What happened at IRI?

[Josh Hambright]

I noticed something during the competition that kinda seemed odd to me... With all the super powerful robots moving the carpet around and everything... the carpet was actualy stretched and moved thus making the lines in a different place.
Then when at the end of the match they got out the straight edge to see if the goal was across the line it seemed odd since the line had moved about 3 or 4 inches during the match...
Isn't the tape just a marker for where the line should be and the actual line is a distance... or is the line where ever the tape is when the match is over.

Prolly a dumb question but just something i was wondering about....

From team 461 congrats to everyone for an awsome 2 days of competition. I thought there were matches at IRI this year that were better then any of the matches from a spectators perspective then alot of the matches at the 3 regionals our team made it to..

also thankyou to Technokats and cyber blue for putting it on and making it such a great time.

Cant wait till next year


Josh
(the guy with the mohawk)

[Jnadke]

But anyways... as for the Final matches. 998 is Truck Town Lady Thunder, which is team 68's other bot.

Match 1 (111 & 71 vs 201 & 469): Heroicly fought. 71 grabbed all 3 goals. 469 grabbed the right 2 goals and pushed back, while 201 pushed from the side of Beatty. Beatty has the file card stuff on their hind wheels so that tore the carpet. 111 spent it's time opposing 469.

Had there been no DQs... 201 and 469 would still have won... 14 vs 20 I think.

Match 2 (71 & 93 vs 469 & 998): Crowd was wild. 71 grabbed 2 goals off the bat. 469 opposed them from the front I believe, and shut off. So then 93 helped push Beatty into scoring positon from the rear, but then 998 took it one step further and pushed Beatty all the way into the robot scoring position. Due to their arms, 1 goal was still in scoring position. Then, 93 moved the remaining goal in scoring position, and then returned home with 30 seconds left. 998 was under confusion and hesitantly decided (or maybe they had problems?) to push the goal out of scoring position, into the neutral zone, but didn't make it back home in time (heh - they should have just kept pushing to score).

In the end, 71 and 93 won, 20 to 21. 1 human player ball made it into beatty's goal.

Match 3 (111 & 71 vs 201 & 469): Beatty only grabbed 1 goal, because 201 and 469 went in between the goals in a daring move and intercepted their arms. Unfortunately 201 was driving with their grabber out and got stuck on the cables that 71 uses to reel in their grabbers. They were caught for about a minute and eventually became untangled. 201 was able to send-home at the end. 111 spent its time occupied with 469... I forget how they did tho... too busy watching 201.

Score I forget what it would've been. I know 71 and 111 would have won score-wise, but the entanglement was accurately called, so 201 and 469 won.

[Jnadke]

Originally posted by Don
Actually our first DQ was for carpet damage. We had a damaged cleat on our treads that caught a snag while we were giving 71 a wedgie.
The 2nd DQ was kind of strange b/c it wasn't really "intentional." The goal got pulled on us, but since it happened so many times and we didn't really do anything to pull out we got DQ'd.

lol... a wedgie.

One time the goal got pulled up on you by 469. Baker explained he didn't call you for that. But soon after you guys drove into the goal and that one he called you for. That's what I meant by intentional. I know they were probabaly aiming for 469, but I guess they missed.

[KevK]

sounds like it was a lot of fun and really interesting, maybe almost as interesting as battlecry, i still think thats the best but maybe i'll change my mind when i see the videos. nice job 469, i wish it could have happened in nationals, you guys have an awesome goal bot! i can't wait till the maryland state fair, there should be a lot of good matches!

[Dave Flowerday]

Match 1 [...] Had there been no DQs... 201 and 469 would still have won... 14 vs 20 I think.

Except that 71 was actually disabled during the match, which prevented them from moving forward with the other goal and/or deploying their tounge. Had they not been DQed they wouldn't have been disabled either and likely the score would have been different.

[Libby Ritchie]

The final match was a wild one! Though I felt bad that it had to end that way, I thought that the refs decision was accurate.

As someone said earlier, if this was at a regional or national competition, the refs would have let it go. WHY IS THAT???

Thanks to the Beach Bots for traveling all the way from CA!!!

Good job to all that came to the IRI! And thanks again to Lawrence North and McKenzie for letting us use their gym!

[DanLevin247]

Did anybody have problems with their robots at IRI?

We sure did. We have three wheels, each powered by their own drill motor, with a solenoid shifting system for low/high gear. One of our wheels was stuck in low the whole time, so we had to run the whole robot in low gear the whole time. We also had a match where our robot was bugging out, I've never seen our team use the "robot reset" button so much!

[Jnadke]

Originally posted by Libby Ritchie
The final match was a wild one! Though I felt bad that it had to end that way, I thought that the refs decision was accurate.
As someone said earlier, if this was at a regional or national competition, the refs would have let it go. WHY IS THAT???

Haha... that was me. I was referring to the first match where they were DQ'ed for ripping the carpet. They were so lenient at nationals.

[Clark Gilbert]

I uploaded some pictures from IRI to the gallery here.

Overall IRI was great, although the ending was some what odd and the amount of DQ's was really odd, even though most if not all were right calls (carpet damage; man our carpet is messed up
)

You werent the only team having robot problems, i think our treads fell off about 4 times (which never happened @ regionals/nationals).

[Jnadke]

Originally posted by DanLevin53
Did anybody have problems with their robots at IRI?

We sure did. We have three wheels, each powered by their own drill motor, with a solenoid shifting system for low/high gear. One of our wheels was stuck in low the whole time, so we had to run the whole robot in low gear the whole time. We also had a match where our robot was bugging out, I've never seen our team use the "robot reset" button so much!

Haha... yeah, our robot was having lots of problems with the controls. We got the robot driving normally by our first match, and we finally got the switchbox working by our third match I think... so we were fully functioning then, but we still did poor because we didn't have our actual driver from the competitions driving the bot, since he didn't come and since the rule is at IRI... "anyone who wants to drive can drive"... the rest was up to the students. However, the students did agree among themselves to have the best driver drive the finals matches...

[DanLevin247]

Yeah. IRI was a really good time. Thanks to the host teams for having us! I think they should invest in better carpet for next year though!




P.S.


I met a lot of the CD users without even realizing it. . . Jnadke. . .I was the arm operator on 247 ( filling in for an absent drive team is hard! ) you told me about your robot when we were paired together. And I said hi to DJ Fluck, but he was busy running around in his cape!

[JacobHart]

Teams that were in the Final Round at the IRI, were on local news last night. I am not sure if we can get copies yet, but email me and i will get back with you on that. Even with the close calls made at the end, the IRI was very exciting. If you were'nt there, you sure missed a great competetion. Congradulations to the Championship Teams!!!

(If interested in next years IRI, email me at, Cooolj2005@aol.com)

IRI rocked, although we were not in our ideal alliance, (sorry Ricky and D.J.) it was a good time.My only regret is having a solid robot.(knock on wood) Nothing will ever go wrong with it mechically so that i can fix it. I hate having nothing to do. Besides that it was a good opportunity for our team members to try their hand at a little driving. There was a lot of good competition, hits the spot for a FIRST addict. For those who weren't able to go, only 5 monthes til kick off.Good Luck!

[Caleb Osborne]

We were having problems most of the day. We would have a good run and then not so good and then good. One side would just stop or not go everyonce in a while. We couldn't figure out the problem. Then in our last match, before we took off, our shaft coming out of the atwood motor snapped. So we sat there the whole time. We didn't know the problem until we got back to the pits and took it apart. We still had a lot of fun.

[Eismann]

I'm on team 68 and I would like to say congrats to our girls for winning the IRI. But also a thanks to our pit crew for fixing both robots