2008 Arizona Regional

[Donut]

This was another great regional and in many ways improved over previous years, the number of rookie teams (and those that were good too) was outstanding and the new pit and field set up is so much better than the old one. Not to mention it's the most teams AZ has ever seen!

Thank you to team 207 for selecting us for your alliance, and congratulations on two well deserved awards! And another thank you to our other partner 2449, who is one impressive rookie team. I remember watching their robot at Duel in the Desert only a few weeks ago and I didn't realize until yesterday that this bot had been built by a rookie team. We made it to the quarterfinals with these two and it was one of the closest playoff rounds I've seen. Quart-Final 2-3 had the best ending ever, I would NEVER have believed I'd be screaming at a trackball that much and that the entire stadium would be doing so with me. I'm going to work on getting that match up ASAP.

Congratulations to 60, 39, and 1165 for a dominating playoff performance and a well earned Championship. 3 champs in a row for 60 now, and 2 for 39, this is becoming quite the streak!

And I have to say that of all our team's robots ever built, this is the one I'm most proud of. It went 4-4 and was ranked 28 out of 52 (and no where near the best performing robot we've made), and only made it to the quarter-finals. It was not the best robot at the competition in any game category, be it scoring, defense, or autonomous. It had no super-cool doohickey mechanisms and didn't provide any strange or spectacular gameplay to watch. It got penalties that sometimes lost matches. It won no awards at the competition, but for the first time since joining the team in 2004, I can truly say I don't care.

Because this is the first robot we've ever committed to and successfully finished early so that we'd actually get to drive and test time before Thursday at Regionals.
Because this is the first year we were inspected before 6 PM and without frantic filing or finishing touches, passing inspection at 11 AM.
Because this is the first time we've ever had 0 break downs, and the only thing repaired was re-stapling bumpers.
Because this is the first year our robot actually looked good, when we've had trouble turning out anything other than an aluminum-colored hulk in the past.

And because this is the first robot we've built that succeeded at everything we wanted it to. It was simple. It was low maintenance. It scored effectively. It had an autonomous that worked. Its look caught attention. And it was finished on schedule. All of our past robots, even those that were top 8 seeds and won technical awards for one feature or another, failed to achieve at least one goal.

To all the rookies at Arizona, any team that may be disappointed their robot isn't ranking highly or taking shiny hardware home, and even the teams with robots that are: figure out what the few (or only one even) simple things are you want to achieve with your robot, be it organizational, aesthetic, or functional, and ensure that you go all out to get those few goal(s) achieved. When you do you won't care if you leave the competition with two trophies and a medal in hand or a bottom seed with an 0-8 record, because you'll know you did everything you wanted to do with that robot. And I can tell you, it's the greatest feeling you can get from this competition.

[Ziaholic]

Originally Posted by Donut

...

and it was one of the closest playoff rounds I've seen. Quart-Final 2-3 had the best ending ever, I would NEVER have believed I'd be screaming at a trackball that much and that the entire stadium would be doing so with me. I'm going to work on getting that match up ASAP.

...

I've got that one on tape also ... working on some edit's as I've got 2 clips ... ball yelling in clip 1, and final score in clip 2. Once I splice them together I'll upload it and provide a link here.

I clearly saw, first-hand, the entire contact-patch of the ball completely across the finish line. The tape isn't conclusive, but it's supportive. I've gotta' re-read the rules regarding how much of the ball has to cross the plane, because if the whole ball has to cross, then it was clearly not enough to score. The alliance penalty somewhat negates the relevence of this call, but it was suspensefull nonetheless. Without that penalty, and if that final ball crossing counted, it would've been a tie!

(and Thanks for the 'bot compliments, we were very proud to ally with y'all)

[Vikesrock]

Originally Posted by Ziaholic

I've got that one on tape also ... working on some edit's as I've got 2 clips ... ball yelling in clip 1, and final score in clip 2. Once I splice them together I'll upload it and provide a link here.

I clearly saw, first-hand, the entire contact-patch of the ball completely across the finish line. The tape isn't conclusive, but it's supportive. I've gotta' re-read the rules regarding how much of the ball has to cross the plane, because if the whole ball has to cross, then it was clearly not enough to score. The alliance penalty somewhat negates the relevence of this call, but it was suspensefull nonetheless. Without that penalty, and if that final ball crossing counted, it would've been a tie!

(and Thanks for the 'bot compliments, we were very proud to ally with y'all)

From Section 7 of the Manual:

CROSSING: The act of a TRCKBALL or ROBOT passing through the plane defined by a line (i.e.
LANE MARKER or FINISH LINE) when it is projected vertically upwards. A TRACKBALL or
ROBOT shall have CROSSED a line when all parts of the object, while traveling in a counterclockwise
direction, have completely passed through the plane.

So the entire ball would have had to cross through the plane to score.

[falconmaster]

"What made this especially obvious was a rookie team with absolutely no idea how alliance selections worked picking numbers at random."

I agree, it did seem strange to watch some of the rookie teams pick. It looked random to me. You do have to ask your self one questions though, some of those rookie teams must have had some good mentoring to be in the finals.

We learned alot about our bot and from other bots concerning launching the trackball. We will be testing these ideas in LA and LV when we attend the regionals there. Hopefully by Atlanta we should have a very competitive bot.

Thanks to all the teams that helped us, like 1725 and 39. Also good job to all the PUHSD schools out there. We need to get the remaining three schools in the district involved so we can become possible the first district to have all its schools in FIRST.

Overall I thought the AZ regional was great. As much as I dread seeing 100 teams that we have to compete with in the near future AZ regional I look forward to it as well. It will mean that we will be fast approaching Dean's vision of all the H.S. in the US having a FIRST team. Where the quality may be lacking for a awhile, their hearts and minds will not and isn't that the point anyway. All of us can help raise the quality of the teams, that is what GP is all about. I want to thank 1726 again for the launching idea they shared. I know that there are a grip of teams out there using the concept! Thanks Again and see you in LA or LV which was it I don't, remember you are going to?

[JB987]

Congrats from Team 987 goes out to all who competed at the Arizona Regional, but special props to our friends in Team 60 and 39 who continue to show the rest of the FIRST community that there is a growing number of great teams from places west of the Mississippi! Looking forward to playing with/against you guys in a couple of weeks in Vegas...

[Donut]

Originally Posted by falconmaster

Overall I thought the AZ regional was great. As much as I dread seeing 100 teams that we have to compete with in the near future AZ regional I look forward to it as well. It will mean that we will be fast approaching Dean's vision of all the H.S. in the US having a FIRST team.

With the new regional set up there was lots of room left in the main arena floor. I think that with a bit of re-arrangement to fit some more teams in the new pit area and possibly opening a second large room for pits, the coliseum could easily house a super-regional with 2 fields.

...of course I'd also love to see a 2nd regional pop up in Northern or Southern Arizona instead, so single regional teams could choose between them and better financed ones would have another option for Regionals within easy driving distance.

I forgot to mention in my previous post as well, congratulations to 842 on their 4th straight Chairman's Award! Hearing their impressive list of accomplishments for the year, I think this may be their year to take home the grand prize at the Championships.

[CCCP]

could anyone give me a link to the video archives (arizona regionals)

[BornaE]

Originally Posted by CCCP

could anyone give me a link to the video archives (arizona regionals)

I have Recorded all the matches, but they are in AVCHD and they are about 70 gigs

Any suggestions about how to convert them in a reasonable time?

[MrForbes]

I have recorded a bunch of matches, but I'm having fun with conflicting video codecs on my computer and also haven't felt very good the last few days, so I haven't managed to do anything with it yet.

Sorry I don't have any recommendations for conversion software...that seems to be a magical subject which I know far too little about.

[BornaE]

Originally Posted by 0705920

I have Recorded all the matches, but they are in AVCHD and they are about 70 gigs

Any suggestions about how to convert them in a reasonable time?

If anybody wants to get any particular match, i can conver it with Vegas(it take a long time)

let's start with eliminations.

[Brandon Holley]

Originally Posted by 0705920

If anybody wants to get any particular match, i can conver it with Vegas(it take a long time)

let's start with eliminations.

quarterfinals 2 match 3 and match # 69

[BornaE]

On behalf of team 39, I would like to thank team 60 for picking us, and also team 1165 for their hard efforts.

I also want to congratulate every team that participated in AZ, especially teams 1212, 1164, and 1492.

Arizona Was a great Regional this year, but next year would definitely be better, and more fun.

[Donut]

Great news! I have the footage for all of the matches now, I will be uploading them during this week to SOAP and TBA. Playoffs will be first, then matches, and finally awards. There will be a few oddities in match footage so I'll warn you now; match 29 will be up twice because it had to be replayed on Saturday, there's at least one match where the final score was not displayed on screen (this can be found from TBA or FIRST instead though), and we are missing one of the semifinal matches for some reason (I think semi 2-1, have to check).

We've gone through the DVD forms we received and we've got 21 teams signed up currently (better than in the past, but still less than half the regional). Teams we have forms from:
57
60
125
842
1164
1165
1290
1324
1456 (missing e-mail)
1492
1515
1633
1828
1897
2196 (missing e-mail)
2365
2403
2486
2570
2657
2662

If your team isn't on this list and you'd like a DVD please respond in this thread, message me, or e-mail me with your:
Team number
Team name
Contact name
E-mail
(optionally) Phone number

If we're missing your e-mail you may want to resend contact info since it is easier communicating through e-mail. Teams on the list can resend info if they think they might have given a bad e-mail or something too; sometimes these can take until close to the end of the school year to get out, meaning we'll have trouble reaching you if your contact isn't available in the summer.

We also welcome requests from any teams who didn't come to the AZ Regional but would like a copy of the DVD anyway, maybe it can help convince you to come compete at this great event next year!

[Ziaholic]

Ooops. Looks like Team 2449 - Out of Orbit, didn't make the list. We'd really like a copy!

I can PM you with detailed contact info.

Thanks a ton!

[vballterry]

Originally Posted by CCCP

could anyone give me a link to the video archives (arizona regionals)

You can download recorded clips of all the elimination matches from the Ustream site. The quality isn't great, but it's better that than the live stream was. Also, audio somehow got mixed in from other people's clips.

****NOTE*****
After writing this I check out Ustream and it looks like only the broadcaster can download the video. I'll download and convert them and post the clips on our team website as soon as I get a chance.


The clips must be downloaded in *.flv format, but you should be able to convert it.

Also, as is discussed in other threads, the live feed often isolates single bots and it's hard to tell what's happening around the whole field if you're not there, but maybe this will help some teams until other video becomes available.

http://ustream.tv/channel/first-az-regional-2008