Suffield Shakedown Scrimmage Pre-Season Event

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Elgin Clock

Bill, do you need volunteers for setup (on Friday evening) or field reset or queing or anything like that Saturday during the competition?
Let me know! I'll be up in the area (in Springfield, MA Friday night) & also I'll be there Saturday in Suffield for the competition as well.
Thanks!

I think they were looking for scorers. Unfortunately tomorrow is Wednesday during build season and which is our meeting night and guess what it is going to do. SSSSNNNNOOOOOWWWWW it is build season and it is a Wednesday so of course it is going to snow. When there is no school we can not have meetings. I will try to find out what they need for help. I am sure we are all set for setup because the FIRST people usually come down from Manchester to learn how to setup field.
I hate snow.

[Elgin Clock]

Originally Posted by BobC

I think they were looking for scorers. Unfortunately tomorrow is Wednesday during build season and which is our meeting night and guess what it is going to do. SSSSNNNNOOOOOWWWWW it is build season and it is a Wednesday so of course it is going to snow. When there is no school we can not have meetings. I will try to find out what they need for help. I am sure we are all set for setup because the FIRST people usually come down from Manchester to learn how to setup field.
I hate snow.

Bob or Bill,
Is there any word on if any positions are available for volunteering or is there someone I can contact for more info???
Thanks.

[MamaSpoldi]

Yes, Team 230 will be providing the webcast of the event again (as noted it can be accessed through our website www.shsrobotics.org).

I would also like to thank Aces High for including our request for teams to help us restock the Shelton High School Food Bank by bringing donations to the scrimmage. As most of you already know there was a fire at Shelton High only a few days before the FRC season kick-off which kept our school closed for an additional week after the winter break. Unfortunately, in addition to the damage done to the building which has now been repaired, ALL of the food bank supplies (which were stored at the school) had to be thrown out due to fire, smoke, and water damage.

We thought that it we could help by appealing to our friends within the FIRST community to help us replenish those supplies which are provided to those in need within our school community. Thank you all for your support.

See you in Suffield...

[MOE]

HELLOOoooo from the North East
Yep its me Old MOE and Team 88 TJ2 the TYE DYE team, oh yeah ???? OH YEAH !!!!
We will see all the great North East Teams on the 14th in Suffield CT. Good luck SEEeeeeee YAAAaaaa SOOOooon
MOE and Team 88 TJ2

[Teammax]

The Suffield Shakedown is a great way to get a feel for the game. It is nice to see other scrimmages pop up over the years in other areas. When we first started we would always try and bring 2 robots, our real robot and the previos year's robot with some 'fittings'. Now the Shakedown has gotten too big for this (which is a good thing) but we always make sure we are there with our robot

I would encourage teams to send members to the scrimmage even if their robot is not competing. I have no data to support this but I think teams that go to the scrimmage have an advantage over teams that do not when the regionals start.

[Phoenix Spud]

Are there videos anywhere of the event? We know that 126 won and we have been talking with them about it but we were wondering if we could see any of the matches! It sounds like it was a great event. congratulations to all participants for getting your robot ready early!

[KathieK]

I'm concerned this is going to be a tough game for spectators to follow.

[thefro526]

Originally Posted by KathieK

I'm concerned this is going to be a tough game for spectators to follow.

I've notice that too. I had a very hard time telling if a robot was scoring or if it was an HP shot while watching the webcast. The Super cells do stand out a lot, I'm not sure about the Empty cells though.

[Golto]

It is hard to follow the entire field, but pick one or 2 yeams to follow and it's bearable.

[Marc P.]

To answer some questions about how the scoring works, or how easy it will be for spectators to follow, this is how I saw things down on the field:

There was one Official Scorer assigned to each robot/trailer in the match, tasked with keeping track of how many moon rocks and super cells were in their robot's trailer. They would increment the counter on their scoring devices as best they could see by watching their trailer throughout the match. At a regional, this data would be displayed as a real-time score on the big screen, which should help spectators follow the match.

At the conclusion of the match, the field reset crew was instructed to NOT remove anything from trailers until the Official Scorer assigned to that trailer made a final count and verified the numbers entered into their scoring device. Only the Official Scorer could release and remove balls from the trailers.

In general, if you can see the whole field, it's fairly easy to tell which alliance has the upper hand, if there is an upper hand. Closer matches might be more difficult to tell, but it's easy enough to see if there are more moon rocks in the red trailers than there are in the blue trailers, even without exact numbers.

[Flanamana]

It was tough to follow as a driver! There's too much going on scoring wise to have any clue of who won or who is currently ahead. Unless a team had a trailer filled (which mostly only happened when teams didn't show) it was too hard to try to figure out who won

also, just because you have a no-show on your alliance doesn't mean you're guaranteed a loss. we had that in match 15 when aces high wasn't there and we won.

And how come we weren't mentioned in the teams that 'lit up the field'???
IIRC we were 1 of 4 undefeated teams, and only lost when we had to switch drivers (I had to leave for work, I would have been there if we were 3 hours behind haha)

[Brian C]

Originally Posted by KathieK

I'm concerned this is going to be a tough game for spectators to follow.

I agree with you Kathie. While I did not attend the event I watched the webcast. My wife and son were at the event and after discussing it today we all agreed that it's not a good spectator event.

I said it reminded me of a rubgy scrum only with robots.

My son said he hopes they play some waltz music at our regional this year as it would fit well with the robors "dancing" around in circles with each other.

[MarcD79]

Good evening everybody! You might not recognize the name, but you will recognize the face. I am Mr. Davis who has enthusiastically volunteered every year in the setup & take down of the scrimmage fields. I had the honor of official Field Supervisor & to mentor FIRST FTA Frank Merrick. First of all I want to thank everybody involved with help in scoring, field reset, judging, DJ sound, webcasting & anyone else who was directly involved. It is a very energy draining, but greatly rewarding event to be involved in. Now to an answer for how the rounds went. We obviously had to rethink how to reset the field, count scores & get the next round of robots on the field in a quick manor. We changed the sequence around probably 4 times until we obtained the smoothest transition & eliminated round-to-round turn-around from 9 minutes to around 5.5 minutes. I can personally say that having the payload specialist be the only one to load the robot from his/hers own station was the best solution. There was confusion as to when they could obtain those moon rocks. In the end the solution was to bring all bins on the field, fill them & return to each station. I'm sure FIRST will make some changes.
D.C. is waiting for us!!!

[MarcD79]

This is the answer to the legolith wearing. When we dismantled the field we did see a lot of the white powder that was worn off the field from tire spin. Other than a few minor scuff marks , there wasn't any scaring to the field surface.

[MWTrek]

On behalf of the event organizers I’d like to thanks everyone for their help and cooperation in running this event. We understand that waiting in queue was the last thing you wanted to be doing on the last Saturday of build season. We thank you for your patience.

We’d also like to thank all of our volunteers who helped with the event. In particular we’d like to thank:

-FIRST for generously allowing us to use their field and for working hard to maintain a smooth running event.

-Team 571 for graciously offering to help clean up after the event and refusing to leave until every last table was put away. They ended up staying over 5 hours, and even drove to WLHS to help us unload the rugs.

-Bob Charrette for donating his time and his truck to transport the field from New Hampshire and for his help queuing robots during the competition.

-Mike Betts for helping teams with their questions on the Labview software.

-Marc Davis for his work on the field as the field supervisor and for his help with other event logistics.

-Jx2 Productions (two FIRST alumni from team 839) for providing music and helping with the queuing of robots.

-Team 230 for providing the webcast which was watched around the country.

-Team 178 for their DREAM FIRST exhibit.

-The countless others who make this event a success. Without them this event would not be possible.