Michigan State Championship 2009

[Herodotus]

Originally Posted by 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.

I said the same thing to my team. I know it might be hard to believe that this event was better than past Atlantas or IRIs, but it is true. However, I have a feeling that means IRI and Atlanta are going to be even more intense this year as all of the awesome teams from around the country will be there too.

Big congrats to 217, 67, and 65. That was the scariest alliance I think I've ever seen, and you definitely deserve the win. Congrats to 217, 33, and 27 as well. Before the Chairman's Award was announced a couple of us on 910 predicted you three would be the winners, as you all have such fantastic programs.

A huge thanks to 469, and 703. You were both so high on our pick list and we were ecstatic to be paired with such great teams. I only wish hadn't had the control problems we did, or else we could have gone a lot farther. You guys absolutely did your job perfectly, so you can lay the blame on us for those losses (and the number 5 alliance for such awesome teamwork.)

Big thanks to 27 as well, for cheering our alliance on in our matches. You guys are such an awesome team, so the cheering for the red alliance a big boost to morale. I was utterly dumbfounded that you guys didn't get picked(along with some twenty other teams that could easily have been picked as well.) I know you don't have the best offense this year but running empty cells and scoring super cells could have changed the results of a number of matches. I suppose that is just the way the wind blows though. With such a deep field of play some great teams were bound to be left out of the picking.

Huge thanks to all of the volunteers and staff who made the event possibly. I was only there Saturday but it was run pretty smoothly from what I saw, especially for a much larger event compared to the districts. A big thanks also to all of the FiM staff. This has been the best season we've had so far, and a huge part of that was the new district set up. Our team loves having so many matches and the ranking meant that the best of the best got the chance to play at States.

Unfortunately we had to decline our invitation to Atlanta due primarily to a lack of funding, but we'll definitely be cheering everyone from back home. Good luck to all of the Michigan teams attending the Championship, and we'll see you all in the off season and next year.

[Huskie65]

Originally Posted by Barry Bonzack

There are many good teams at this event, which do you think is the best unselected team? My vote goes to either team 1701 or team 1. I'm a 27 fan as well.

There were so many Good teams left out.
1 27 47 123 494 818
Those are just some I remember. It just shows how deep the event really was. Any of those three together could win elsewhere.

[Huskie65]

Congratulations to the two Michigan Rookie All Stars! You both really deserved the award.
2771- Good Robot, one of the loudest teams there cheering not just for yourselves either, and not enough can be said about the web-cast you did for every Michigan event. Thanks!
2834- One of the best Empty Cell deliverers I’ve seen, very maneuverable, and as the 8th seed at championships made two great picks (33 68) and had one of the strongest alliances there.
Also Good luck to 27, 33, and 217 in ATL with Chairmans.

State Champs! Thanks Again 217 and 67!

[thefro526]

I'd have to say that the MSC was the most competitive event I've ever watched. It definitely was an excellent prequel to The Championship Event. Thanks a lot to Code Red Robotics for the Webcast!

[IKE]

Originally Posted by pathew100

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.

Thanks for the explanation. That actually makes a lot of sense. It must be very difficult to devise new scoring every year. This is still much better than 2006 where you had to wait on a guy with a stick that may or may not accidentally poke one of your balls out!

[Raumiester2010]

Originally Posted by 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

No Prob, Thanks for picking us

we gave the first alliance one hell of a run for their money, loosing by 2 ball in the first quarter final and 3 balls in the other

we will be at Atlanta (just need to finish rustling up the cash)

[JoeXIII'007]

Notes post-competition:

• Code Red was freaking awesome... the team, not the drink I had.
• Quality was of the highest degree at EMU, higher than I have seen pretty much ever.
• And seeing this was the first (and last) time I will see this game in person, kudos to the Game Design Committee for a very dynamic and high speed game.

Congrats:

• 217, 65, 67 on winning the competition. 217: you had an amazing looking machine.
• 904, 247, 548 and 1918 on being finalists. 548: another nice robot out there. 1918: being a 3 year old team from my dad's hometown of Newaygo (been camping up there too before), it is incredibly inspiring and just plain awesome you almost went all the way. Kudos.
• 27, 33, 217: Well deserving teams for the CA. Congratulations and good luck in Atlanta!!!

Well... back to work and college for me. It has been fun. Good luck to everyone going to Atlanta!!!

[johnr]

People not in Michigan probably can't appreciate the depth of this field. When 65 is the last pick and they could of formed two more alliances,easily,with great teams,you knew this was something special. If they do this next year, and i hope so, it will be even better. Teams will know that the only way to be sure you will be in elims is to be in the position to pick and they will take everything up a notch.
I also enjoyed being able to see all of the chairmans displays.Seeing what it takes to be a great overall team was eye opening and if one team says,"We can do this" it was successful.Yes,on the field it was about the bots,but when the chairmans champs were announced they recieved their just rewards and maybe more sincerly then sometimes in atlanta. Maybe some ballons next year. Well done FiM.

[Andrew Schreiber]

I just have to post a "wow" story about 2771 because in the last 6 years of FRC I have never seen (well heard really) anything like it. I was sitting talking to one of the mentors on 65 (an old family friend) during the quarterfinals. When the match started I stood up to take some pictures as is my hobby. At some point during the match a couple (I want to say 2) members of Code Red came over and started cheering for the Huskies. Almost immediately the section went from excited to over the top excited. As a result of all the noise my head started pounding. Thanks for the headache Code Red

No seriously, Code Red do not lose that passion or the fire. I can't wait to see you guys light up the Georgia Dome. Best of luck.

I also want to say congratulations to the GM teams, now if only GM could build cars that were as dominant as those robots. (This is a joke and is not meant in any way shape or form as an insult to those teams or to GM)

Congratulations teams 217 and 33 and 27 on the Chairman's Award win, go make Michigan proud. (More than you already do)

[RyanCesiel]

Team 245 was very happy to see Mr. Hildebrandt win WWJ/Kettering University's FIRST Teacher of the Year Award for all his hard work. Check out the front page of our website!

[fuzzwaz]

I just want to give a shout out to alliance number 5. I don't think anyone thought they had the power to take down 65, 67, and 217, during that first match, and the second match could have easily had swayed either way..

Also, Alliance 8 played strong against the Chickens and the Hot team in the first round.

In the end, I congrats team 65, 67, and 217, and good luck to everyone in Atlanta!

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by fuzzwaz

I just want to give a shout out to alliance number 5. I don't think anyone thought they had the power to take down 65, 67, and 217, during that first match, and the second match could have easily had swayed either way..

Also, Alliance 8 played strong against the Chickens and the Hot team in the first round.

In the end, I congrats team 65, 67, and 217, and good luck to everyone in Atlanta!

Not quite, if anyone was on Gameday you would have seen the debate we had going on. Many of us knew 5 would put in a tough fight and it was close.

[AudreyHealy]

Congrats all teams that participated in the competition! Though our team was not selected, I had a great time watching the last matches! I know I made many friends while scouting, and hope to meet up again in the fall. Again, excellent job teams- you did Michigan proud!

[Tyler Hicks]

Congrats to 67, 217, and 65 for yet another win. It was very fun, and you are a very good alliance to go against. By far, MSC was the most competitive competition i have ever been to.

I am so glad that we qualified for the National Championship. Do you guys think that Nationals might be a little easier than MSC? Some of the greatest teams are in Michigan alone, and a lot of teams going to nationals just signed up for it. Regardless, there are going to be strong teams there.

[J-Brock]

I was suprised on how most of the power house teams were placed lower in the ranks during the compitition.