2008 Boston Regional

[Daniel Brim]

Wow. What a regional. The 2008 Boston regional is BY FAR the best planned, run, and attended regional that I have ever been to. Clearly, this deserves a huge thank you to the planning committee, the regional director, and the attendees.

To team 839 (Rosie): It was a pleasure working with you with Ask an Engineer. Whenever we needed extra help, parts, and such, you were one of the first teams that we went to. And congratulations on your much deserved Chairman's Award. The description, while good, did not capture the full extent of your efforts in the FIRST community. Having personally worked with two former Rosie members (Kyle and Neil), I can say without a doubt that you are a truly inspiring team. Good luck in Atlanta.

Also, some other thank yous to send out. Thank you to 2043 and 1699 for picking us for the elimination rounds. It's too bad that our arm broke during the third match, otherwise we could have put up more of a fight. And a thank you to the judges as well for the Delphi Driving Tomorrow's Technology award. This is the first time in the 11 year history of the NUTRONS that they have been given an award other than finalist/winner.

And on a note pertaining to the current conversation:

Originally Posted by commodoredl

With shooter robots it is sometimes difficult to tell and sometimes annoying with calling the "Impeding Hurdling" penalty. I know that 578 ran into tons of problems with not getting that called on their opponents. In one match we were trying to launch and actually rammed from behind as our arm lowered to kick the ball. We only kicked it about 4 feet high because of that and no penalty was called, but we still won the match.
On a team like 125, their shooter device was located on the robot and "loaded" very slowly (I think), so a ref would have a hard time knowing if it was trying to hurdle. Some liberties would have to be taken to be fair to the shooter team, especially if they actually are in the act of hurdling without raising any sort of arm.

It was fairly obvious when we were ready to shoot, because the winch was back. It did take quite awhile to prepare to fire, but a lap was enough time.

Thank you again Boston, and I look forward to seeing what is in store for next year.