disaster in israel regional

[Chris Hibner]

Originally Posted by David3316

I'm one of two team captain of team 3316, it was a big disappointment for my team that this year had so many issues because all of our team members but 2 are going to graduate this year and thus not experience this wonderful experience again.

There were many issues except the communication issues, my team had only one match working properly out of the 3 which we were supposed to compete in (aside the 1/4 finals). in the 2nd match the robot which we played with (3339) was supposed to hang and thus win the match but the communications failed in the last 15 seconds and cause the results to be the exact opposite.

We addressed the judges directly claiming that a re-match was a must and all they said was there is no time, i cannot understand why a competition that could have technical failures of this magnitude is being played in an arena that cannot allow any time extensions, it is a serious matter that has to be solved in the future in my opinion.

Besides that, before our 2nd game our modem cable was gone even tho we didn't move our robot at all, we suggested that other team took it after searching all over the place and the judges didn't even give us extra time causing other teams to suffer when each match is crucial..

It was truly heartbreaking to see the final being 3 teams against 2 for most of it while one robot is blocking a goal. I fell sorry for the teams that came from california, one of them was on top on the 1st day and ended ranked 43 in the second day despite a brilliant robot..

I hope the issues will be resolved next year, even though it was my first and final year in this project as a student.

David

I feel really bad for all of the teams and especially any first year teams member who were seniors, and therefore may never get to experience a good competition.

What about taking up the challenge of putting on the biggest and best off-season competition in the world? You could even call it IRI2 (Isreali Robotics Invitational). Get the bugs worked out and invite all of the teams back to do it right in the off season. No, it won't substitute for the real thing, but it will give teams the chance to compete at a high level. And who knows, it might turn out every bit as good as an official event (just look at the IRI).

Of course, that's easy for me to say sitting in my office 4000 miles away.