So Cal Regional!!!!

[Vu2000]

Originally Posted by DUCKY

It's weird that SoCal is the only regional with no information available...

But I wanted to update my winners lists on the Website post... so does anyone know who won the website award?

I believe team 597, the wolverines, won the website award.

On behalf of team 812, we would like to thank everyone along with the judges for seeing us as a strong team and coalition with Team San Diego. Chairman's competition was definitely tough at Southern California as it is every year. We hope to represent Southern California well at the Championships. Thanks to DanielBCR (294) for his kind words. 294 definitely provided tough competition and they could have easily won Southern California or a lot of other regional Chairman's.

[Kelvin Ng]

goo woburn!! =D congrats for making the semi finals, and for winning the entrepreneurship award! you guys probably put up a mighty fight. congrats and can't wait to see you guys back in canada!

[sanddrag]

Overall, I'd say the LA regional was better this year than last. The change of venue was good. While very overpriced, the concessions were open and stocked and there was even a guy in the stands selling stuff.

However, there is still something about the LA regional (and I just can't put my finger on it) that feel just not quite as good as Phoenix or SVR. Some sort of energy is lacking. Or maybe it is a combination of several things.

Positive things for LA this year:

-Mark Leon - his presence almost single handedly made the event awesome
-Woodie Flowers - ditto
-Dave Lavery - yet another ditto on that

Nice job to the planning comittee on getting these all-stars to make it to So Cal this year.

-Big, bright, focused video screen: much better than last year
-Two video screens on the pit side of the curtain, one of the match and another with standings. Again, much better than last year when I believe there was nothing.
-Queing, I don't beleive they ever had to yell for anyone to get on the field and also we never had to wait long.

Still some improvements to be made:

-Announcer was good but needs to give his own accounts of scoring and soforth, not those given to him by the scoring table. On more than a few occassions there was an error on the screen for penalties, wins, etc and but when the announcer said it too (like "red alliance wins" when really blue did), the specators were just even more confused.

-When we arrived Thursday morning it was very unclear and unorganized as to where we should be. Our bus was left sitting in the middle of the street because the event staff did not know to open the gate to let us in. When we got in the gate and were finally directed to the loading ramp, we took all our stuff off the bus and hauled it down the ramp. Then they said everyone could go in. Then they said only 3 people. Then they said we had to haul all our stuff back up this really long really steep ramp. We said no, and then they said oh yeah, you just wait here. But anyhow, teams were left holding heavy, overpiled carts full of equipment on this steel ramp for 45 minutes. Thursday morning arrival needed more organization, everyone was quite confused.

-Entering the arena was very dangerous Thursday morning. The 3 team members (from several teams) to uncrate couldn't take everything in, so some team menmbers carried bags, toolboxes, signs, etc in at 8:30. Well, they had everyone go down the narrow arena isle with steep stairs all the way down to the pit floor. When we got almost to the pit floor (about 10 ft above still) the only way to get down was from a 3' wide slapped-together staircase that seemed very unstable/unsafe. Each stair was not even of equal proportions to the next. Remember, hundreds of people are coming in, all this way. I'm surprised nobody fell flat on their face.

-And that brings me to the issue of stands access. From the stands to the pit floor there were only two of the aformentioned unsafe staircases for access. One on each end of the stands. These staircases were so narrow that two small people stil could not pass. To get to your section in the stands, you had to go up one of these little staircases, then all the way to the upper level of the arena, cut across, and then go back down where you isle was. Most people got so tired from walking up and down that they tried to cut across through any empty rows they could find. With people scattered about the seats, this was unsafe to. Slipping on trash, climbing over specators, etc. Give a couple more wider staircases, and section off two rows (toward the front) just for traffic (no seating)

-Food pricing and quality. While the availability was much better than the Sports arena, $3.50 for a bottle of water and $8.50 for a cheeseburger is just rediculous. Maybe some day it will be realized that they can make the same amount of money at our event by lowering prices and increasing quality, and then people will buy more of it.

-Security. While I was glad that the event staff at the door allowed things like cases of water to be brought in, I wasn't too happy about the fact that it seemed that you could bring anything in. While I never had a specific security related problem, there were no searches or stopping of people going in the door at all. They weren't even really watching. I'm glad nothing happened, but given the lack of any security we should all be surprised that there weren't any incidents.

[indieFan]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

However, there is still something about the LA regional (and I just can't put my finger on it) that feel just not quite as good as Phoenix or SVR. Some sort of energy is lacking. Or maybe it is a combination of several things.

How many of the teams that attended this regional had attended earlier regionals? I had already attended two (one solely as an inspector) and have been dog tired for a number of reasons. How many others are in a similar position?

Originally Posted by sanddrag

Still some improvements to be made:

-Announcer was good but needs to give his own accounts of scoring and soforth, not those given to him by the scoring table. On more than a few occassions there was an error on the screen for penalties, wins, etc and but when the announcer said it too (like "red alliance wins" when really blue did), the specators were just even more confused.

Aren't the scores from the scoring table *official*? Even if there are errors that need to be corrected, I believe that the ones coming from the scoring table are the ones that ought to be given. Not ones based off of one person's memory.

Originally Posted by sanddrag

-When we arrived Thursday morning it was very unclear and unorganized as to where we should be. Our bus was left sitting in the middle of the street because the event staff did not know to open the gate to let us in. When we got in the gate and were finally directed to the loading ramp, we took all our stuff off the bus and hauled it down the ramp. Then they said everyone could go in. Then they said only 3 people. Then they said we had to haul all our stuff back up this really long really steep ramp. We said no, and then they said oh yeah, you just wait here. But anyhow, teams were left holding heavy, overpiled carts full of equipment on this steel ramp for 45 minutes. Thursday morning arrival needed more organization, everyone was quite confused.

Wasn't there an email sent out about where to unload? Also, the people that were down in that tunnel directing things were from the Forum, not FIRST.

*Lots of stuff about the arena deleted*

I would suggest joining the Organizing Committee to work on changing the items you mention. Of course, you must keep in mind that much of it was based on the location itself. Therefore, think of some other location that we could use for a similar cost and suggest it.

indieFan

[KarenH]

Would it help to list all the awards together, until FIRST gets around to posting them? I have a hard time remembering team numbers, so I took notes on the awards. This list is complete as far as I know, but I don't guarantee its accuracy:

Awards Presented Friday:
Imagery: 945 The Hulk
Radio Shack Innovation and Control: 980 Thunderbots
Xerox Creativity: 238 The Crusaders
Delphi Driving Tomorrow’s Technology: 207 Metalcrafters
KPCB Entrepreneurship: 188 Blizzard
Judges: 697 Panda Robotics
Website: 597 The Wolverines
Autodesk Visualization: 207 Metalcrafters
Volunteer of the Year: Prof. Tarik Shrobody (not sure of spelling—they didn’t display his name on the screen)

Awards Presented Saturday:
Woodie Flowers: 294 LeRoy Nelson
General Motors Industrial Design: 330 Beach Bots
Motorola Quality: 69 Team Hyper
Johnson & Johnson Sportsmanship: 599 Duct Tape (Robodocs)
Daimler-Chrysler Team Spirit: 974 Nautae
Judges: 22 Double Deuce (Homer)
Rookie Inspiration: 1692 Cougar Bots
Rookie All Star: 1515 Beverly Hills Teenbot
Rookie Seed: 1622 Spyder
Safety: 1079 Chaparral Robotic Engineers & Techno Explorers
Engineering Inspiration: 294 Beach Cities Robotics
Regional Chairman’s: 812 Midnight Mechanics

[indieFan]

Originally Posted by KarenH

Volunteer of the Year: Prof. Tarik Shrobody (not sure of spelling—they didn’t display his name on the screen)

I have had the priviledge of being mentored unofficially and then officially for the last five years by Prof. Tarek Shraibati. I wouldn't trade it for anything!

indieFan

[Mr. Van]

A correction to Chris's list (first, thanks for posting it!):

J & J Sportsmanship Award went to 599, the RoboDox from Granada Hills.

While the announcer had the right team number, they confused the team name with 598, Team Duct Tape.

Congrats to all! It was a great event.

-Mr. Van
Coach, RoboDox 599

[Mr. Van]

A correction to Chris's list (first, thanks for posting it!):

J & J Sportsmanship Award went to 599, the RoboDox from Granada Hills.

While the announcer had the right team number, they confused the team name with 598, Team Duct Tape.

Congrats to all! It was a great event.

-Mr. Van
Coach, RoboDox 599

[chaoticprout]

I had lots of fun at the regional this year. The only thing that bothered me was that our alliance thought we won our 2nd playoff match, when we actually lost, so we had to move off the field. Great regional FIRST!

[Pierson]

From what I have heard, the regional was moved from the Sports Arena to the Forum for a variety of reasons, one of them being cost. However, in my talking with FIRST people, they said that due to the Forum being a union venue, the cost was very similar to the Sports Arena. (This may or may not be correct as I have seen nothing on paper, but this is what I have heard.)

I am waiting for the 2007 LA regional though. USC is building a new arena which will open in the summer of 2006 and according to the project website: http://www.usc.edu/neighborhoods/galencenter/ community groups will be able to rent the venue at cost or for free depending on the event.

[DougHogg]

Wow! We really enjoyed the S. Calif. Regional. Great venue and great company.

Our team was making some modifications on Thurs. and lost our first and third qualifying matches. It seemed like we weren't going to be leading an alliance, so we were pleasantly surprised to find ourselves 2nd at the end of day 2.

Congratulations to Team 69 for repeating their win in S. California. Interestingly, last year, we won with 69 against an alliance that included Teams 330 and 22. This year 69 won with an alliance that included 330 and 634 against our alliance with 22 and 968. I guess its Team 22's turn to win S. Calif. next year. :-) Of course Team 22 just came off a victory with us and Team 254 in Silicon Valley, so I don't imagine that they are feeling any pain.

In our first two matches in the finals, we tried some defence but didn't have much luck. Team 69 and their partners outscored us especially in the second match. It is only because of a penalty in the first match that we were still in the game. In the last match, we played offensively and it was an excellent match -- very close. We discovered later that Team 980 had gone to straighten a tetra that didn't need to be straightened as it had been bumped partly off by opponents, so we wasted some time there.

Battery management also became an issue. Two of our teams had batteries that went low in the final match, and 980 couldn't lift a tetra for the last 20 seconds or so. Live and learn. Last year, we borrowed batteries from other teams for the elimination rounds. For some reason, we forgot to do that this year. Time for us to make a team manual I guess.

In any case thanks to Teams 22 and 968 for being great partners. It was a great run--we almost made it all the way. And thanks to Teams 69, 330 and 634 and all our opponents! You can only have a great competition with great opponents, and we definitely had a great S. Calif. Regional this year!

Lastly thanks to Dean, Woodie, Dave Lavery, all the judges, referees, FIRSTers and the game design crew. You did it again! This year's game is once again a work of art. As I posted last year, I consider FIRST to be a higher art form because, as opposed to movies, we get to be participants who can influence the outcome of the "show". And every robot is a unique creation, and as such, is an art form. In fact a few years ago, we entered our robot in an actual art show at one of our schools with a price tag of $20,000. (No it didn't sell. I have it outside my front door to welcome guests. It's my watch-dog robot.)

For all the S. Calif. Regional teams, hope to compete with you again in sunny S. Calif. again next year. (By the way, Team 188, I am a Canadian also, although somehow I wound up living in Hollywood. Hope to see you back next year.) For those going to Atlanta, see you soon.