2009 BAE Granite State Regional

[NoahTheBoa]

Originally Posted by Daniel_LaFleur

Hopefully you'll get all the bugs worked out here and take home gold in LA and Hawai'i

And if y'all still need some help, let us know in Plan B (1729). We're always willing to help.

Thanks. We were able to get the bugs worked out just in time for our final qualification match thanks to 1831 for helping with the code today, and thanks to 1831, 1729, 138, 2342?(Phoenix Robotics, I think that's their #), and 811. Hopefully I didn't leave anyone out who helped, but we had so many people come by to help us out it was hard to keep track of it all.

In the end we went out on a high note with the Engineering Inspiration Award!
Congratulations to 121, 175, and 2621 for winning it all and to 20, 40, and 885 for competing to the end providing some very exciting finals matches.
One last congratulations to 1519 on the Chairman's Award win.

[angelc24]

I love FIRST. For over 8 years, I have been heavilly involved and have loved every moment of it. It has made me who I am today. This regional was the first time I have been upset at the way an official FIRST regional was run.

All yesterday and all today we were constantly having to replay matches 2 to 3 times. I want FIRST to make these regionals as fair as possible, and I do understand the need to replay matches with problems, but they were letting the match finish (when the loss of communciation happened 20 seconds into the match) and showing the score, before announcing that the match needed to be replayed.

As one of the teams who was 'de-allianced' in the second alliance pairings, we were all very upset. Our drivers were queing when they announced that there needed to be a second round of selection. We had kids who were crying in the stands. WE DO NOT BLAME THE TEAMS WHO WERE CHOSING FOR THIS. It is very upsetting to be on a team that was chosen for an alliance, to have worked out a strategy with these people, and then to have been told that you will not be competing again in that competition. The fact that the alliance selection had to be redone is almost unexcusable in my mind- it seems, to the observor, like a simple proofreading error.

I understand that there is a lot of stress going on for the scorers, the refs, the regional directors and everyone else involved with running that table, but it was just as stressful to be working as hard as you possibly could and to see everything taken out from under you, constantly

All in all, I love the teams in Manchester, I hope to compete with them again. Everyone was very friendly and helpful. I do hope that these problems will not occur again in the season, to others, because it was very upsetting to all of us to have to deal with them today.

[Mike Betts]

Originally Posted by Jeff Rodriguez

...and they watered the field.
Yes, they wet the carpet around the regolith to aid in the static problem. I think this is as close as we'll come to getting that water game we've been waiting for.

They also watered down the carpet at the operator's stations.

[bbr4d3r]

Congrats to 121, 175, and 2621 it was a well deserved win. And thanks for 40 and 885 for being such great alliance partners. I agree though, this regional was very poorly run. In my mind there was no excuse for that mistake with the team rankings and it is unbelievable that they had to redo the alliance selections. It is hard to believe that they would give teams the opportunity to go to the elimination rounds and then take it away 30 minutes later.

[Ian Curtis]

Aww man! For the first time we left early to keep on some sort of schedule (I submitted a scholarship application due at midnight at about 11:56 PM ... ) and I'm SO disappointed I missed 1519 winning the Chairman's award. Without a doubt, they are a class act team. We had the honor of playing with them in the elimination tournament today. We didn't get as far as we would've liked, but it was still way too much fun to be on the field with these guys.

Congratulations again, you guys deserve every inch of this Chairman's award. Good Luck in ATL!

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by iCurtis

Aww man! For the first time we left early to keep on some sort of schedule (I submitted a scholarship application due at midnight at about 11:56 PM ... ) and I'm SO disappointed I missed 1519 winning the Chairman's award. Without a doubt, they are a class act team. We had the honor of playing with them in the elimination tournament today. We didn't get as far as we would've liked, but it was still way too much fun to be on the field with these guys.

Congratulations again, you guys deserve every inch of this Chairman's award. Good Luck in ATL!

Thanks a lot team 1276, that means a lot. And a special thanks to team 87 for picking such a great alliance, but the outcome was unfortunate. Like how our digital side car was unplugged for the first match. We all had a great weekend and wish everyone well in the rest of the season.

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by angelc24

I love FIRST. For over 8 years, I have been heavilly involved and have loved every moment of it. It has made me who I am today. This regional was the first time I have been upset at the way an official FIRST regional was run.

All yesterday and all today we were constantly having to replay matches 2 to 3 times. I want FIRST to make these regionals as fair as possible, and I do understand the need to replay matches with problems, but they were letting the match finish (when the loss of communciation happened 20 seconds into the match) and showing the score, before announcing that the match needed to be replayed.

As one of the teams who was 'de-allianced' in the second alliance pairings, we were all very upset. Our drivers were queing when they announced that there needed to be a second round of selection. We had kids who were crying in the stands. WE DO NOT BLAME THE TEAMS WHO WERE CHOSING FOR THIS. It is very upsetting to be on a team that was chosen for an alliance, to have worked out a strategy with these people, and then to have been told that you will not be competing again in that competition. The fact that the alliance selection had to be redone is almost unexcusable in my mind- it seems, to the observor, like a simple proofreading error.

I understand that there is a lot of stress going on for the scorers, the refs, the regional directors and everyone else involved with running that table, but it was just as stressful to be working as hard as you possibly could and to see everything taken out from under you, constantly

All in all, I love the teams in Manchester, I hope to compete with them again. Everyone was very friendly and helpful. I do hope that these problems will not occur again in the season, to others, because it was very upsetting to all of us to have to deal with them today.

I originally had a complaint drawn up, but I didn't want 1519 to get dragged down in that. Frankly, we were shocked when you guys weren't "re-selected." According to our data, your robot/HP combination was in the top 10 for positive contributions to alliance scores.

I was told that 238 informed the scorer's table that the team rankings were incorrect. From across the way, it appeared that 121 may have been trying to do the same thing. Was someone closer to the scorer's table than I?

Overall, alliance selections were a trainwreck. Some picking teams and picked teams didn't know the rules of the draft, and it seemed like the scoring table didn't either. We got through them the first time. And then we all came back and did them again... I really didn't like this. While it didn't happen, what if a robot slipped through and someone stole them on the way back up. A team worth their salt wouldn't let it happen again. The scoring table should have had the up to date rankings. That's a pretty inexcusable error.


The play-by-play was not good. If you're going to use newbie play-by-play announcers, please, please team them up with veteran announcers. Poor play-by-play really drags down the quality of the event, especially to the outsiders we're trying to impress. Good play-by-play makes the regional sound like the exciting high-stakes high-energy competition it is, poor play-by-play makes it sound like some hokey high school thing.

[BrendanB]

We were also upset over the fact that we had to re-pick alliances mostly because we liked our alliance already, not to mention that the event was already far behind and we were looking forward to playing with 467 but it didn't work out

And the alliance name "The Mechanical Duct Taped Blitz" Just sounds cool

[Ryan Foley]

Originally Posted by iCurtis

I was told that 238 informed the scorer's table that the team rankings were incorrect. From across the way, it appeared that 121 may have been trying to do the same thing. Was someone closer to the scorer's table than I?

....

The play-by-play was not good. If you're going to use newbie play-by-play announcers, please, please team them up with veteran announcers. Poor play-by-play really drags down the quality of the event, especially to the outsiders we're trying to impress. Good play-by-play makes the regional sound like the exciting high-stakes high-energy competition it is, poor play-by-play makes it sound like some hokey high school thing.

238 was in the replay of match #60, which apparently wasn't correctly entered back into the system, putting them at a 6-2 record when it should have been 7-1.


All I can say about the announcing, put Grady back on the mic next year, he's one of FIRST's best game announcers. The two announcers at this years event sounded like it was their first time at a FIRST regional, not to mention that they just plain weren't good at announcing in general.

[Daniel_LaFleur]

Originally Posted by angelc24

I love FIRST. For over 8 years, I have been heavilly involved and have loved every moment of it. It has made me who I am today. This regional was the first time I have been upset at the way an official FIRST regional was run.

All yesterday and all today we were constantly having to replay matches 2 to 3 times. I want FIRST to make these regionals as fair as possible, and I do understand the need to replay matches with problems, but they were letting the match finish (when the loss of communciation happened 20 seconds into the match) and showing the score, before announcing that the match needed to be replayed.

As one of the teams who was 'de-allianced' in the second alliance pairings, we were all very upset. Our drivers were queing when they announced that there needed to be a second round of selection. We had kids who were crying in the stands. WE DO NOT BLAME THE TEAMS WHO WERE CHOSING FOR THIS. It is very upsetting to be on a team that was chosen for an alliance, to have worked out a strategy with these people, and then to have been told that you will not be competing again in that competition. The fact that the alliance selection had to be redone is almost unexcusable in my mind- it seems, to the observor, like a simple proofreading error.

I understand that there is a lot of stress going on for the scorers, the refs, the regional directors and everyone else involved with running that table, but it was just as stressful to be working as hard as you possibly could and to see everything taken out from under you, constantly

All in all, I love the teams in Manchester, I hope to compete with them again. Everyone was very friendly and helpful. I do hope that these problems will not occur again in the season, to others, because it was very upsetting to all of us to have to deal with them today.

Christina,

I have been involved in FIRST for 7 years now and I, too, am very disappointed at the way GSR was run.

Maybe we've been spoiled because GSR has always been one of the best run regionals around, with an excellent staff and very good competitors. Hopefully this year was just an abboration, and not a precurser of things to come.

Here's hoping that Karma smiles on the Duct Tape Bandits at Chesapeake.

[SGK]

Thanks to all teams who participated and a special thanks to Teams 121 and 2621 & Teams 20, 40 and 885 for making it an exciting finish and a great weekend!!!

In reading these posts I know that there is some negative sentament about how things did not go as smoothly as they could have but as Dean said, this is a "Development Program" and mimicks what goes on in the real world. Just think how bad some of my co-workers felt after they heard that the Orbiting Carbon Observatory that they worked so hard on fell into the ocean near Antartica last week!!!

[TheDark]

Yeah, I was quite irritated at the refs for not having updated the rankings based on the last match. However, it didn't matter really, as I still picked FORCE and Chop Shop. Actually, I was kind of glad that we didn't have to face 20 and 121 at the same time, but we still got stomped. Maybe we will do better in the off-season competitions.

[Daniel_LaFleur]

Originally Posted by SGK

Thanks to all teams who participated and a special thanks to Teams 121 and 2621 & Teams 20, 40 and 885 for making it an exciting finish and a great weekend!!!

In reading these posts I know that there is some negative sentament about how things did not go as smoothly as they could have but as Dean said, this is a "Development Program" and mimicks what goes on in the real world. Just think how bad some of my co-workers felt after they heard that the Orbiting Carbon Observatory that they worked so hard on fell into the ocean near Antartica last week!!!

First off, I'd like to congratulate Buzz, 121, and 2621 for their regional win.

Before our QF matches I believed that with our propellers we could pin anyone. Now I believe that we can still pin anyone ... but 121 won't be pinned for long, their machine and driver are incredible.

The machine from Buzz was outstanding and dominating, as usual. By the way, where did you guys find Larry Bird? That guy was hitting 20' jumpers everytime.

Also 2621 ... what a great robot and what a great addition to this championship alliance. Somebodies scouting was very good

[BHS Bucs]

Team 2621 sends thanks right back to Teams 121 and 175 for selecting us for their alliance. We are still in shock this morning that our second year team, not so recognized by the school yet and building in the back of a bio classroom, had the opportunity to compete with so many well-known and experienced teams - AND came home with an award. What a great final set of matches it was - to quote one of my students, "It's much more fun when the matches truly are a competition!" We had a blast in general - thanks to everyone for making that happen.

We were glad that the decision was made to allow several matches to be replayed - as one of the teams who sat dead in the water during our match, we couldn't believe we were loosing the chance to actually play. It was nice to be able to replay - even if we did loose (and what a great rematch #5 was!). We did feel that the FIRST officials tried to be fair and allow those matches to be replayed.

[shingkai]

I too would like to thank teams 121 and 175 for being such great alliance partners, and especially teams 20, 40, and 885 for some amazing matches. To a second year team like us, you guys and your truly amazing bots really put the inspiration in FIRST.