Mayhem in Merrimack, Final Thoughts

[Jessica Boucher]

Mayhem was, and now I see, always will be, the hidden offseason gem. I had a fabulous time, and will definitely come again!

Above all, I loved that 166 took the time to genuinely thank everyone who made it possible. Every other offseason I've gone to does awards, does verbal thank-yous, and (understandably so because everyone is hot and tired) wraps it up as quick as possible. The raffles, the pictures, the flowers, really made it close up nicely.

As I said there, you guys were really prepared, handled the eventual curveballs flawlessly, and were all really pleasant even as the day wore on. I was thoroughly impressed.

[lsmith243]

I'd also like to thank everyone involved that made Mayhem possible. I was so sad after nationals ended and wasn't sure if I could make it almost a whole year until regionals again, so it was great to have the opportunity to re-connect with the people within the FIRST community and do something I really love. It was a fun competition, and although everyone on my team that showed up was working nonstop in the crazy heat all day (I only lasted about a half hour in the cardinal suit, though), we had a great time doing so. I hope to see everyone again soon!!

Thanks so much from everyone that participated from 811!!

[Steve Howland]

My entire team also had a fantastic time. Thank you to everyone that made the event possible - it ran extremely smoothly. Thanks also to 190 for taking out their second robot so that one team did not have to be left out of the elimination rounds.

Great job by all queuers getting everybody in place at the right time. The refs and judges did a terrific job. Andy Grady was an amazing announcer (though it did take him the whole match to notice our little switch in Clone Wars ).

Once again thanks to all for an amazing event. My team had few complaints (a few people did not like the excessive techno music) so we will probably be attending again next year.

[Ryan Foley]

Speaking of the clones wars;

For those who werent there, heres a quick explanation.
Teams 549, 571 and 190 all brought 2 robots to the event. So, before eliminations, we had all 3 teams have their primary robots on one alliance, and all the secondary robots on the other. Apparently, they all decided to switch around. To my understanding, all the A robots were started on the correct side, yet their control systems were on the other side, so we would think the bots were correctly alligned; the B bots were switched in the same way. So you can imagine our confused state of mind (refs, Andy, etc) when the robots started scoring for the wrong alliance.

The match ended up being 90-10 red, however we ruled that every time a robot removed an opposing tetra from the auto-loader, it was a 10pt penalty, so after all the penalties, it was a 0-0 tie.

After further reviewing, the teams using the HP zones should actually have been disabled (since loading a tetra on a bot that isnt your own is grounds for disabling both robots). Although, the control systems were on the right side so that the bot actually was disabled, so we let it go.

It was quite the match.

Suggestion: more qualifying matches. I was having so much fun it was rather dissapointing that we were done that quickly.

Anyways, Mayhem was amazing. I had a great time reffing the event, and I commend 1058 and 549 for agreeing to replay the last match, as to not win from a penalty. All the teams did an amazing job.

Thank you to my fellow refs, I had a great time working with you. Of course, thank you to 166 team for hosting the whole thing, you did an amazing job. You were very organized, helpful, and friendly. You also did a great job of taking care of all the little things that helped really make it a great event, like Jess said. I really look forward to coming back in 2006.

[Steve Howland]

Originally Posted by Ryan Foley

Apparently, they all decided to switch around. To my understanding, all the A robots were started on the correct side, yet their control systems were on the other side, so we would think the bots were correctly alligned; the B bots were switched in the same way. So you can imagine our confused state of mind (refs, Andy, etc) when the robots started scoring for the wrong alliance.

Close - that probably would have worked better. What we did was set up each robot and control station correctly then as soon as the match started went to the other side and picked up tetras from the other team's autoloader or human and capped for the other team. The other way would have worked better because as it went, whenever the opposing team was human-loading (on our side), we lost all power to our robot (which explains the two mysterious power losses that did occur and I had no idea why). So pretty much every robot should have been disabled but the match didn't count for anything so we decided to have a bit of fun.