2006 NJ Regional

[Chrisms]

Originally Posted by M.O.R.T.

Lemme think...if opening ceremonies were at nine and after that we started with match 61...I'd say look around 10-11 am, that should give you a scope hopefully

ahhh sorry for making you think. found it.



now... to get it onto my computer without killing the sound quality:-\ last time i used my Cap-card the sound got all grainy... i'll do it later tonight. haha. im lazy like that.

[George A.]

You actually got my flip on video? That's amazing. I can't wait to see it. I hope it's as funny as people say it is.

[Chrisms]

Originally Posted by M.O.R.T.

You actually got my flip on video? That's amazing. I can't wait to see it. I hope it's as funny as people say it is.

yeah, unfortunitly my dad kept the camera stationary, instead of zooming in on the action(so he got a full fie'ld view) but hey, at least i have it. i'll go ahead and hook it up now.

edit: the sound is REALLY bad. it's sooooo grainy.. i need to fix it somehow... i think i need to jsut get an S-video cable and transfer it that way... the old style analog inputs must be messing the sound up.

[Spikey]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

Are you kidding me?
Have you ever noticed that the play gets more physical in the tourney? It was that way in Stack Attack. It was that way in FIRST Frenzy: Raising the Bar and it was that way last year.
You cannot be that naive to think that people are going to just back up and leave you alone especially Raider Robotics. You want to label them Graciously Unprofessional? Go ahead, it's a free country but I guess the refs didn't see it that way and their opinions the one that counts!

Excuse me sir, but you read my comment the wrong way. I said it would BE UN GP IF WE FLIPPED THEM.....

I never accused them of playing unfairly, yes they do have a history of pushing other teams over, that should not excuse pushing us over. Yes I understand the game is physical and robots will fall over, but if pushing robots over is fine then I point to last years Philly regional in the finals where a robot was flipped and the whole alliance got DQ'd.

For a forum that touts the holiness of Gracious Professionalism I am amazed at your comments. Of course its a free country, but FIRST has rules, and refs, sure they did not call the play, but that still does not make it right. I happen to know the head ref, he is a stand up guy, if he did not make the call that is fine, all I am saying is that there is a point to which pushing is fine.

By your reasoning we should have pushed 25 over, and not just once, at every chance we get, now what kind of response would that get here? People would be screaming how UN GP it was that we pushed them over, and how we played dirty.

[Wayne C.]

Originally Posted by Spikey

Excuse me???? Are you suggesting that we play dirty and push 25 over, thats not very GP at all...

"I never accused them of playing unfairly, yes they do have a history of pushing other teams over, that should not excuse pushing us over."

Time to put an end to this now. If there is a problem with the performance of my team then have the decency to take it to my face and not flame them here on CD. The implications of the above statements are very clear. As for our "history", who are you to judge?

This game is not a science fair. Nobody is going to sit there and let you shoot at the goals and nobody is going to let you push them around without pushing back. Thats what the bumpers are for. Thats why you design a robot that is not easily tipped over. And you live with the design you build.

There was never any intention of our guys going out to knock over other robots. But frankly, a lot of them didn't need too much help to be tipped over. When we went over we recognized it was a part of the game. I've been watching the videos over and over and I see more robots repeatedly flying at us over and over rather than the opposite.

Time to drop the subject. Its over. Good luck with the rest of the season.

WC

[Spikey]

Originally Posted by Wayne C.

"I never accused them of playing unfairly, yes they do have a history of pushing other teams over, that should not excuse pushing us over."

Time to put an end to this now. If there is a problem with the performance of my team then have the decency to take it to my face and not flame them here on CD. The implications of the above statements are very clear. As for our "history", who are you to judge?

This game is not a science fair. Nobody is going to sit there and let you shoot at the goals and nobody is going to let you push them around without pushing back. Thats what the bumpers are for. Thats why you design a robot that is not easily tipped over. And you live with the design you build.

There was never any intention of our guys going out to knock over other robots. But frankly, a lot of them didn't need too much help to be tipped over. When we went over we recognized it was a part of the game. I've been watching the videos over and over and I see more robots repeatedly flying at us over and over rather than the opposite.

Time to drop the subject. Its over. Good luck with the rest of the season.

WC

Alright lets get a few things straight:
1. I did not attend the regional, I am reacting to video, I am at college
2. If I personally had an issue with what was at stake, yes I would spoken to someone directly, I can't do that when I am at college
3. I retract my statement about the "history of pushing" a bad reaction to a previous user comments
4. I am a 5 year veteran of FIRST, I have seen many competitions, if anyone thinks I am naive on the subject of pushing you are mistaken
5. I am not here to flame anyone, I am simply raising an issue that concerned me as a person who respects GP and competitive game play.
6. I had no intention whatsoever of labeling someone un-GP, if anyone thinks that or asserts that, they are putting false words in my mouth
7. If anyone wants to challenge my assertions or has questions and wants to see me in person I will be at the Annapolis Regional PM me

[George A.]

Let's just back away from our keyboards for a second and relax before someone does something that they're going to regret. Arguing on here does nothing, and won't get us anywhere.

Especially after the NJ regional thread from last year was locked because of bickering...I don't think that's a tradition that we should continue.

Let's be thankful that we actually have the opportinunity to compete in FIRST and reap its benefits to the best of our ability, instead of argue whether or not somehing is GP or not. We're all human, in the heat of competition things happen or are said that people wouldn't do under normal conditions.

Let's just forget it and look forward to the remaining weeks of competition.

[sw293]

I wasn't surprised to see no penalty there and I wouldn't have called one were I the ref. While intentionally tipping another robot ought to be grounds for some sort of penalty, I think a ref ought to be most conservative when making this call. If the ref has any reason to doubt the intent of the driver's actions, the best call is no call. I've been on the wrong end of an arbitrary disqualification in a final round match at a regional, and it's not a nice place to be.

The call made was the right one for the situation, and the only consistent one with the way the head ref at Trenton had called the matches not just throughout the competition but throughout the last three years. The Trenton Regional head ref should be congratulated for yet another job well done.

I cannot and will not speculate as to the intent of team 25's drivers during the match because that would be irresponsible. Unless they--and they alone--say otherwise, I will assume that they were playing clean and that the thought of intentionally tipping our robot over never crossed their minds. I can say with confidence that our driver saw that we were tipping 25 over and that he backed off in the interest of fair play and the spirit of gracious professionalism. While I am in no place whatsoever to condemn team 25's drivers, I think it is appropriate to commend team 293's driver for his actions and I would encourage others on this forum to do so rather than criticizing him for not "finishing off" the competition.

In summary, I think the video of that round shows a whole lot more what's right with FIRST (and the Trenton Regional) than what's wrong with FIRST.

[nuggetsyl]

ok guys i am team 25's drive team coach (I was on the feild) and i can tell you for a fact that 293 being knock to the ground was a suprise to us when it happened. We had no clue that they were on top of our robot when we went foward because not only were they in front our our robot when it happened another robot was between us and the drivers. What are the chances of you robot being on top of ours right after we were almost flipped. Our only goal was to get to the other side to score points.That is why we spent sooooooo much time loading up the hopper. Sorry to say but we are not going to waste time to play bumper cars with you when we can unload another 30 points and end the game.


shaun

[Rich Kressly]

thread closed
cool off, have a snack
we'll try again tomorrow
_____________________

OK, it's close enough to tomorrow. Thanks to all of you who responded so positively to PM comments! Please note that the overwhelming majority of posts in this 13 page thread celebrate the wonderful qualities and machines of the NJ Regional teams. For now, posts in this thread will remain unmoderated. Let's keep it that way.

Also, intent of overly-aggressive play is nearly impossible to prove, thus not worth talking about. After viewing all of the video, I must say it was as exciting as all of the finals I've seen there in person. Passionate, hard fought, and solid strategy.

A little food for thought as we reopen the thread:
-GP is something to apply to yourself and your own team. It's never a tool to judge others.
-Having someone make a spirited and possibily controversial post is nothing new. Answering such a post with comments that obviously irritate the situation while adding no real value to the thread, send it down the tubes in a hurry.
-Think twice, post once. We exist here to recognize and inspire while changing the culture for the better. Even if you worked your butt off and didn't "win", don't get caught up in the trash-talking mentality that pervades and degrades popular culture.
-Have fun and celebrate the special thing we have here called FIRST.

[Bluesky55J]

Originally Posted by Chrisms

I should have it... and now that i have a match number it'll be easier to find.. let me look now... *endless FF* ooo there's the part where they tried to shove us on our ramp.. and we ended up flipping them back wards... and here's a bunch of important people talking..... *ff more* well, it's the end of the tape.. next tape! haha.

wow. match 67 is harder to find than i thought... FIRST should think about putting a giant "MATCH: #" on the screen before each match, it would make this a lot easier and quicker.


hmm... can anyone give me a guess on how much time was before match 67 and the alliance picking?

thanks.


edit:
I found the match where they're waving our flag George, is 67 before or after that?

On the real time scoring screen there is a match number, thats the best i can say.

[Rich Wong]

It was a fantastic final at NJ Regional!

Here is my City slicker observations:
1. Even thought the 2006 game appeared simple, it is quite challenging for the strategists.

2. Many good robot moves were quickly counter by other robot.

3. The use of poofballs as the field element was ingenious (by design or by accident). It made for some really creativity robot designs. I was really inspired by the unique approaches to solving the spongy and sticky problem introduced by the poofball.
My 10-year old was fascinated by some of the "very cool" ball storage and delivery systems.

4. The game was really exciting to watch during the final matches. Strategy was extremely important.

5. Some teams didn’t know some of the rule or was not paying attention. HP were trying to score when it was not their turn. Alliances forgetting about the backbot. Autonomous can be offensive and defensive.

6. Painfully, teams realized the importance of building accurate field elements. Some teams found that the ramp was steeper than the school-build model.

7. Several robot shooters at this regional is amazingly accurate. I can’t wait to see what other regional teams have. It’s going to be a great Championship this year- a real show down at the OK Corral.

[mtaman02]

Out of the 6 years of me being in FIRST and a volunteer for 3 years for FIRST this was the best regional I ever attended, The Music was perfect, A wide variety of both Rock, Rap, Hip Hop, Dance, Techno, and many other genres were played throughout the competition days. The Refs, Judges and an assorted amount of FIRST Volunteers made the competition Fun, Fair, and Safe.

And to the main head Ref that made the fairest of calls Mr. Sky (or at least thats what his name tag says) He made this competition Fun and Fair, I dont think that many Penalties were called except when needed mainly for teams being "off sides", As for as Robot Interaction is concerned Anything that occured on the field was kept in fair play.

The only problem with this regional was the scoring system, it was extremely buggy, Does anyone test these programs before sending them to FIRST or before FIRST sends it out to head to the regionals, I mean come on I never seen so many computers freeze at one time while Real Time Scoring is displayed or when the match is getting ready to start. Thats why the regional ended up running close to an 1hr to 1 1/2 hrs late. Field Resetters had that field cleaned up within 2 minutes after the match ended and yet to get the scores displayed took forever. On top of that when the information was uploaded to the FIRST servers like currently right now the only matches displayed were the ones from thursday and the rankings are sorted by team # instead of W-L-T and averages. Wait of got it =) how about the finals matches when the score displayed before penalties e.g. red gets 35 and blue gets 25 after the penalties which there was none the final score would read red 35 blue 0. or better yet when the match started the arena controllers never got the signal to enable all the robots for autonomous mode - or - the second period or the center goals would not activate for random periods. We had quite a number of match do overs b/c of this small bug ;-)

well anyway i know that was the 1st set of regionals of the season so you can't be too mad but if teams are giving 6 weeks to build and test the robot completely i think FIRST should also take some of that time and have the software tested completely as well before sending it to the regionals b/c us volunteers should not have to pull our hair out while trying to enjoy ourselves. =)

[BGiraud]

Great Regional!!! Congrats to all.

I hope someone can help me. My team (637) won the Delphi "Driving Tomorrows Technology" award. I was on the practice field trying to help tune up our autonomous, so I missed it all. I am so embarassed I missed it as well as shocked and happy we won it. Can someone please post video (with good audio) of Fridays awards or even just that segment. Or maybe inform me of an alternate source to obtain the video. I would really like to know what they liked about our design.

Last year was my first year and for me it was just about helping the kids build a robot. Our other mentor convinced us to leave before the finals were over and we missed the final awards. This year I made a point of staying and watching it all. Seeing the matches and hearing the judges testimonials of how teams are impacting their schools and communities was truely inspiring. The combination of that experience as well as our induvidual success with the Delphi award has set our team on a new path of showing our school what Montville FIRST Robotics can ultimately do for our students and our community. With any luck, we will realize those dreams in time.

Too bad NJ is our only regional. We finally got the bugs worked out by the end of qualifying. We qualified so poorly, I'm not entirely suprised we were passed over for the finals. Maybe next year.

Congrats 25....thanks for the inspiration

[Heretic121]

With the scoring system it was the first time they tested the ELIMINATION rounds... from what i know of... and it happened at every regional where ONLY the BLUE side had a score of 0 for the entire finals... while red was ok... its a simple programing error *i would assume* and SHOULD be fixed by week 2 regionals... hopefully... =P