2009 New Jersey Regional

[thefro526]

Originally Posted by Elgin Clock

Sweet! Think you can do it again when I am actually in NJ watching tomorrow? lol

Maybe.

Depends on what HP we send out.

Also, we got in trouble for that. Our coach wasn't a big fan of it....

[Elgin Clock]

Originally Posted by thefro526

Maybe.

Depends on what HP we send out.

Also, we got in trouble for that. Our coach wasn't a big fan of it....

Did you lose a Super Cell in the next round from that?
Are they enforcing that rule?
I think I saw a Ref. walk off with one before the start of one match while watching the webcast.

[thefro526]

Originally Posted by Elgin Clock

Did you lose a Super Cell in the next round from that?
Are they enforcing that rule?
I think I saw a Ref. walk off with one before the start of one match while watching the webcast.

Our HP played at the corner the next match. The ref walked over to his Super Cells and pulled them off the wall. Apparently they take the Empty/Super Cells from where the offending teams HP is.

[Brandon_L]

We somehow managed to get the worst record ever. Our bot stopped working and we were in the first match so we had to rush and fix that, then we lost three and won one. Now listen to this: The people who do scoring entered it into the computer wrong, putting blue teams score for reds. So its entered into the computer as we are 0 and 4 when were 1 and 3. We talked to everyone and they said they can't change it. When it comes down to final selections and everything, do they go by whats on the PC or whats in writing?

And they did admit that we won and they messed up.

[mtaman02]

Originally Posted by Elgin Clock

Who's the guy announcing the team info before the match?
His voice reminds me of one of the guys from South Park - Either Matt Stone or Trey Parker, not sure exactly. lol

You mean Ackley lol

He is here you know

As far as webcast, yea T1676 was broadcasting near HD Quality but there was too much lag so they dropped the quality down quite a bit for better consistency.

[Akash Rastogi]

I hope people are scouting well. Our last match we sent in a new human player and ....well let's just say he's not going in again....>.>

I have to say, the improved pairing algorithm is great! We haven't had to play 25 or 103 yet! lol

Bittersweet losing a match to our rookie team but w/e, they deserve the top seed.

See you all tomorrow. I'm not too excited for some reason =(

[FearlessLeader]

We are ranked first(Rookie FRC team)
612 is ranked second
Both of us are 5 an 0

You can see a video of our team at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dl56hXSs9gE

See you tomorrow.

[Wayne C.]

Originally Posted by FearlessLeader

We are ranked first(Rookie FRC team)
612 is ranked second
Both of us are 5 an 0

You can see a video of our team at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dl56hXSs9gE

See you tomorrow.

you are doing great!!

[Wayne C.]

Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi

....well let's just say he's not going in again....>.>

Good God man- dont kill him!!!! It's only a game.....

I have to say, the improved pairing algorithm is great! We haven't had to play 25 or 103 yet! lol


(

We miss you- mwah...

WC

[Wayne C.]

Originally Posted by mtaman02

Once again, as part of the Field Assy. crew, we powered up around 5 or 6 ish last nite. We followed the step by step directions and went over our work at least 30 times. Between the current stresses of not knowing whats going on and being constantly reminded that SBA wanted to close up didn't help. We stayed as late as we could to get things going. There were many contacts made to try and help get this solved. It's not like we were just sitting around and saying tomorrow is another day the teams will understand. We were working our rears off to get things going. We all realize that teams paid good money to participate and so they shall, but the one thing teams MUST do is excersize patience and understanding. We're not playing with IFI controls anymore here, we're dealing with new stuff and while we all expect perfection we all have to realize that perfection doesn't come easy. Fri and Sat should be better days or at least I'm crossing my fingers and praying that it will be, we just ask that everyone be calm and bear with us. Angry Teams will not get the field going any quicker trust me on that!

Mike- I (we) truly appreciate all the efforts that the field crew have had to go through to get the event working. This is not a slam against you or anyone working your butts off to get that thankless job done.

My objection is that this whole system never should have gone out until it was FOOLPROOF. Working from the team end this season has been pure Hell- complex configurations, failing equipment, constantly changing updates and such. Wasnt this system supposed to be a huge improvement on the IFI system and able to do more faster? i'M NOT SEEING IT. Yes- change is sometimeS hard and people don't like stepping out of their comfort zones but this whole situation was a total mess.
Through it all the NI tech support guys have been great. But at times even they were overwhelmed. We never started competition day with 7 teams unable to get their robots onto the field due to programming. Josh in our pits today was running himself ragged trying to help teams that were at their wits' end.

The parent company never should have put their teams of diligent volunteers in the situation in the first place. This was their doing- not the regional field crew's. The field crews should be sainted for the effort above and beyond all expectations that you put out.

[Akash Rastogi]

Seeing the game played out (even with good teams out on the field) it seems too boring and anticlimactic. To teams who's robots aren't working in time for a match and you are aware of this, TELL YOUR ALLIANCE PARTNER! Do not just not show up on the field and leave a trailer unattended. Not only does it hurt your team it hurts the alliance.

As Wayne said, the veterans were running around helping as many people as possible and it was kinda chaotic. The NI guys were great! Very helpful.


Hate to sound mean, and this is totally not what my team felt, but does anyone else see the big gap between good robots and not so good ones? Its a huge gap and its so frustrating having 1 or 2 weak links in our alliances. So frustrating. rawr. Totally not happy about this year so far. I love our robot but I still hate the game. No excitement in it.

[Danny McC]

Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi

Hate to sound mean, and this is totally not what my team felt, but does anyone else see the big gap between good robots and not so good ones? Its a huge gap and its so frustrating having 1 or 2 weak links in our alliances. So frustrating. rawr. Totally not happy about this year so far. I love our robot but I still hate the game. No excitement in it.

Unless someone gets two super cells. The place went pretty crazy when that happened. But yeah I do agree with what you said Stogi. But I didn't get to match many matches so I don't know if there were a lot of blow outs. I know we only had like one really big blowout. So I think tomorrow morning and afternoon will be pretty interesting.

[blaxbb]

Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi

Hate to sound mean, and this is totally not what my team felt, but does anyone else see the big gap between good robots and not so good ones? Its a huge gap and its so frustrating having 1 or 2 weak links in our alliances. So frustrating. rawr. Totally not happy about this year so far. I love our robot but I still hate the game. No excitement in it.

No excitement? I doubt anyone really has a good idea of what is going to happen during eliminations. Personally I think that is going to make this year more exciting than ever. Compared to last year major upsets will be common, and who makes it to the finals should be (somewhat) a toss up.

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by blaxbb

Compared to last year major upsets will be common, and who makes it to the finals should be (somewhat) a toss up.

No offense but have we been watching the same matches? There's clearly a set of "dominant" robots and a set of the middle performers and lower performers. There's a point at which they merge for a bit but there is a definite transition.

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by Brandon_L

When it comes down to final selections and everything, do they go by whats on the PC or whats in writing?

Well, that depends. If you mean what does FIRST do, they go by rankings. But in this case, you are not a contender for top 8 seeds, so I think your question is "what do the teams picking their alliances go by...".

The naswer is their scouting. Rankings are mostly irrelevant and useless. The 11th ranked team might have gotten there by being incredibly lucky in alliance matchups, rather than actually being a good robot/driver/human/team. Similarly, the 57th ranked team might be very good but unlucky with alliances

So, experienced teams scout every other team. By that I mean they watch every match and see what each robot actually does. It does not matter what that team says they can do, either...they just observe actual results.

Come by 1676 pits Saturday and i'll explain in more detail.

Note that we have 12 people scounting every match (one for each robot, one for each human) and we compile all this data into a database...which is available to ANYone who wants it, all the time. Again, just ask. We also have little cards at the pit that explains how to access the database (it's on a wireless LAN connection - and yes, we have special permission)

Don