Kettering Results from Week 2

[Tom Line]

Things I liked about the regional:

The volunteers and staff there were personable, and very fun to work with. I asked for a trailer on the practice field and had one in 5 minutes. I can't say enough about the couple ladies running the field (I wish I knew their names).

The access to the field was great - both before and after each day's activities we were able to go out onto the field, get measurements, see how stuff worked. It was nice taking the non-drive guys out to see that, along with some of the mentors.

The Webcast was awesome (Code Red really outdid themselves at this regional!)

The cooperation between teams was great to see. It was also nice to have judges that were slightly more knowledgable about First Robots this year. We were able to have great conversations with them about the robots and even discuss what they'd done in past years. HUGE ++++. Having Joe Johnson come to our pits to discuss control systems was awesome too.

Things I did not like about the regional (and please forgive a bit of my emotion):

The seating needs to be improved. The people who could not find seats ended up standing in front of the people who had seats on the bleachers. Later, one of the (great) volunteers brought chairs over and MADE them sit down. It was nice to finally be able to see again.

The electrical situation was borderline ridiculous. This was the first district for many people. We arrived on time on Thursday, only to find out that the central sections of the pits did not have power. That situation continued for a full hour after the pits opened. After they finally got power up, the electrician came around and told us that we were not allowed to use any plug-in power tools, because extension cords were powering that portion of the pits (and this had evidently been the plan from the beginning of the event???). To top it off, the teams along the outside walls of the venue WERE allowed to use theirs. This was extremely frustrating.

The rules. I don't mean to sound sour-grapes-ish. -See later posts for clarification of what was here-

Other than that, I'd say the District went off very well. Good job done by all, and it was very fun to compete against all the other teams.

[Jack Jones]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

Things I liked about the regional:

...
The rules. I don't mean to sound sour-grapes-ish. But the rules need to be applied evenly between all teams. If one team has a DS fault in the eliminations rounds and is told they must replace it in 3 minutes, then the other team in the same match with DS issues shouldn't be given another 10 minutes to fix their problems (with no timeout taken). Especially when the result is the team that fixed their issue in the alloted time goes out with a mostly non-functioning robot due to wires they didn't have "time" to connect. I can easily chalk this up to the new event, new controls, etc. However, for FIM to be taken seriously, rules have to be applied evenly and fairly.

Other than that, I'd say the District went off very well. Good job done by all, and it was very fun to compete against all the other teams.

The RED alliance was not given more time than BLUE to get the DS problems fixed. (gotta love that DS :-/

The situation was that BLUE's DS went bad first - before the first elimination match began, the problem was diagnosed and the FTAs brought out the spare and helped them replace it. As soon as it was fixed, the RED blinker came on
because one of theirs went out. Same as for BLUE, the RED DS was replaced by a spare, only to find that it had not been flashed. The so called extra time was charged to the field (their bad for not having the second one already flashed) Turned out that both sides had the same amount of extra time to connect/reconnect their electronics. How was that unfair?

[Tom Line]

Originally Posted by Jack Jones

The RED alliance was not given more time than BLUE to get the DS problems fixed. (gotta love that DS :-/

The situation was that BLUE's DS went bad first - before the first elimination match began, the problem was diagnosed and the FTAs brought out the spare and helped them replace it. As soon as it was fixed, the RED blinker came on
because one of theirs went out. Same as for BLUE, the RED DS was replaced by a spare, only to find that it had not been flashed. The so called extra time was charged to the field (their bad for not having the second one already flashed) Turned out that both sides had the same amount of extra time to connect/reconnect their electronics. How was that unfair?

Well that certainly seems fair to me. In fact, they pulled our second DS back from us as we were installing it because they were worried that IT was not flashed either.

The way that is was communicated on the field was that they had some other issue, and they had to either call in another robot or go. That whole deal took about 10 minutes (finding of initial fault, Paul giving the field explanation, etc). If it was the field's fault the whole time, that's a whole different story. . As you said: You've got to love those DS's. I hope having two go bad in the same elim match is lighting a big red light for First.

Nice job to 245, 70, and 2619. You guys were great.

[HighLife]

I'd also like to acknowledge our great team mates 70 and 2619. 70 had a great auton and 2619 was a defensive wonder. I remember playing 2619 during the last qualification match of the day and they made me feel totally helpless as a driver.

Originally Posted by Tom Line

The way that is was communicated on the field was that they had some other issue, and they had to either call in another robot or go. That whole deal took about 10 minutes (finding of initial fault, Paul giving the field explanation, etc). If it was the field's fault the whole time, that's a whole different story. . As you said: You've got to love those DS's. I hope having two go bad in the same elim match is lighting a big red light for First.

Nice job to 245, 70, and 2619. You guys were great.

Tom I was the alliance captain and I was just as confused. The head ref came over and said you either use one of your cards or you run with a dead robot on the field. I told him we'd go with the dead robot option and I had no idea why they gave us so much time.

By the way some of the match videos are up!:
http://vimeo.com/channels/adambots#3531366

I've still got most of the HD videos to render though, so stay tuned.