Michigan State Championship 2009

[robotlover]

This championship was amazing to watch thanks Code Red for streaming it! Congrats to Team 65, 67, and 217 you guys did great! Also congrats 217, 27, and 33 on winning chairmans! Can't wait to see all the qualifying teams in Atlanta!

[robostangs548]

To sum this event up for team 548... One word... AMAZING! Though we did not get picked in the elimination rounds, we were luckily called into play for the final match of the competition.... We felt bad that we did not have to compete in the matches prior to be in the finalist alliance, but we did feel that we were doing our part in helping them to compete in that last match... Thank you to the entire alliance, 247, 1918, and 904. I thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to help out. I wish that we could have came out victorious, but some things happen that none of us expect. Thanks. Congratulations to teams 67, 217, and 65 on winning the Championship. Here at team 548 we are always trying to improve, and we will definitively be working hard to do so over this next week and a half. Great job to everyone, and we are excited to see you all at the Championship in Atlanta.

[tsiersema]

You are Welcome 548, if it wasn't for you we would have been humiliated with the fact that we didn't have a working robot and the score would have been outrageously beat. Your team was a good team to be called in. We had an excellent alliance selection. Team 1918 is going to Atlanta, Georgia to the Georgia Dome and competing their. Congrats to the other MI Champ. that qualified for nationals. Well I will see you all there.

[Beth Sweet]

Team 1504 had a great time this weekend, thanks to all who enjoyed the weekend with us!

On a side note, my parents were running pit admin, and while we turned in the "non-identifyable items" to FIRST, Team 453, we have one of your jumpsuits at our house. If someone from that team can PM me a snail mail address, my dad will mail it to you.

I guess FiM has completed an entire season, now time to evaluate the pilot (in a separate thread).

[Richard Wallace]

This was my first time at a Michigan FRC event. I'd heard the field is strong here, and now I know that it's true!

Congratulation to FTA Kate on a well-run event -- the volunteer team is every bit as deep and talented as the competing teams, and it showed in their ability to keep the competition moving on schedule in spite of some technical struggles. (Aside: my own experiences at Midwest and St. Louis earlier this season, along with what I saw of the MI Champs today, make me believe that the robot control system and FMS changes for 2009 have been a very positive step for FRC.)

Congrats also to the winning alliance 217, 67, 65. As others have said, they are a scary-strong combination -- but the field sure made 'em earn it today!

BTW, I noticed two out-of-state mercenaries wearing Thunderchicken regalia, lurking near the 217 pit. Can anyone identify these characters?

[JackN]

Wow what an amazing event. There were so many great matches and amazing moments this weekend I can't even put them all down. First of, congrats to 217, 67, and 65 for winning the whole event, that was one of the most hard fought victories I have ever seen. I would like to apologize to 1918, 247 and 904 (and 548). When I heard the two teams that 1918 picked I laughed and figured they would get knocked out in the first round. MAN I WAS WRONG. Their alliance played the game and worked together as well as any three teams I have ever seen. Your alliance really impressed me and I will never ever doubt you three again. Team 1918, you have gotten better at every single event and I am scared to see what you do at Atlanta. I know at more the one moment I yelled during elims (which was a bad idea because I have had a terrible cold that prevented me from coaching) that the event could not get any better, but I was wrong. Also congrats to 27, 217 and 33. All three of you have great programs and really deserve your Chairman's Awards. One more congrats to 2771, you guys are my favorite ROOKIE team this year, I am continually impressed by how you guys get FIRST. What an awesome event, I can't wait until next year.

[IKE]

What a cool event. I was not able to attend in person, but watched from afar, and it was extremely entertaining to watch. I really liked the way the elims played out (wait didn't 33 loose in the first round???). Yep, I liked it because almost every single match was close. At this size of an event, the serpentine works well for evening up the field without the number 1 alliance getting a dud. In my book there were a ton of great teams still sitting on the sidelines. The only thing that could have been better would have been a couple more qualifying rounds.
Oh and a more accurate way to do real time scoring. I understand how tough it is, and I am not knocking the crew doing it, it was just tough as a spectator to have to wait several minutes (for almost every match) to know who won.

All in all very cool event and congratulations to all who participated in it.

[LWakefield]

Team 1504, Who won the jelly bean count and how many were there?

[JackN]

Originally Posted by LWakefield

Team 1504, Who won the jelly bean count and how many were there?

Unfortunately, we were not able to continue our jelly bean competition because of some people having problems with the beans being out of their original packaging. I don't know how many there were actually in there, but apparently it was a lot.

[MishraArtificer]

I'm saddened about this competetion for only 2 reasons...

One: The stands still had room left in them. This worries me.

And, Two: They wouldn't announce my gag parts request. I'm still looking for that box of self-sealing stembolts.

EDIT: Who won the best button contest?

[JHay]

Whew! Just got back from MSC and man am I pumped for nationals. Congrats to teams 65, 67, and 217 for placing 1st. You really turned our trailer into a "snow-cone". Thank you teams 904 and 247 for being in our alliance. Most importantly, thank you team 548 for taking over for 904 while they tried to figure out what (loose plug...LOL! ) was wrong with their bot.

To any other teams that noticed, our ball collector did not work during the last half of the final match due to a certain KEY that fell out of a sprocket...Oops!

Hope to see all that qualified or registered for Atlanta.

[Chris Hibner]

In my 13 years in FIRST, I have never seen a competition as good as this one. That includes all of the nationals, Championships, and even IRIs. The quality of robots and teams in this event was absolutely amazing. I swear that you could have taken three teams that didn't even make it to the eliminations and they could have won a number of regionals this year.

A HUGE thanks to 217 and 67 for picking us. We had some unusual robot problems during quals, so we thank you for watching closely and believing in us.

Another big congratulations to all of the teams, because everyone made this the BEST competition in the HISTORY of FIRST.

[Ed Law]

Thank you Team 33 and Team 68. You guys were amazing partners. We gave the number 1 alliance two great close matches.

I also want to thank Team 33, 469 and 302 for mentoring and helping us through our rookie year, Team 67 for helping us start two FLL teams in our school district, Team 217 for useful ideas on team organization and Team 1885 for helping us with our Rookie All-Star and Entrepreneurship Award Submission.

We had an amazing run so far this year. Thank you to all the teams who were our alliance partners at Traverse City, Detroit and the State Championship. We could not have done it without you. Our kids had a lot of fun this weekend.

We will be delivering empty cells all the way to Atlanta!

Ed Law

[Wayne TenBrink]

The MI state championship was certainly the high point of the season. EMU (GLR) is a great venue for something of this scale. Thanks to all the volunteers who made everything run smoothly. It was also nice to see the dignitaries from FIRST.

Congratulations to 217, 67, and 65. You are all tough alone. Together you are just about impossible! Congratulations also to 27, 33, and 217 on the Chairman's awards.

Thanks to 247 for the omnipresent defense with scoring to boot. Thanks to 904 for the potent offense with defense to boot. Thanks to 548 for stepping in on short notice. We worked well together and were bigger than the sum of the parts. Thanks also to BOB (85) and the Martians for all the material, moral, and mental support. Thanks to everybody else for all your kind words & support. This whole season has been like a dream for us.

We didn't quite get the East vs. West shootout, but we got 2 of 3 on each side in the finals (and we lost - bummer).

Otis is collecting his share of battle scars and starting to shed small parts (we need a better checklist). We added up how many matches we have played in (practice, qual, & elim) and its well over 80, thanks to the FiM district/state format. I think this has been a good development.

ON TO ATLANTA! I don't see how the competition there can come close to what we saw this weekend, but we plan to find out!

[pathew100]

Originally Posted by IKE

Oh and a more accurate way to do real time scoring. I understand how tough it is, and I am not knocking the crew doing it, it was just tough as a spectator to have to wait several minutes (for almost every match) to know who won.

This gets back to some of the field 'issues'. We had static problems with the scoring controllers all weekend. Mostly the ones for Blue trailers (which score for the Red alliance). When they get knocked out, they reset when they reboot. This usually takes about 15-20 seconds.

That's why you would sometimes see big jumps in the final scores. The scorer is usually watching the play, so they may not notice that it resets during the match. So if they've counted 10 balls, then it resets, and they count 7 more, at the match end they'd have a count of 7 before doing the manual trailer count. Then they would count the trailer, enter the correct total and commit.

One of our FTAA's would usually go over to make sure the controller came back up at the end of the match if it hadn't rebooted yet. Rest assured, we would watch the counts on the FMS to make sure they were correct and committed before committing the final score.