2010 Washington DC Regional

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Taylor

We're going a day early - if you see us at the Smithsonian on Wednesday, say hi!

Originally Posted by Travis Hoffman

We'll be at the Air and Space Museum sometime that day. We hope to meet with our congressman on the Capitol steps before that.

The TechnoKats are splitting into separate sightseeing groups Wednesday morning, touring the Capitol Building around noon, and doing more sightseeing afterwards. I'm with the Air and Space Museum group. I'll be on the lookout for a neighboring-number team.

[gblake]

5th Gear will be back again, running an informal tournament or two and plenty of individual matches.

If your team has a mascot, start training them for the all-mascot match!

We will be on the same floor as the FRC field this year; probably near Scholarship row and the Concessions. Stop by to compete for glory and (modest) prizes, or just to shoot the breeze.

We are looking forward to seeing everyone again and making more new friends.

See you there,
Blake

[Doug G]

Team 701 is having a blast so far. We flew in from Cali on Sunday and have been seeing the sites for 3 days now. We did the Capitol, House Gallery, Union Station, and some monuments on Monday. On Tuesday, we visited the White House, memorials, Arlington, and the Smithsonian Natural History Museum. Today we went to the National Archives, Holocaust Museum and the Air and Space museum.

While at the white house we just happened to run into the two mayors of the cities from where our school is from.
http://www.vandenrobotics.com/plogge...icture&id=2886

We also ran into the Caveman shooting a Geico commercial.
http://www.vandenrobotics.com/plogge...icture&id=2933

Where's everyone staying? We are staying at the Hampton Inn.

[Chris/Fish]

Some sightseeing advice and tidbits from a Maryland-suburbs-of-DC native:

1. They got rid of the Foucault Pendulum in the Museum of American History
But they do have Stanford's autonomous car from the DARPA Grand Challenge, as part of the "Science in American Life" exhibit

2. The legs of the lunar module on display in Air & Space are fake. How can you tell? the real ones would collapse in 1g. Air and Space does have the real SpaceShipOne, however.

3. Best food at the Smithsonian: Museum of Natural History. They also have a little game where you can simulate smashing asteroids into the Earth (and some pretty rock called the Hope Diamond)

4. Best view: The old post office tower (NOT the Washington Monument). Gigantic windows, and zero crowds.
http://www.nps.gov/opot/planyourvisit/index.htm

5. The rule for Metro escalators is walk on the left, stand on the right. Just do it.

6. And the next time you fly into National, sit in a left hand window seat. If the wind is right, you fly in down the Potomac, past all the monuments. It's an epic view.

See you guys tomorrow!

[Taylor]

Having an absolute ball in DC. Definitely as good as advertised. Lots of inspirational robots and teams from both ends of the spectrum.
As an aside, we've got lots of old chassis aluminum, 1/4-20 bolts, 12 awg wire, and pneumatics tubing and fittings. If anybody needs assistance stop by 1529 pit and say hey.

[lexxasaurus]

I've been having a blast at DC, good job all teams and good luck tomorrow!

[Pausert]

REX 1727 wants to thank Teams 3123 and 176 for a wonderful Alliance, as well as all the volunteers, judges, referees, and attendees! Thanks to them, DC was a high energy event that we hope to attend for years to come.

[buddyb]

Originally Posted by Pausert

REX 1727 wants to thank Teams 3123 and 176 for a wonderful Alliance, as well as all the volunteers, judges, referees, and attendees! Thanks to them, DC was a high energy event that we hope to attend for years to come.

Congratulations (again) on your win, Rex. You have an excellent bot and team.

-----------

A few things I observed in the regional:

• The rumors I heard of people at FIRST painting the soccer balls to make any ball finding algorithms fail is untrue, from what I saw. All balls used were pearl white.
• The supplied target-finding algorithm wasn't the best that could be used. It picked up the target often, but there were times where it got locked on to an arbitrary object. Putting a threshold at the end helped a bit in recognition. (see: If target.score <= 1000, discard it.) [[Note: This should be done *after* the concentric ellipse testing, as it is impossible to get 1000+ for a single ellipse.]]
• Kicking, unless you have a really soft (8- ft) kicker, in the offensive zone didn't work well; we- and many others- ended up ramming the goal to push the ball in.
• Midfield shots were not too uncommon.
• The camera stream was either REALLY laggy or nonexistent for quite a few matches
• If you lose ANYTHING during a competition (see: an omni-wheel ), you will be penalized one point unless your robot is disabled immediately after for "intentional detachment of parts".
• Autonomous: We had our balls set up like:
  G
  
  XXO
  XOX
  OXX
  
  R
  
  R: Robot
  X: Spot
  O: Ball
  G: Goal
  
  and turning tapped a few out of the way. In addition, if we set up our balls in the same column, the one that we kicked first was liable to hit the second/third ones. So, for midfield/defensive autonomouses, consider your ball placements.
• A solid near-field/offensive field autonomous with a kick in it can be used for all three fields easily, and is really helpful in most cases.
• Connecting with the field this year is *extremely* easy and quick.
• The max score of the day, I was told, was 9-0.
• The autonomous of "go forward for one second, kick", when used in the offensive zone, gave us a quick point.
• Kicking from midfield sometimes resulted in hitting the small bump that leads up to the goal, and the chain above the goal. Both prevented the ball from going in to said goal.

Thanks for the excellent competition, everyone. It was definitely the most fun I've had in a long time.

Sadly, our FRC team won't be attending worlds this year. So, I wish you all the best of luck in getting to- and in winning- the championship.

~Buddy

[AcesJames]

Team 176 Aces High would like to give a huge thanks to our alliance. You guys were amazing to play with throughout the elims, and it was a pleasure working with you guys. Our strategy seemed to work flawlessly all the way through. Hopefully we'll see both 1727 and 3123 in Atlanta

[Pjdaley13]

Team 1370 wants to thank the 2-3 teams that applauded us on the way out of the convention center. It made the extreme effort at helping as many teams as possible worthwhile, and reminded us that a piece of hardware is nice, but the true reward for gracious professionalism is appreciation from other teams, and lasting friendships. We weren't sure if our efforts were noticed and appreciated.

It really helped remind us of the core value of first!

Thanks so much! It really hit home.

Pat Daley
Mentor Team 1370

[Mr.D]

Congratulations to the Kil-a-Bytes #1024 for winning the Imagery Award.

[Dmentor]

Many thanks to all the volunteers and teams for making the second DC regional another fantastic experience! I was once again impressed by the display of GP throughout the pits in getting robots built and on the field. I think collectively we represented FIRST well in the nation's capital! It was great to see our old friends and make new ones. Congratulations to Chantilly Robotics (612) on winning Chairman's award! You are both an inspiration and a role model for 2068 as well as good friends. Congratulations REX (1727), Wildcogs (3123), and Aces High (176); way to play Breakaway!

Thanks to the Phelps Robotics Panthers (2912) for inviting us to join your alliance and to the Blair Robot Project (449) for being great partners! We made a strong alliance that continued to improve throughout the elimination round. It is always nice making new friends and we hope to see you both at future competitions. For the second year in a row we faced off against the Technokats (45) in the elims, win or lose it is always a great honor to compete against Andy and team. Thanks to Delphi Elite (48), Chantilly Robotics (612), and the Lightning Bots (2010) for loaning our team batteries during the elims. We really appreciated the help and we wish you the best of luck in the rest of your season. Also, thanks to Josh from National Instruments for helping us negotiate a dead CRIO.

Finally thanks to Harry Reid (Senate Majority Leader) for taking time out of his schedule to drop by the competition and show his support. I hope he is able to deliver on his promise to have half the senate turn out next year.

[gblake]

Originally Posted by Dmentor

... I was once again impressed by the display of GP throughout the pits in getting robots built and on the field. I think collectively we represented FIRST well in the nation's capital! ...

To every student, mentor volunteer who was at DC - I had the privilege of escorting a few important guests and of staying in touch with another one - If I can presume to read their minds a bit, all left with the realization that they had just been someplace very unusual, and that they had seen a program worth their attention and investment, and worth expanding as fast as possible.

As I walked through pits or sat and chatted with them I was never at a loss for words because I have so many great stories to tell about years gone by and about events as fresh as Thursday. When I did have the presence of mind to be quiet and just let the guests sit and soak in the experience, you guys were making things happen just as they should.

Congratulate yourselves for doing exactly what will carry you and FIRST successfully into the next 20 years.

Blake
PS: After pausing to congratulate yourselves - Go back to having "The hardest fun you will ever have". The season isn't over yet and we aren't finished changing the culture yet - There is plenty more fun ahead.