[FTC]: FTC Championships Results

[Abra Cadabra IV]

Inspire went to Team 32, Einstein's Daughters. They really, truly deserved it - I've never seen an FTC team go that above and beyond with outreach.

[Nitro-Guy]

Just got back from Atlanta... congratulations to the teams on the winning alliance! They played very well, and it was ironic that a pretty good imitation of our robot (2820 Longhorns) would end up beating us.

Power Surge had a great time competing, although we had a dissapointing end. We went undefeated in qualifying matches, despite dropping and breaking our primary robot laptop, having a battery charger break on us and a 12V battery burn up, and other strange problems that we didn't have all season. We were the #2 seeded alliance just before match 5/6, because #1 Unlimited had more ranking points than us and was also undefeated. So in match 5, we pulled one of our 2 puck-rack autonomous modes (which we've actually had since before the NJ regional, but have kept secret for strategy purposes ), so that in tele-op we could score for the other team and catch up on ranking points. We ended up winning that match 222 - 208, which was the highest individual and combined score at the World Championships. We ended up being the #1 seeded alliance going into elimination rounds, and won the semi-finals 2-0. However, during the last match of the semifinals, we somehow lost all communication with our robot, and it burned out both drive motors when it backed into a field wall and got stuck. We were able to replace both motors before our next match, however.

In the finals, everything went wrong. In the first match, a disconnected rotation sensor caused our autonomous mode to completely fail, and then we had a very strange problem that we still haven't been able to figure out. Even though the robot had full power in Autonomous mode, in tele-op mode the drive motors slowed to a snail's pace, even though we were using the same program and joysticks that had worked fine all day. This made it very easy for our opponents to block us, since we had enough trouble moving around without interference. Although we were still able to score some pucks, we lost the match by about 20 points. In the second match we had the same problem, except even worse. Our robot could only move at about 40-50% of its usual power, enabling our two opponents, working together, to keep us from scoring anything. Apparently our alliance partner lost communication with their robot, and so was not able to score either.

Ah well... that's the way it goes. We did the best we could, but some problems are just out of your control. It was a great and exciting competition, nonetheless. We had two awesome alliance partners for the elimination rounds, 121 Rhode Rage and 110 MFS Foxes, who were very gracious when our alliance was defeated because of our problems.

-Jonathan

[ptan]

Originally Posted by Nitro-Guy

So in match 5, we pulled one of our 2 puck-rack autonomous modes (which we've actually had since before the NJ regional, but have kept secret for strategy purposes ), so that in tele-op we could score for the other team and catch up on ranking points. We ended up winning that match 222 - 208, which was the highest individual and combined score at the World Championships.

Yes, we did notice your 2 puck-rack auto being pulled out of the hat on that match. We thought we had you guys on the match since we also ran our secret 2 puck-rack auto on that match to keep it close with you guys! Too bad our alliance partner couldn't score their one rack on auto on that match.

Good job, and we hope to meet you again on the field next year!

- Polar Bear Robotics, Team 27

[Nitro-Guy]

@ptan,

Lol, that's interesting. The funny thing is that I somehow didn't notice that you had scored 2 puck racks in autonomous, but thought you only got 1. So I was trying to score lots of pucks for your alliance without knowing how many points you really had! It almost cost us the match, but that's why the scores ended up being so close.

-Jonathan

[Buckles121]

Originally Posted by Nitro-Guy

Just got back from Atlanta... congratulations to the teams on the winning alliance! They played very well, and it was ironic that a pretty good imitation of our robot (2820 Longhorns) would end up beating us.

Power Surge had a great time competing, although we had a dissapointing end. We went undefeated in qualifying matches, despite dropping and breaking our primary robot laptop, having a battery charger break on us and a 12V battery burn up, and other strange problems that we didn't have all season. We were the #2 seeded alliance just before match 5/6, because #1 Unlimited had more ranking points than us and was also undefeated. So in match 5, we pulled one of our 2 puck-rack autonomous modes (which we've actually had since before the NJ regional, but have kept secret for strategy purposes ), so that in tele-op we could score for the other team and catch up on ranking points. We ended up winning that match 222 - 208, which was the highest individual and combined score at the World Championships. We ended up being the #1 seeded alliance going into elimination rounds, and won the semi-finals 2-0. However, during the last match of the semifinals, we somehow lost all communication with our robot, and it burned out both drive motors when it backed into a field wall and got stuck. We were able to replace both motors before our next match, however.

In the finals, everything went wrong. In the first match, a disconnected rotation sensor caused our autonomous mode to completely fail, and then we had a very strange problem that we still haven't been able to figure out. Even though the robot had full power in Autonomous mode, in tele-op mode the drive motors slowed to a snail's pace, even though we were using the same program and joysticks that had worked fine all day. This made it very easy for our opponents to block us, since we had enough trouble moving around without interference. Although we were still able to score some pucks, we lost the match by about 20 points. In the second match we had the same problem, except even worse. Our robot could only move at about 40-50% of its usual power, enabling our two opponents, working together, to keep us from scoring anything. Apparently our alliance partner lost communication with their robot, and so was not able to score either.

Ah well... that's the way it goes. We did the best we could, but some problems are just out of your control. It was a great and exciting competition, nonetheless. We had two awesome alliance partners for the elimination rounds, 121 Rhode Rage and 110 MFS Foxes, who were very gracious when our alliance was defeated because of our problems.

-Jonathan

Yes, Congratulations to the winning alliance. Also, thank you Power Surge for giving us the opportunity to play with you guys. We all had great fun and we hope to see you next year!

[The Gritz Boys]

Hello Everyone,

Atlanta was a lot of fun and I have spent the last 18 years here so I speak from experience. All of the robots were extremely impressive and it seems as though the level of competition grows every year. After qualifying matches, we were one of three undefeated teams in the Edison division and because of a few tough breaks and our robot disconnecting we were unable to rack up a lot of rank points. As a team we decided to remain alliance captains when Team Unlimited chose us to join their alliance. They are a great team but we felt that we had a better chance to win with the Longhorns and Jr. Bomb Squad. This gave us the third pick and due to the great job of our scouts we picked two amazing alliance partners, the Longhorns or the Canadians as we began to call them, and the Jr. Bomb Squad.

We knew that we had a great alliance and knew that we stood a chance against the well-known PowerSurge, whose robot truly was amazing. Once the matches began we ran into an abundance of problems. First, in the semifinals one of our encoder motor wires fell out of place. This meant that our back gears were grinding with each other during autonomous mode which almost severely broke the robot. Also in the semifinals we began to notice that our robot started slowing down, mainly the drivetrain. We realized that the two motors were only running at between 15-25%. This gave us an added obstacle to overcome. We were bale to overcome Powersurge and their great alliance in two close matches by blocking them on low power.

In the final matches our autonomous mode was so severely off that we had to take ourselves out of the matches and allow our alliance partners to compete. We trusted them when we chose them and our choices paid off as they won the final two matches with their great driving and consistent autonomous modes.

We wanted to thank all of the teams for coming to Atlanta and it was a lot of fun.We hope to see you all next year!

-Brad

[SchrodingersCat]

Hi Brad/Roboraiders:

I just wanted to congratulate you on your success in the tournament. You guys had a great strategy, and a good robot to back it up. Congrats again.

I was one of the drivers in the last match, and I had fun playing against you guys - as scary/stressful as it was! :-)

What a great way to end your senior year of high school. (I wish I could have ended mine the same way, but oh well... hopefully there will be more robotics competitions in college.)

-Phyllis

[emmell]

Originally Posted by The Gritz Boys

We wanted to thank all of the teams for coming to Atlanta and it was a lot of fun.We hope to see you all next year!

-Brad

Great post Brad. Congratulations to you, Josh, and the rest of the RoboRaiders as well as 2820 and 92. It was great following you from the TN tournament to GA, then to the Dome (Jr. Bomb Squad was also awesome in TN as well). I knew you had a shot but didn't think you had the chance over PowerSurge. When you played that awesome defense on them in that semi, it was inspiring. I had a nice chat with Mrs. B. on Friday after the ceremony and we look forward to working with you next year.

[DM 121]

Originally Posted by Nitro-Guy

Ah well... that's the way it goes. We did the best we could, but some problems are just out of your control. It was a great and exciting competition, nonetheless. We had two awesome alliance partners for the elimination rounds, 121 Rhode Rage and 110 MFS Foxes, who were very gracious when our alliance was defeated because of our problems.

-Jonathan

Team 121 had a great time teaming up with you guys, and cant wait to see you next year in NJ again! Great Job This year!