2007 St. Louis Regional

[Clark Gilbert]

Congrats on the win 45! Can't wait to see you guys at Purdue.

[ShaneP]

Congrats to teams 45, 829, and 1444 for winning the regional.

Also congrats to teams 148, 217, and 2133. Good job to all teams.

[Taylor]

Congrats IndianaFIRST teams! Way to show 'em what Hoosier (or Boiler) Robotics are all about. I don't know if I'm excited about the BMR or scared now. Either way there's gonna be some pretty spectacular matches.

[natis]

Hey can somebody link me to the finals we couldnt see it
thanks
natalia

[Lisa Perez]

Any list of the awards, by any chance?

[Travis Hoffman]

Originally Posted by Lisa Perez

Any list of the awards, by any chance?

http://www2.usfirst.org/2007comp/events/MO/awards.html

[Kit Gerhart]

It's good to see my old team, TechnoKats, get off to a good start this year. Congrats also to 829, and 1444. See you in Atlanta.

[RoboPhantom]

Can anybody explain how team 1747 got to pick Alliance #8 ahead of team 1329? When you take out 1747's 9th match, they both had 5 and 3 records, with 1329 hoding the ranking score tiebreaker advantage.

Since it was our goal to finally get to the finals this year, I'm just wondering if we actually would have, except for a scoring snafu.

I've been working the numbers all afternoon, and I just can't make sense of the scoring. Any help appreciated. I'm actually hoping I'm wrong. Either way it was a great regional. Contrats to everybody!

Thanks,
Jeff Holland
Team 1329

[Richard Wallace]

Jeff, when you take out 1747's surrogate (9th) match they have the same QS as 1329 (both have 5-3 records) and their ranking score goes to 10.76 (the incorrectly reported 9.56 was calculated by dividing their total unpenalized opponents scores by 9 instead of 8). So they edge you out by half a ranking point.

-----------------------------

Wow. What a regional! What a final! I'll post some pictures later; watching the alliance of 148/217/2133 put up 7-rows was a real inspiration. Elegant and efficient machines, well operated, well strategized. They showed us how this game is supposed to be played.

In the end they couldn't quite handle the incredible combination of rack scoring, defense, and rampsmanship displayed by 1444/45/829, and it is fair to say that the unfortunate snagging of 217's arm in F1 was too much for the #1 alliance to overcome.

Congratulations to repeat St. Louis Regional Winners 1444 and their partners 45 and 839.

Congrats also to all of the award winners and especially to 461 for Engineering Inspiration and Website Awards. Special props to Jerry Budd for handling the scoring with grace under pressure.

And congrats to 1985 for an amazing robot and a well deserved Rookie All Star Award. Now there is another Emerson-sponsored team in town, and they are starting very strong.

Once again I want to tell the CD/FIRST community that I am very proud of my team, 931 Perpetual Chaos, for taking home their second St. Louis Regional Chairman's Award in three years. They built a solid robot that scored well and seeded 6th. And although our alliance (1502/931/1182) was overwhelmed in QF2 (awesome lifter, 1625) I am still very proud of their competitiveness. Watch for them at future events: Boilermaker, Atlanta, IRI.

Special thanks to Mark Koors, of TechnoKat and AndyMark fame, for making my rookie experience as an FTA run smoothly. Since Mark prefers to remain behind the scenes, some folks on CD may enjoy seeing a rare photo of him with the winning alliance in the background, attached below.

[RoboPhantom]

Originally Posted by Richard

Jeff, when you take out 1747's surrogate (9th) match they have the same QS as 1329 (both have 5-3 records) and their ranking score goes to 10.76 (the incorrectly reported 9.56 was calculated by dividing their total unpenalized opponents scores by 9 instead of 8). So they edge you out by half a ranking point.

Thanks, Richard. I was doing the math wrong when I took out the 9th match. Congrats to the scorers for getting the hand recalculation right under extreme pressure!

One other question. What determined who got a 9th match? I'm assuming it's either random draw or order of registration. I'm also not sure why those 4 extra rounds were even played, since it seems to put those bots unnecessarily at risk of damage just before the elimination rounds.

Jeff

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by RoboPhantom

One other question. What determined who got a 9th match? I'm assuming it's either random draw or order of registration. I'm also not sure why those 4 extra rounds were even played, since it seems to put those bots unnecessarily at risk of damage just before the elimination rounds.

I'll try to go back and look. At the time I assumed that at least some of the teams in the later matches were appearing for their eighth time. I didn't watch (although I am fairly certain that some of the top scouts did) to see which of the teams were playing as surrogates and which were still going for QS and RS.

[Paul Copioli]

One clarification for you "ramp + defense" advocates: It was not the ramp + defense robots that clinched it for the winning alliance ... it was effective execution of a strategy and making simple, robust robots that won the match. 2 functioning ringer robots are hard to stop especially if you leave them alone at during the last 20 - 30 seconds when you are trying to get on the ramp.

We skimped on certan parts of our arm and, as it turns out, we were not robust enough to survive the entire elimination rounds. Our arm was crippled after the semi-finals and the crash in Finals 1 did us in. We were not able to lift high after that, which is our strong suit.

The simple, reliable, and effective robots of 1444, 45, and 829 beat our alliance; but don't jump on the defense + ramp bandwagon so soon .....

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by RoboPhantom

One other question. What determined who got a 9th match? I'm assuming it's either random draw or order of registration. I'm also not sure why those 4 extra rounds were even played, since it seems to put those bots unnecessarily at risk of damage just before the elimination rounds.

With the curious scheduling algorithm in use this year, don't bet on it being very random—though historically, it was by random selection. Also, as the extra risk goes, that's just something you have to be willing to accept. The possibility of surrogate matches is mentioned in the rules, so teams should be aware that they may be called upon.

[Chris Fultz]

1444, 45, 829!

Congrats 1444, 45 and 829 - Awesome "Indiana" showing!

Can someone tell us who won the WFA? The FIRST site just says Harrison - 1747.

[Ryan Dognaux]

Originally Posted by Chris Fultz

1444, 45, 829!

Congrats 1444, 45 and 829 - Awesome "Indiana" showing!

Can someone tell us who won the WFA? The FIRST site just says Harrison - 1747.

Allison Babcock of 1747 won the WFA. It's very rare when a college mentor has won it, so congrats to her and their whole team.

I'd just like to thank everyone at the St. Louis Regional, especially the St. Louis volunteer coordinator Mike Gambill for giving me a shot at being MC - I had a blast and I hope everyone else did as a result too.

Congratulations to Richard of 931 for winning the volunteer award and to 931 for winning the Chairman's Award.

All in all, I thought the regional went very smoothly for being in week 1 - there were minimal glitches with the field which helped to keep things moving and on time.

Thanks again to everyone who made it happen.