2009 Connecticut Regional

[artdutra04]

Originally Posted by whytheheckme

Sabrina did go onto the field and start playing with wires inside of (126 if I'm not mistaken)'s robot.

Not sure if it was coincidence, but the bot started operating again immediately after she touched it

I was sitting ten feet away from the robot in question (it was not 126) during that match, and absolutely no contact was made with the robot!

[.:Brianna:.]

The Firebirds really enjoyed their first time at the CT Regional. We're hoping to come back next year. Congrats to team 236 on winning Chairman's! We'll be competing with you guys for the National Chairman's in ATL!!!

[smurfgirl]

Originally Posted by dsmoker

Thanks to Sue Glasspiegel, Mike Sperber, the Kentfields (great job, Jack!!) and all the hardworking volunteers who make the CT regional a great event year after year. While we were disappointed that we didn't fare a little better in the rankings (why oh why does that alliance pairing algorithm hate us so much???), it's always fun competing and seeing all our FIRST friends, and we were honored and thrilled to receive Friday's Judge's Award. Hope to see many of you in Atlanta (where we are praying the algorithm treats us a little better!!)

It's always frustrating seeing some of the alliances randomly selected- take matches 57 (178/177/228 vs. 1902/999/2785) and 58 (126/230/176 vs. 1665/2265/1403) for example- look at the disparity between the years the teams on the red alliance vs. the years the teams on the blue alliance have existed. I know that older does not always mean better, but it came as no surprise to me that the red alliance won both of those matches.

Also, what was your team getting filmed for in the morning Saturday? I didn't want to interrupt to ask, and I didn't get the chance to come visit your pits later in the day.

[Greg Marra]

Originally Posted by smurfgirl

It's always frustrating seeing some of the alliances randomly selected- ... but it came as no surprise to me that the red alliance won both of those matches.

Such is probability.

Originally Posted by Eric O

Contact or not, the idea of going on the field is outrageous. It is extremely unsafe!

I wholeheartedly agree. Guess who wins in a fight between a 140 pound robot and you?

[artdutra04]

Originally Posted by smurfgirl

It's always frustrating seeing some of the alliances randomly selected- take matches 57 (178/177/228 vs. 1902/999/2785) and 58 (126/230/176 vs. 1665/2265/1403) for example- look at the disparity between the years the teams on the red alliance vs. the years the teams on the blue alliance have existed. I know that older does not always mean better, but it came as no surprise to me that the red alliance won both of those matches.

Also, what was your team getting filmed for in the morning Saturday? I didn't want to interrupt to ask, and I didn't get the chance to come visit your pits later in the day.

The thing with "random" matches is that every now and then you get "super alliances" about just as often as you get "rookie alliances". FIRST tried doing an algorithm to "randomly" seed a team into each alliance based upon team number in 2007, but that plan met a lot of resistance from the FIRST community and was discontinued after that season.

FIRST matches aren't truely random. If they were, you might have to play back to back matches. Things like minimum match separation eliminate some of the randomness, and the more criteria you add into the algorithm, the less the results are actually random.

So yes, sometimes you are on the winning side of "lopsided" alliances, and sometimes you are on the losing side of "lopsided" alliances. But as more and more qualification matches are played out, the "average lopsided factor" will converge towards nearly even alliances. It's like flipping a coin a lot of times in a row. For a while, it may seem like it's landing a lot more often on heads than tails, but as you keep going it'll converge to 50/50.

[Elgin Clock]

To add to the discussion Art has mentioned about the alliance pairing generating software, you can follow the conversation discussed here:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=66361

You can see that this year's system is a huge improvement over previous years (starting in that specific thread with a discussion of 2008's software) following the dates of the posts, & just keep in mind that every year something is improved to help fix a "hiccup" that is found.
It's a progression, & I even added one suggestion to the end of the thread there for next year as well already.

This is what we call a living system at it's finest!

[Nick Rixford]

well, driving for team 126 has been the most thrilling experience of first for me, those couple errors we had wen our robot was not working, we had no code, i tried moving the joysticks back and forth to see what was going on, one of the field advisor's came over to us and asked what was going on, i thought that they were going to stop the match but we randomly got our wireless back....a match before that our robot shut off in the last 25 seconds, she said that it was a power problem but it worked after that, it was a one time only deal....as for the randomizer....we had great alliances all around....and the worst team we had to face was 1155 in our second match, on day 2 we teamed with 175, and 121, but never had to face them, 694, or others....i guess things just worked out our way after all! great job 1902 and 1155 it was an awesome regional....also, great job to all the other teams that were there i had sooo much fun!

[KathieK]

Our local Fox station carried the event throughout the weekend on its news, and has an article and photo gallery here: http://www.fox61.com/pages/landing_n...034&feedID=341

[artdutra04]

WTNH had a piece on the competition as well, as well as video and some photos.
http://www.wtnh.com/dpp/news/news_wt...r_200903281827

[AcesPease]

First Big Thanks to the organizers for putting on a first class event and helping us all through the field difficulties without really missing a beat or any rounds.

Second Congratulations to all the winners, especially the Techno Ticks and the Champions (126, 1155, and 1902).

Special Thanks also to 181 and 716 (especially Andy for being the only adult on the field) great job out there, you almost got that second win!

More thanks go out to the strong backs from 1071 and 181 who helped pick up the field.

And finally a comment about the pairings: Any team that has been in this 3 years or longer is a legit veteran. The differences become what they have to work with as far as mentors, students and money. Those factors vary a little less for numbers 1-200 because the teams with marginal support are mostly gone now, but the level of support for the teams can vary a lot even among the "old" teams. And that level of support can vary a lot from year to year as students and mentors come and go.

Originally Posted by artdutra04

The thing with "random" matches is that every now and then you get "super alliances" about just as often as you get "rookie alliances". FIRST tried doing an algorithm to "randomly" seed a team into each alliance based upon team number in 2007, but that plan met a lot of resistance from the FIRST community and was discontinued after that season.

FIRST matches aren't truely random. If they were, you might have to play back to back matches. Things like minimum match separation eliminate some of the randomness, and the more criteria you add into the algorithm, the less the results are actually random.

So yes, sometimes you are on the winning side of "lopsided" alliances, and sometimes you are on the losing side of "lopsided" alliances. But as more and more qualification matches are played out, the "average lopsided factor" will converge towards nearly even alliances. It's like flipping a coin a lot of times in a row. For a while, it may seem like it's landing a lot more often on heads than tails, but as you keep going it'll converge to 50/50.

[dsmoker]

Originally Posted by smurfgirl

It's always frustrating seeing some of the alliances randomly selected- take matches 57 (178/177/228 vs. 1902/999/2785) and 58 (126/230/176 vs. 1665/2265/1403) for example- look at the disparity between the years the teams on the red alliance vs. the years the teams on the blue alliance have existed. I know that older does not always mean better, but it came as no surprise to me that the red alliance won both of those matches.

Also, what was your team getting filmed for in the morning Saturday? I didn't want to interrupt to ask, and I didn't get the chance to come visit your pits later in the day.

Ellen,

We were fortunate enough to be chosen as one of two teams (Aces High was the other) being filmed in live remotes for WTNH. They went on at 6:00, 6:30, 7:00 and 7:30 that morning, with us and Aces alternating. The crew was so taken with the whole event that they ended up staying and filming some of the competition, as well as additional interviews with one of our team members and one of Aces High's students. You can see some of the video on the WTNH site.

Sorry that you didn't get a chance to come visit us, but I'm sure volunteering kept you plenty busy. And just say a little prayer for us that the algorithm gods favor us in Atlanta. It will be only our second time down there (2007 after we won the regional with you guys being the other), and I'd really like it to be an exceptional experience for our 6 seniors in every way possible.

[Marc P.]

WFSB (Channel 3) did a few stories on the event too-

One of them is here- http://www.wfsb.com/video/19032311/ (this was the one also aired by CNN on Headline News that Kathie linked to earlier)

They also have the uncut video they took available here- http://www.wfsb.com/video/19035554/

[Faith]

Originally Posted by smurfgirl

It's always frustrating seeing some of the alliances randomly selected- take matches 57 (178/177/228 vs. 1902/999/2785) and 58 (126/230/176 vs. 1665/2265/1403) for example- look at the disparity between the years the teams on the red alliance vs. the years the teams on the blue alliance have existed.

Our first match was pretty stacked too (match 6, 121/1100/1124 vs. 2168/558/2497), though it didn't have all low numbers. Technically, at this regional, 1100 and 1124 were in the upper half of robot numbers I think.

[Rob]

Wow what an awesome and exciting regional!

Lots of teams on their second events, and many of them made upgrades and improvements on Thursday! We would like to thank Daniel from team 1729 for providing information and advice that helped us create our "fan boost" upgrade. http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=76303

Huge congrats to the Chairman's winning Techno Ticks, 236, as well as to the event champions 126, 1155, 1902.

The defense was stifiling, and we were truly lucky to end up in the draft position we did. We owe that to the great support from our partners in the qualifying matches. It was unfortunate that our alliance ran into technical problems in the elimination rounds, but these things happen. We would like to offer huge thanks to 694 and to 173 for giving it everything you folks had, even though things were not going well for our alliance.

Things happen that you simply can't predict. 694 was the top performing team in qualifying, there were an unstoppable force all of Friday and Saturday morning. Your team deserved to be the #1 selection and certainly earned that spot with your dominance.

Even if the technical issues had not reared their ugly head, we were in for some extremely tough semifinal matches against the 126, 1155, 1902 alliance. That group played at the level of an Einstein caliber alliance in earning victory at CT. The finalist alliance of 1100, 175, 743 was a monster as well. There was no room for error in the elimination rounds.

If only there had been more seating so more spectators could join in the spectacle that was the CT regional this year!

Can't wait to see everyone in Atlanta!

[KathieK]

Did anyone happen to video any of the awards ceremony on Sat afternoon?