2008 NASA/VCU Regional

[temujin]

Originally Posted by Bsteckler

Nope, we got it, did you all get your catalytic converter motor?

I didn't see that... Took a lot of pictures, but the color turned out really horrible. Can anyone spare about a cup of magenta electrons, and maybe a pint of cyan? Thanks.

[1086VEX]

team 1086 had an amazing time!!! we would deffinetly like to thank teams 1522 and 435. you guy were awsome alliance partners!! congrats to the finalist 1731, 1793, and 2108 you played really well!! And to all of the award winning teams!! (384 2106-congrats on your first award!! ) we hope to see some of you guy in Atlanta!!

[VanMan]

Team 2108 had an awesome time. We were a bit disappointed with the penalties in the finals making us lose, but whatever. We won last year. We don't need to win every year. We would like to thank 1793 for picking us and 1731 for playing some awesome ball.

All in all this game was a good one, except so many penalties. They really kill you.

[waialua359]

team 359 hawaiian kids would like to thank all of the teams (mostly from Virginia) for all of the kind welcoming words throughout the tournament.
We had a great time and possibly look forward to coming back.
For the boxes of chocolates, pineapples, pineapple candies, shell leis and buttons, we ran out of most of them halfway through Friday. Sorry if some of you didnt get any. If we come next year, we promise to bring more.

Team 339: See you next to our pit next week at Chesapeake.

[Coredesat]

Originally Posted by waialua359

team 359 hawaiian kids would like to thank all of the teams (mostly from Virginia) for all of the kind welcoming words throughout the tournament.
We had a great time and possibly look forward to coming back.
For the boxes of chocolates, pineapples, pineapple candies, shell leis and buttons, we ran out of most of them halfway through Friday. Sorry if some of you didnt get any. If we come next year, we promise to bring more.

Team 339: See you next to our pit next week at Chesapeake.

We were happy to have you here, you all were amazing. Hopefully we'll see y'all next year (I won't be in Chesapeake, unfortunately)!

[BlondeNerd]

After some sleep, I finally have all my thoughts together on the last three days.

2021, thank you so much for picking us! It was exciting to be allied with our local neighbors. 975, you guys made a great alliance partner. We put up a good fight and lost to amazing teams.

After seeing the concerns about week 1 regionals, I was a bit worried about penalties at this one. Yes, penalties did determine many matches, but every single penalty was announced with a cause and a team so that drivers could learn from their mistakes. I really appreciated that effort.

The matches were much more exciting than I expected this game to be and I realized that it was possible to play a defense that did not involve robot-to-robot contact (keep-away, protecting a placed trackball, etc.)

All in all, it was an amazing event and a great way to start my last competition season as a FIRST student.

P.S. 339 can't wait to be neighbors with 359 next week!

[deshirider430]

Team 612 would like to thank their great alliance partners team 384 and team 1885. Especially thanks to team 384 for picking us up after we had a poor showing on Thursday and friday but selected us for our great performance on Saturday. We had lots of fun even though our playoff run was pretty short.

Congratulations team 1885 on their Engineering Inspiration award. Hopefully we can be successful at the Buckeye regional so we can meet you guys back up at Championship.

[Bsteckler]

Congrats teams 1731, 1793, and 2108, you all did a great job, good luck at the Nationals. All the other rookie teams were fantastic, and I think it's really good that people are getting involved in this ammount (I think there were eight rookie teams there, including us).

[sayso_411]

384 did pretty good...not as well as we hoped to but we were 7-1 before the elimination rounds
384 and 1086 wanted to be in an alliance together but that didnt work out and I was happy with our alliance with 612 and 1885
Penalty points are going to play a major role in this year's game as they did at the NASA/VCU Regional

We congratulate our alliance for helping us out and having a great game (that second game (in quarter finals) we demolished our opposition)
We have won GM Industrial Design Award for 3 years in a row
Congrats to team 1086 for doing a great job in the competition and Chairmans

We hope to see some of the teams from NASA/VCU Regional at the Nationals

Finally, Good Luck to all the teams that still have to play and watch out for the penalty points

[VanMan]

Originally Posted by sayso_411

384 did pretty good...not as well as we hoped to but we were 7-1 before the elimination rounds
384 and 1086 wanted to be in an alliance together but that didnt work out and I was happy with our alliance with 612 and 1885
Penalty points are going to play a major role in this year's game as they did at the NASA/VCU Regional...

1793 actually did a good job with their alliance picks. I thought it was funny when they picked 1086 and they declined, then they picked 384 and they declined. They knew that if they were both together, they would be a tough alliance to beat. So they prevented them from being together.

Penalties were definitely playing a major role in the game. The game was great except the annoying penalties.

[FRC4ME]

Originally Posted by VanMan

1793 actually did a good job with their alliance picks. I thought it was funny when they picked 1086 and they declined, then they picked 384 and they declined. They knew that if they were both together, they would be a tough alliance to beat. So they prevented them from being together.

Penalties were definitely playing a major role in the game. The game was great except the annoying penalties.

I can't believe there were no alliance pairings within the top eight this year. That almost never happens.

Team 339 had a great time and finished the qualifying rounds with a higher seed (#12) than we've ever had before. Thanks to 2021 and 975 for helping us put up a great fight in those quarter-finals.

One thing we learned at this regional was how strange problems can manifest themselves in strange ways at strange times. Okay, we knew that already, but this year was particularly strange.

We lost the +5V bus on our robot controller after a metal shaving landed on one of the analog input pins and shorted it out. This problem first manifested itself as a loss of the gear tooth sensors (they need a 5V input), resulting in our robot ramming full speed into the opposing alliance's player station in hybrid mode. After all, with no input from the gear tooth sensors, the robot thought it had gone exactly 0% of the way across the field.

So we got a warning from the refs, took the robot back to the pits, and noticed the yellow "low +5V output" light on the RC. We went through a long checklist to clear the problem until we finally found and removed the metal shaving shorting out the pins. Unfortunately, the +5V bus appeared to be permanently shot. With less than 15 minutes before our next match, we flipped our "disable autonomous" switch to the ON position to avoid ramming into the player station again. We were disappointed that we wouldn't be able to run hybrid, but we had no choice at the time.

During the next hybrid mode, one line, four points, and five angry refs reminded us that the switches connected to the robot controller also run on the +5V bus. Note to self: for next year, change the autonomous switch to default to DISABLED in a no signal condition.

Apparently the IR commands, such as emergency stop, don't work without +5V either.

We had to replace the robot controller to fix the problem. It's funny how a little metal shaving can almost get you disqualified. There's Murphy's Law in action.

[smurfgirl]

I watched this regional for almost the whole day Friday, but I was practicing with my own team on Saturday so I missed most of it. I heard something interesting from a teammate that I would like more information about. He said that he had the webcast running Saturday while he was working on something else, so he caught bits and pieces of something that appeared to be a match being stopped to investigate a violation of rule <R16> (the 80" rule). It appeared to him that the match was stopped, a robot was measured, and then the match was re-started from scratch. So did anyone see this instance? What I'm wondering is what really happened in this circumstance? Did this happen as he saw it, or did he misunderstand some of what was going on because he was occupied with other stuff at the time?

[1086VEX]

during our second semifinal match team 401 tipped over but they waited for the end of the match then measured them, but we didn't replay that match. thats the closest thing i can think of...

[smurfgirl]

Originally Posted by 1086VEX

during our second semifinal match team 401 tipped over but they waited for the end of the match then measured them, but we didn't replay that match. thats the closest thing i can think of...

Thanks. I'm not sure if that was the same match or not, but that makes a lot more sense than stopping a match.

[geeknerd99]

Originally Posted by FRC4ME

This problem first manifested itself as a loss of the gear tooth sensors (they need a 5V input), resulting in our robot ramming full speed into the opposing alliance's player station in hybrid mode.

That was extremely scary. I was robocoaching on the far side of the field when that happened. Both of the teams who had control boards knocked off made great diving catches though.

It was somewhat akin to being in a car accident...