2006 Pittsburgh Regional

[jessjank.]

Hey everyone,
First off, wanted to say thank you to everyone for making the Pittsburgh Regional such an awesomely fun event. It's small size (only 24 teams because of it being a coinciding weekend with other events in relatively close proximity) was both a positive and negative factor. It was definitely to my advantage as a first time volunteer in a highly intense position(s). I ended up being the Pit Administration Supervisor and Pit Announcer... it did get very hectic at times but was definitely a blast... especially having to deal with and wear two headsets/radios. There should eventually be some pics floating around of that (Pete Kieselbach? John Larock? Make sure you send them to me!). And there's some pretty funny videos of me kicking the team's out of the pits at the end of the day Friday... hopefully that will come up later because I'd love to see it... haha.

Competition match wise I really didn't get to see many matches because of my job in the pit but the ones I did were definitely high quality. There ended up being quite a bit of field problems and matches ended up running almost 2 hours late! But everything was eventually running smoothly. It ended up being decided that due to the small size of the competition, only 7 alliances would be made for the finals, giving the first seeded alliance (the eventual Champions) a bye (sp?) round during the quarter-finals. Lists of all the alliances (and final match results), final standings, and award recipients are all online and up to date at http://www.usfirst.org/robotics/2006/regional/Pitt.htm

In the alliance of 63, 365, and 1708, team 1708 (the team I mentor) was having robot problems and ended up having to be replaced by 859. None the less, I am so very proud of my new team and cannot wait to see how much they grow next year with all their gained experience. It is such a wonderful new experience for me to be serving as a team mentor after those 4 years on 103 as a team member... I truly love being able to use my experience to help others develop and grow. Also a HUGE congratulations to 1708's head mentor, Mike Dischner, for winning the Pittsburgh volunteer of the year award. He truly deserves it. If you ever get a chance to meet him, please do so because he is an exceptional individual.

Congratulations to the winning alliance, teams 395, 1038, 1743 (go rookies!!!), the finalists, teams 393. 1629, and 1370, to all other teams for all there hard work, dedication, and successes, and a big congratulation to MOE, 365, for once again having the honor of the Chairman's Award bestowed upon them and of course congrats to their very own John Larock for his Woodie Flower's Award. I wish everyone the best of luck as they proceed on through the rest of the Regionals and eventually move on to Championships.

A GIGANTIC thank you to all of the people who made this event happen. All the coordinator types (David, Louisa, Katie, Shawna, and Krista, and Pete (the Technical Advisor) are simply amazing people), volunteers (referees, judges, field people, pit peoples, etc etc ett... soooo many awesome people!), site staff, and of course team members and mentors. I got to speak to, know, and work with some truly outstanding people and I can't wait to do so again next season at the Pittsburgh Regional. I would totally love to give a shout out to everyone I met, but there are way toooo many of you and I would definitely miss someone (and that would make me very upset).

So anyway, thank you and congratulations to everyone! I will certainly never forget this experience.

[Ryan Dognaux]

Congrats 393. Finalists, dang, you guys are awesome and I can't wait to see your robot in action at Boilermaker next weekend.

[MichaelQ]

This was my 4th year as a FIRST helper dude (one year in high school as a human player/treasurer) and they continue to be awesome! Thanks to everyone!

[Freddy Schurr]

Anyone know the finalist, quarter finalist,semifinalist, basically alliance selections?

[DanDon]

Originally Posted by Freddy204

Anyone know the finalist, quarter finalist,semifinalist, basically alliance selections?

Finals
-------
395, 1038, 743 - Champions
393, 1629, 1370 - Finalists

Semifinals
----------
SF1 - 395, 1038, 1743 v 63, 365, 859
SF2 - 393, 1629, 1370 v 291, 888, 398

Quarterfinals
-------------
QF1 - 395, 1038, 1743 v 0, 0, 0
QF2 - 337, 1249, 423 v 63, 365, 859
QF3 - 393, 1629, 1370 v 808, 128, 1386
QF4 - 291, 888, 398 v 306, 1727, 868

[Mr MOE]

Thanks to everyone who made the Pittsburgh regional special. We barely had enough teams and volunteers, but, somehow, the event went on and was a great time.

The volunteers worked very hard to make this event go as smoothly as possible. Special thanks to Pete Kieselbach for being the glue that held the whole event together. Pete was one of the last people to leave the field and was one of the lone remaining people to ensure the playing field was loaded on the truck on Saturday evening.

Two of my best memories during my seven years with FIRST occurred at Pittsburgh and are connected with Team 1708. Last year, the memory was the utter joy the 1708 team (a rookie at the time) had at being called in to replace a damaged robot in the finals. The team put a defensive move on MOE 365 in the last match of the finals and won it all, qualifying them for a trip to Atlanta.

This year, the memory was different, but just as powerful. During the alliance selection, when the #5 alliance led by Team 63 - The Red Barons, selected 1708 as their third alliance partner, a collective "HUH" went up from the 1708 team. They had not expected anyone to select them and thought that their only chance was as a standby if other bots were not functional.

What happened next could only happen at a FIRST event (even though we all wish it could happen everyday anywhere). Teams 63 and 365 swarmed the 1708 pit to assist them get their robot legal. Apparently, the bot, when reinspected before the elmination rounds, was 4 lbs overweight. Students from all three teams were working as one team to get this robot ready for the first match of the elims, which would be happening in 30-40 minutes. It was a beautiful sight.

Unfortunately, time was not on our side and we had to use a very effective standby team, 859, who are terrific and fun people and did a great job with our alliance.

If all the volunteers and organizers of the Pittsburgh Regional would not have done what they did to make this event happen, the above memory I encoded in my brain would never have happened.

Thanks to everyone for the memory.

[The_Gman]

Thanks Jess thanks MOE, to bad i couldnt be there on Saterday but i so wish i could have been. From what you say it must have been an extremly great sight to see, and the collective "HUH" sounds just like what my team would say, lol. I look forward to hearing all about it at school on monday, and again, Thanks Guys

[echo404]

It was a very good competition, All of the teams did a fantastic job, the only reason any team lost was due to mechanical or programming problems from thier or their allies robots. I'm not sure some teams would have done so bad or so good if all the robots had functioned correctly.

The field itself was having some problems too, some teams would lose connection to their robots, sometimes it wouldn't keep score, sometimes some robots wouldn't activate, it was very chaotic. However the people out there did the best they could to keep the competition going smoothly.

[Matt Royek]

A large Congratulations to all the teams that showed up and competed at the Regional. This was my first regional in my first year in robotics, and I will say it over and over, I don't think I've had as much fun and excitement over an equal amount of time in my life! All the teams really showed the FIRST buzzword "Gracious Professionalism", and the competition was really interesting to watch from the first go. To this day, I don't think I've even seen some professional sports teams have as much of a unifying theme and team spirit as 365. I mean, wow. Even down to the green shoelaces lol.

Good luck to you all in your future endeavors, and I hope every event I can go to will be as exciting and fun as this one.

[petek]

I'd like to add my thanks to all of the great volunteers and teams who made the Pittsburgh regional happen. All throughout practice and qualifying we were able to stay on or even ahead of schedule, thanks to the efforts of a bunch of really dedicated FIRSTers. Though brutal competition and some insidious field bugs prolonged the elimination rounds, most of the week went with very few delays or problems. In particular I'd like to recognize three people:

When our event MC arrangements fell through, Wayne Penn stepped forward and took command of center stage. He kept the crowd in it with dance parties, his lively dialog and color-coordinated visuals (nice hair!). I had a great time working with Wayne, who even inspired this shy engineer to get up and dance and ham it up with him. This would be a pretty good story already, but there's more: Wayne was at Pittsburgh with his team (395, who deserve our thanks for sharing him with us) and managed to mentor them while keeping the field lively.

Sarah Nied (the volunteer formerly known as the Good Scoring Fairy of NJ, but now known as the Patron Saint of Truck #3) was on the board just to handle real-time scoring, but took it upon herself to become Field Supervisor when no one came forward to fill that wide-ranging and critical position. On top of that, she helped our scorekeepers (Bill & Eric Enslen) and tracked down the elusive clickers. I'm looking forward to working with you and Mike again when we join forces on the Truck #3 field in Philly.

And finally a shout out to Corey Chitwood our IFI guy. Corey likes to keep a low profile, but here I'm going to blow his cover because in Pittsburgh he was everywhere and anywhere there was a problem to be solved. Corey helped teams solve the 8.2 V Battery Bug, kept the robot controls controlling and stayed to the very end Saturday night helping pack up and load the truck. (John's half right: Corey and I were the last FIRST people to leave, though the wonderful event manager Shaunna and her Show Ready event folks and Todd and his AV crew were still there when we left).

Speaking of the AV crew, the final score in Pittsburgh was one hit each on the video guy and the sound guy and one on the sound board, with several near misses. The AV tables were just behind the red end of the field and there were frequent barrages arcing over toward them.

[StephLee]

I have to say, Pittsburgh was the most up-and-down thrill ride my team has ever been on.

Our robot, thankfully, didn't have major mechanical problems the entire weekend. A loose drive chain and a slightly bent frame after a fall was the worst we had to deal with on that end. However, our autonomous mode that worked so amazingly well at home didn't like the lighting at Pitt, and the camera wouldn't lock on properly. We discovered a bad lense in our camera on Thursday, and then a bad switch in the replacement we recieved; mix-and-matching the parts along with an hour or so spent playing with the focus and a few other things had it working better. We eventually developed a solid camera-controlled autonomous mode, thanks to persistence by our programmers.

As far as matches went, we came out 7 and 5, seeded in 5th. The second-ranked team, 393, picked us during the alliance selections, and BOY did our alliance in general have some cruddy luck during the elimination rounds. The quarter finals went smoothly, that's true; after that, though, we fought for everything we got. 393 had some problems with their drive train, unfortunately, but they just kept plugging away at it, trying to keep their bot moving. I was amazed at how they kept at it time after time, because something went wrong basically every match. 1370, our other partner, had a few more minor problems as well, and they worked hard to keep their robot running as well. During the semi-finals, we won a match then lost a match, then thought we'd lost but tied (the scoring system went a bit nutty). I'm never going to forget the feeling of thinking the competition was over for us, then finding out we were still in it; it was the most amazing feeling. Our whole alliance was yelling and high-fiving, it was incredible. The next match, an opponent ran into the alliance wall in front of us during autonomous pretty hard. Our control panel flipped off and landed upside down, snapping our joystick beyond repair. While the robot was doing donuts on the field, we were yelling to the refs that our joystick had broken; they stopped the match, and we got a replacement from our pit. We had to calibrate the joystick, and then played our last semi final match. We won by three points; it was an amazing match.

[Freddy Schurr]

Does anyone have video of 365, 808, 65, and 1708. Also I would like to see some video of some of the matches.