captian of team 157

[meredith]

I'd like to thank teams 69 and 1071 for being great alliance partners in the elimination rounds. 69- you guys played awesome offense and 1071- you were amazing playing defense in the final rounds!!! I'd also like to congratulate teams 20, 173, and 230. All three of your teams had excellent robots and it was an extremely tough finals to win.

[Heretic121]

wow this is going to be a long post =P where to start??

First i guess i will say thank you to everyone who i either talked to saw, or meet for the first time at UTC this weekend for taking me in i guess during the event. I drove down Friday mid-morning to watch the comp for Friday night then to hang out w/ some FIRST members. Thanks a lot Scoot for housing me Friday night. I would also like to thank teams 126 for treating me like a team member at times getting random hello's throughout the stadium just from wearing my team 121 shirt and the hat i received from BAE .

First i would like to congratulate team 1568 from Toleman HS, RI. Great job guys you definitely kicked some butt for a rookie team and congrats on being the #8 alliance and being the top rookie seed. Hope to see you guys at nationals .

Congrats to team 236 once again on winning chairmans, you guys definitely deserved it and also congrats on the regional high score w/ teams 195 and 228.

Finally congrats to team 69 Team Hyper, team 126 Gael Force, and team 1071 MAX for having some of the closest matches i have ever seen in my FIRST career and doing a great job edging out the victory over the #1 alliance.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Andy Grady

Thank you for the compliments. This competition in particular may have been one of the most exciting competitions I have ever seen in my life. I am just glad that I had a front row seat for it!

I want to extend my congrats to teams 69, 126, and 1071 for taking home the gold, as well as team 20, 173, and 230 for finishing second. All of these teams are class acts and made the finals a thing to remember.

I also just wanted to give thanks to all the wonderful people I met over the weekend from teams and volunteers, you guys made this one amazing event.

A few things of note...

Aces High is a class act. When they recieved an award by mistake on friday, they were extremely gracious in turning it over to the team the judges intended to originally get the award. My hats off to you Aces, you are such a great model of what a FIRST team should be all about.

Team 19, Big Red...my hats go off to you. They struggled through thursday and half of friday trying to get a robot going after they had been abandoned earlier in the year. They stuck with it, and with some help from random people dropping in on them over the weekend, they came up with a robot that could drive and compete in a very respectable manner. Here's to never giving up and making the most of your experience.

Congrats to the Technoticks on the chairmans award...this team is a wonderful team and they do so much for FIRST in general. I think its high time that the national judges finally lock in on them and give them the big gold that they deserve. I mean seriously...how many times can a team win a regional chairmans award in a row before they get proper due? Way to go guys and gals.

Good luck to everyone in Atlanta...hope to see ya in the offseason.

-Andy Grady (Not a Hanson fan no matter what Gael Force says!)

I liked to say Andy did a great job on the field. Also the music was great and not so loud that I could not hear Andy from the pit area. Sometimes at different events the music is so loud I can't hear the person standing next to me.
Good job Andy and good job to the music people.
From the big mouth in the Pits.
Here is my team's robot the only time it was working OK.

[nightrenegade00]

Originally Posted by nobrakes8

Team 1071 takeing 2-3 tetra's off of team 230 in the finals. That was a crazy finals with the defense of 1071, and team 69 and 126 getting the job done on offense, that was probably the most exiciting last match of a final that anybody could ask for.

Team 20, 173, 230, awsome teams on the runner up alliance, we couldn't ask for a better alliance to face in the finals.

Congrats team 236 on the chairman's award.

Thanks team 69 and 126 for makeing a great alliance, hopefully we'll be put together in nationals or invitationals.

Yea Id have to admit u guys just knew how to beat us. In the Hartford Current they compared u guys to Emeka Okafor, the former UConn Huskies Basketball block king. maybe if were lucky well be in the same division for either a rematch or a partnership. not matter what though i want to come home with something so it might be better if u guys r with us. lol. It was a great finals and i want to congratulate the other teams who participated.

-Crash

[nightrenegade00]

Originally Posted by Ein

Personally, I got a kick out of being ranked 25th last year, then 1st this time.

Another congrats to 69, 126, and 1071. It was too close.

Yea thats kinda like we were this year. we ended up 30th when picking came and then we moved up to 9th with all the kicking $@#$@#$@# we did minus the finals. lol. thanks for the picking.

-Crash