2006 Canada's Wonderland Off-Season Event

[Pat Fairbank]

Hmm... I'd love to come to the event and volunteer, now that I'm living in Ontario, but I'm currently lacking wheels. Oh well.

[Jay Trzaskos]

Oh man, Wonderland! I'm really hoping I can attend, I heard it's a blast. The only things standing in the way at the moment are getting my parents to let me drive there, and finding a room. So if anyone knows of anyone that can help me with the room situation on such short notice, it would be greatly appreciated. PM me if you have any suggestions.

Thanks,
JT
229

[Laura 1547]

Ahh!!! Wonderland is this weekend and I'm SOOOOO excited!!!! Last year it was so much fun. This year will probably be even better! See everyone there!!!

If you want any media coverage of the event don't forget to start send out press releases or memo or whatever to the Toronto media

Global news:
newstips@globaltv.com and mzucaro@globaltv.ca and tell them what they will see and what FIRST is about and all that good stuff.....hey they might send someone.

There is also cityTV...I don't have their contact info but it is on the web and ROGERS cable 10 in richmondhill, and the Toronto SUN and STAR.....

I am not sure I will be there as I might be working....and of course I never know what stories I will get assigned to so if you want some press....just hammer away at their email and fax machines and make sure you describe the event well, interview clips available etc etc etc and the time/date/location....all that stuff an assignment editor would need to even consider sending someone.

and 680 NEWS 680news.com, might be a fun weekend story for them?

No guarantees....I work in this business and I still don't understand it

mark

[Laura 1547]

Don't forget CBC and CTV! I know that CTV went to GTR. Maybe they'd be interested in going to the Wonderland event too

Originally Posted by Laura 1547

Don't forget CBC and CTV! I know that CTV went to GTR. Maybe they'd be interested in going to the Wonderland event too

well....let them all know about this weekend, best idea is to send press release now, then friday and then hit them again saturday morning.....but clearly it must be explained WHAT, WHEN, WHERE and what they (reporter/camera) will have for visuals and audio once they get there....add pictures to the press release if possible, at some stations let's just say the assignment desks have re-defined the meaning of simple

[VEN]

We're there!

[Kyle Love]

Alright, when its over I wanna know who won.... anything good happen?

[Corey Balint]

I was told that 1503-1547-610 beat 1114-1680-1114(2nd bot)

[VEN]

Fun competition. Things that I learned is that batteries do need to be cycled off-season otherwise it's like running a porsche on 87 fuel. Our robot deserves the status of the most enduring one. Our tilt fell apart so the shooter was flopping up and down, we had lost, bent, stripped screws all around. The treads were gone, and I mean gone. We ended up drilling holes in the andy mark hubs and fitted zipties onto them. Worked well I must admit. The most astonishing thing that happened to our robot is the left gear box literally exploded...not electrically, mechanically. The bolts from one of the motors came off, making the pinion gear strip, fall off, interfere with the other gears and finally put a hole about 3cmx4cm in our gearbox. AND IT STILL RAN!!!!!!!!! We placed second in the ramp race but I think we could have easily gotten 1st if the batteries were charged and we had treads. It's all fun though. We placed 4th in the qualifiers I believe and made it to quarter finals.

fun fun

Oh and I have just been informed that we won the best drive system award

cheers

[Jonathan Norris]

Yes we did beat 1114! With an interesting turn of events in the final. So as expected 1114 finished first and 1503 finished second. However, unlike other regionals 1114 decided to choose the rookie team (named team 2000 at wonderland (it is not their official number)) who performed amazingly. Basically think 1305 with split track tank drive system, its was another beautiful robot from the 1114 shops. They were regularly able to score 10 balls in auto and i saw them dump 30 balls at once! Then 1503 took us second, i think we ranked 8th, finally after competing against the triplets in all our regionals we got the opportunity to play with one of them in the play-downs. We then had a tough 3rd choice after 1114 and "2000" took 1680, we decided on a very strong and reliable bot in 1547 (Waldo). We both made it to the finals and this is where it gets really interesting....

game 1.1: The match starts 2000 scores 10 balls in lower goal in auto, 1114 does not move, 1680 plays D. 1503 tries to score (did not hit any), and we try to stop "2000". We start in in O and both us and 1503 are lining up hitting almost all of our balls, then right in front of me (i am opperating in the #2 position) smoke clouds my vision. 1114 has just started to violently smoke up (possibly flames...), and they immediately stop the match to attend to the smoking robot. Finals match 1.2 is then played without 1114 while they are attending to their robot. We end up winning that match. then in the last match it looks like 1114's shooter did not work (too focused on the bot i was operating). It was a close match but we ended it with all three bots on the ramp and we won something like 70-50 (not sure sry).

It was an amazingly well run and organized event and I thank all the the 1114 team members and volunteers who made it run so smoothly. It was a really useful event to get all the team members back into robotics for the new season. Thank you to 1503 and 1547 you guys were awesome and a lot of fun to play with! It is really unfortunate what happened to 1114, we would have loved to compete against a fully-working 1114!

[Karthik]

Here are the full results:

Alliances: (picking was done without a serpentine)

1. 1114 - 2000 - 1680
2. 1503 - 0610 - 1547
3. 1112 - 1281 - 1605
4. 1334 - 1246 - 1219
5. 1310 - 1241 - 0188
6. 0820 - 0771 - 1564

Results:
QFs: 3 def. 6 (2-1), 5 def. 4 (2-1)
SFs: 1 def. 5 (2-0), 2 def. 3 (2-0)
F: 2 def. 1 (2-0)

Skills Competition:

Ramp Racers: This competition featured a race down the field, up the opposite ramp, back up the field and up the ramp. Team 2000 beat team 1281 by no more than an inch.

HP Shoot Out: 9 poof balls were placed on the field at varying distances. The target was the center goal. The further the shot, the more points you were awarded. The winner was Team 1310

Aim High Frenzy: 2:10 on the clock, who can score the most points, simple as that. Team 1114 won this event with 90 points.

Judged Awards:

The "Tent Shaker" award (Spirit): Team 1547 for always making their presence known in the stands and on the field.

The "Not in My House" award (Best Defence): Team 771 for playing suffocating defence all day long, including 2 matches where they kept Team 1503 from hitting a single shot!

The "Corvette" award (Best Drivetrain): Team 1281 for their solid, robust and effective drivetrain.

The "Look Ma, no Hands" award (Best Autonomous Mode): Team 1114 for their camera aided autonomous award, which would detect contact from other robots, move away from it, and shoot.

The "X's and O's" award (Best strategy): Team 2000 for always finding ways to win matches despite playing some formidable alliances. This team continued to find the correct balance between offence and defence, and snuck out many wins on the day.

The "Stylin' and Profilin'" award (Imagery): Team 1680 for their gold and purple anodized robot.

The Judges award: Team 1219. This team broke the competition port of their controller early on in the day. Despite this seemingly insurmountable obstacle, they spent the rest of the working on a solution. After collaborating with a few teams in the pit, and hours of hard work they were able to come up with a fix and make it to the elimination rounds!

[Laura 1547]

I'd like to say a very big thank you to team 1114 for such an amazing day and congratulations on a great event. The finals were unfortunate for you guys but we were happy to see you pull it back together and return working on the field once again.

I'd also like to give a HUGE thank you to teams 1503 and 610 for picking 1547 for an alliance. It was incredible to work with you guys and even better to win. That moment went down in Waldo history. The finals were intense and I'm still in shock that we won the event. Its sunk in a bit more now (once I got more than 2 hours of sleep) and everybody on 1547 is still talking about it. What a great day!!!

I'd also like to give a thank you to Karthik, Steve, and Amanda for doing a great job as usual MCing and Announcing. Karthik: I'm still shocked at how much you memorize.

Hopefully I'll see everyone at GTR or at Wonderland again next year.