Look Back: Week 3, Predictions: Israel, and More.

[Bomberofdoom]

Hello everybody! - from team 2230.

I'm here to present to you the results of the 2009 Israel Regional FIRST Robotics Competition, as compared to the predictions in this post.

Before I begin, just to let you know that I'm not sure I'll remember all of the details and might confuse with other stuff, but I know there are some other Israeli CD users who will gladly help me out with that.

So, here we go:

Tuesday, the practice day, was not too successful for the teams and for the Field Mangment Crew. Lots of teams had to fix technical issues in their robots and there we a lot of Communication problems with the field and the robots. After a few first practice matches, where a lot of robots didn't move due to those connectivity problems, the event organizers decided to call all robots to the field and do go through a connectivity inspection (and that was also after the WPA update that teams had to go through before going up to the field). About 10 teams failed the inspection and were personaly taken care of in the pits after the inspection (Which took 5 full hours to go through 47 teams!). After that, the practice matches continued. We had some robot issues such that the cable connecting to the access point was a bit loose, so it got disconnected after we abruptly stopped after the autonomous period and we thought it was a field problem again.

End of Day 1.

Wedensday, first day of qualification matches, was a bit of a dissapointment for some teams. A lot of matches where rookie teams were involved were missing those rookie teams, who apparently were still working on their robots. There were some veteran teams who didn't show up too. Because they were not present, a lot of matches have been decided from the begining, yet some matches proved that 2 robots working together in team work can beat 3 robots storming over the robotless trailer(!).

The final match of the day was the most intense match ever.
Miscar - 1574 were against Thunderbots - 2630. Miscar and the Thunderbolts were tied up very close, with the Thunderbots in a minor lead. 20 seconds call. Miscar's alliance shoots a Super Cell into Thunderbots trailer, putting Miscar into the advantage. Immediately after that, Thunderbot's alliance shoots a Super Cell themselves, brining back thier lead. But just before the end of the match, Miscar's alliance shoots another Super Cell, brining them to victory.

End of day 2.

Thursday, the final day. All matches went well. Miscar had some robot/field issues which brought them down from 1st place to 3rd place on the ranking list.

The main powerhouse robots from the Qualifications who were in the Eliminations were 1574, 2630, 2231, 2669, 1690, 1657 and 1946.

2630 took 1574 to their alliance, what was supposed to be the most feared alliance in the Eliminations. 1690 was also a very powerful bot who was picked by a 2nd seeded rookie team(!).
All of the those teams I've mentioned were titled the best robots in the regional.
In the quarter finals, 1574 and 2630 (with 1579) were against 2669, 1577 and 2215. In one of the two matches they've won, 1574 was unstoppable, pushing 1577 as it wanted to all the way from the center to one of the corners and poured all their Moon Rocks into their trailer. There was nothing 2669 could've done to save 1577 from 1574 scoring them.
1690 special swerving drivetrain was deffinatly too much for 2211's alliance and they advanced to the Semis.
1946 - Mishka Monsters - were very good with defense and pushing and that was our alliance's (1657 as captain, 2230 and 2214) fear. We planned on having 2214 use thier pushing power to ground one the lesser strong robots so 1657 and us will be able to score on them.
We were quite shocked when in the game 2212 has pushed 2214 to one of their corners, allowing their thrower to score about 6 Rocks into thier trailer. They were blocked there most of the game and we and 1657 had a difficult time trying to gain an advantage by scoring some more Rocks our selves. By luck, we came out winners with 54-52 (2 point difference!!!!) and our alliance knew that we cannot afford another close match like this where one of our bots was locked in the opposing thrower's station. We eventually won the quarters due to the opposite alliance's penalty.
2231 had a chance against 1690, but from my POV, they had some difficulties scoring which was one of the reasons they lost.

The most intense part came: We were faced against Miscar's alliance in the Semi-Finals. We witnessed their (I had to use this word :-D ) ownage from the previous matches and we knew that if we would let Miscar loose from our grasp, we would lose the match.
The first Semi-Finals match against them was just luck. Miscar got loose a few times and they nearly scored 1657 who had a bad battery and barley moved( ). It was just luck - we won again by a difference of 2 points: 64-62.
The second match was just amazing: Our driver had Miscar entirly locked in the opposite outpost and scored all the 6 balls we had. We received some balls onto our idle trailer from the opponent outpost thrower, but we didn't care; Miscar had to be stopped!
1657 did an amazing work of scoring even more Rocks into 1574 and 1579. 2214 passed the empty cell to our throwers and kept scoring more balls as it could.
We also won by luck: an empty cell has reached the opponent's fueling station and they did a terrible mistake - He took the EMPTY CELL from the rack and threw it to one of our trailers and THEN HE THREW THE SUPER CELL WHICH LED TO A G-22 PENALTY!!!!!!. Score: 52-30.

Going against 1690 in the Finals, we applied the exact same tactic on 1690, but it deffinatly was not enough to stop 1690. Thier amazing swerving drivetrain allowed them to escape from our grasp soo easly, yet we kept the pressure as much as we could, and the amazing scoring of our throwers and robots was what gave us the main advantage over them.
We had an opporunity in the second match in the Finals to throw a Super Cell into an opposing robot's trailer, but for some reason the drivers of 2214 who were blocking the robot near the fueling station decided to pull back just before the 20 seconed alert.
We thought we won, but we heard from the announcers that there was a chance of a turn of the tide due to a penalty.
Before they announced the winners, they said there was a difference of A SINGLE POINT.
Final results: 66-65 to the Red Alliance of 1657, 2230 and 2214.

These finals deffinalty showed that a good strategy can beat any excellent robot.

Congratz to all the teams in Israel for building an excellent robot. Congratz to Miscar for keeping up the amazing work of building excellent robots and reaching the finals. I hope that your defeat will not bring you too much sadness and that it will only make you stronger, wiser and even better for next year, because you are deffinatly one the most powerful teams in the Israeli regional and your name and reputation is what gives the other teams in Israel the Competitive Spirit to be even better.


Soo...where was your prediction about our robot, eh?

Atlanta, meet Team 2230 - Zecharia's Angels!!!!!!!!

[NickE]

Originally Posted by DBiehl

I know that there are at least two other undefeated teams as of right now (out of teams who have competed). 45 and 1747 both won their regionals without a loss.

971 is 12-0-3 after winning Silicon Valley.

[Tottanka]

The last match of the second day wasnt between 1574 and 2630 as Nir said, it was between 1574 and 1690 - where 1574 won.



Nir - Congratulations on your very well deserved Chairman's award - it was an honor to hear about your team's work...


to 1577, Steampunk's - congratulations for the EI award, and thanks for beeing aweosme partners at the Quarter Finals. Also 2215, we are looking forward to working with you next year!

Also - congratulations to Barak form MisCar 1574 for his Woodie Flowers Award! it was time for him to get this recognizance.

[Tottanka]

Originally Posted by assaf2b

Well I don't know about 1947, but 2669 were pretty tough at the Qualification tourney. We wanted to pick them as our 3rd robot (after having picked team 1690 which had an excellent robot with a good driver), but were too late.

They were invited in by a relatively weak alliance, and thus lost the competition pretty early.

1947 no longer existed this year due to funding issues...we are hoping to regain power and come back next year stronger than ever.

2669 has been ranked 10, and invited by the #5 and #7 alliances to join but refused. Ending up choosing 1577 and 2215 to join them and eventually losing to the #1 alliance on the Quarter Finals.

We also won the Imagery Award.

[eitang]

It was a great Reginal despite all the problems of the practice day.

The semi finals and finals were very difficult and i would like to thank our alliance partners 2230 Herzelia and 2214 Yemin Ord for the great games we had with them.

We'll see you all in Atlanta!!!

[wcamp1742]

Robowranglers truly are a force to be feared. Though they can be pinned, it's just scary knowing they can score 60 points on you in 6 seconds lol.

I think dallas realized what it takes to become a world champ. Can't wait to see what atlanta brings.