2008 Arizona Regional

[Donut]

Originally Posted by Wayne Doenges

Did I see right? Did a team set a record for most penalties (12)
What were most of them for.
You do not need to mention the team.

In total the alliance had 13 penalties in the match. I don't know what all of them were but the majority was from the incorrectly operating hybrid mode. I just remember being stunned to see "-130" on the screen in the penalty column.

[Ziaholic]

Team #2449 had a BLAST at the AZ Regionals!!! We want to thank just about EVERYBODY THERE!

(I'd say everybody, but I'm still a little miffed at the folks in the parking ticket-windows ... sheesh, I thought parking was taken care of ... oh well ... I guess it's my fault for not jumping into the team van )

Here's a link to my YouTube video of Match #6 from an Out-of-Orbit point of view ...

The video is from our first official FIRST match. We were a little rusty in the beginning, but we ironed out the wrinkles and ended up with a pretty capable driver team, pit team, scouting team, strategy, and overall competition mindset by the time the dust settled. There will be more links, to more pix and videos. Check out the Team #2449 website in a few weeks and we'll have plenty of pix and videos for your viewing pleasure.

Winning the Rookie All Star Award and the Xerox Creativity Award was a real honor and we give many many thanks to the sponsors, the mentoring teams, our rookie-team mentors (ahem), and the enthusiastic students that make up the Heart of the Out of Orbit team.

We are very much looking forward to meeting up with a lot of you again in April in Atlanta, and/or next March in Phoenix!

Time to hit the hot-tub, my back is KILLING ME!!!

Thanks again!!!

[Lions for First]

the regional was GREAT it was our first FRC (and sadly last, for this season at least) event and we hope to do even better next year
P.S. team 2449 that was an awsome robot you have to show them what a rookie team can do.

[=Martin=Taylor=]

Who won what?

[Ziaholic]

Here's a link to the awards page from USFIRST.org

... and these are the match standings ...


All of the regionals are summarized here.

[TheOtherGuy]

Well... I can't say I didn't have fun, but this regional definitely was not up to par with last year in my eyes. Everything that could go wrong with our robot did go wrong. I don't think we had a single match where the robot worked like it should (the hybrid had some major problems... halfway through the regional it started acting up and we could locate the problem). Having 1/3 the teams as rookies really changed things up a bit as well. It may be good in the long run, but it sure made alliance selections interesting.

Overall, I'm a bit disappointed. The regional was nothing like we expected, the lack of fun revolving around our strange and continuous robot problems.

But that's just me. I know most members on our team had fun, as well as a majority of the crowd and field crew. And it was another successful, flawless regional thanks to the handful of incredible volunteers!

[Matt H.]

I had a great deal of fun both Thursday and Friday, but felt that alliance selection was a bit of a toss up and Saturday was very stressful as we struggled to fix electrical problems (we believe we have a loose connection, but can't find it--trouble shooting tips are welcome) and also attempted to support an alliance.

I was very impressed by the rookie teams and their turn out however I do have one gripe. If teams are going to "start" 30 rookie teams each year then they also need to support them. There were many examples of rookies having no idea how regional events worked or of basic robot design principle--things which I believe are the responsibility of the mentoring team. What made this especially obvious was a rookie team with absolutely no idea how alliance selections worked picking numbers at random. Perhaps the prestige of the chairman's award has led teams to simple start up teams and then leave them rather than forming a mutually beneficial relationship. (It looks much better to have started 30 teams than to have started and worked with 3.)

[Nibbles]

We had a great time, and even better, we had no mechanical or electrical failures (not to mention a great looking bot)! Wish I could say good things about programming...

I want videos of quarter final match 2-3... that indecisive trackball was probably the most intense fifteen seconds of at least this year for me.

Our team stayed after and helped take down the arena, a very nice way to end an otherwise depressing realization that there won't be any events for us until next season.

[Vikesrock]

Originally Posted by Matt H.

I had a great deal of fun both Thursday and Friday, but felt that alliance selection was a bit of a toss up and Saturday was very stressful as we struggled to fix electrical problems (we believe we have a loose connection, but can't find it--trouble shooting tips are welcome) and also attempted to support an alliance.

I was very impressed by the rookie teams and their turn out however I do have one gripe. If teams are going to "start" 30 rookie teams each year then they also need to support them. There were many examples of rookies having no idea how regional events worked or of basic robot design principle--things which I believe are the responsibility of the mentoring team. What made this especially obvious was a rookie team with absolutely no idea how alliance selections worked picking numbers at random. Perhaps the prestige of the chairman's award has led teams to simple start up teams and then leave them rather than forming a mutually beneficial relationship. (It looks much better to have started 30 teams than to have started and worked with 3.)

I believe it is the responsibility of every veteran that saw those clueless rookies and didn't step in and give them some help. I know last year that we were the clueless rookies at Wisconsin. Our alliance selections were terrible, but we managed to make the best of it and claw our way to the finals before falling to a great alliance. I know that I plan to go around to all the rookies that seed or may move up into the Top 8 this year at MN and make sure they know how things work.

All you can do know is learn from mistakes and work towards doing better in the future.

With regards to the electrical problem, I recommend you start a thread in the Electrical section with as much detail as you can give about the problem (I know you don't have access to your bot and that will make it difficult). I'm sure you'll get some great advice from Al S. and others about how to go about identifying your issue.

Hopefully you can get your issues resolved and have a great time at LA!

[Donut]

This was another great regional and in many ways improved over previous years, the number of rookie teams (and those that were good too) was outstanding and the new pit and field set up is so much better than the old one. Not to mention it's the most teams AZ has ever seen!

Thank you to team 207 for selecting us for your alliance, and congratulations on two well deserved awards! And another thank you to our other partner 2449, who is one impressive rookie team. I remember watching their robot at Duel in the Desert only a few weeks ago and I didn't realize until yesterday that this bot had been built by a rookie team. We made it to the quarterfinals with these two and it was one of the closest playoff rounds I've seen. Quart-Final 2-3 had the best ending ever, I would NEVER have believed I'd be screaming at a trackball that much and that the entire stadium would be doing so with me. I'm going to work on getting that match up ASAP.

Congratulations to 60, 39, and 1165 for a dominating playoff performance and a well earned Championship. 3 champs in a row for 60 now, and 2 for 39, this is becoming quite the streak!

And I have to say that of all our team's robots ever built, this is the one I'm most proud of. It went 4-4 and was ranked 28 out of 52 (and no where near the best performing robot we've made), and only made it to the quarter-finals. It was not the best robot at the competition in any game category, be it scoring, defense, or autonomous. It had no super-cool doohickey mechanisms and didn't provide any strange or spectacular gameplay to watch. It got penalties that sometimes lost matches. It won no awards at the competition, but for the first time since joining the team in 2004, I can truly say I don't care.

Because this is the first robot we've ever committed to and successfully finished early so that we'd actually get to drive and test time before Thursday at Regionals.
Because this is the first year we were inspected before 6 PM and without frantic filing or finishing touches, passing inspection at 11 AM.
Because this is the first time we've ever had 0 break downs, and the only thing repaired was re-stapling bumpers.
Because this is the first year our robot actually looked good, when we've had trouble turning out anything other than an aluminum-colored hulk in the past.

And because this is the first robot we've built that succeeded at everything we wanted it to. It was simple. It was low maintenance. It scored effectively. It had an autonomous that worked. Its look caught attention. And it was finished on schedule. All of our past robots, even those that were top 8 seeds and won technical awards for one feature or another, failed to achieve at least one goal.

To all the rookies at Arizona, any team that may be disappointed their robot isn't ranking highly or taking shiny hardware home, and even the teams with robots that are: figure out what the few (or only one even) simple things are you want to achieve with your robot, be it organizational, aesthetic, or functional, and ensure that you go all out to get those few goal(s) achieved. When you do you won't care if you leave the competition with two trophies and a medal in hand or a bottom seed with an 0-8 record, because you'll know you did everything you wanted to do with that robot. And I can tell you, it's the greatest feeling you can get from this competition.

[Ziaholic]

Originally Posted by Donut

...

and it was one of the closest playoff rounds I've seen. Quart-Final 2-3 had the best ending ever, I would NEVER have believed I'd be screaming at a trackball that much and that the entire stadium would be doing so with me. I'm going to work on getting that match up ASAP.

...

I've got that one on tape also ... working on some edit's as I've got 2 clips ... ball yelling in clip 1, and final score in clip 2. Once I splice them together I'll upload it and provide a link here.

I clearly saw, first-hand, the entire contact-patch of the ball completely across the finish line. The tape isn't conclusive, but it's supportive. I've gotta' re-read the rules regarding how much of the ball has to cross the plane, because if the whole ball has to cross, then it was clearly not enough to score. The alliance penalty somewhat negates the relevence of this call, but it was suspensefull nonetheless. Without that penalty, and if that final ball crossing counted, it would've been a tie!

(and Thanks for the 'bot compliments, we were very proud to ally with y'all)

[Vikesrock]

Originally Posted by Ziaholic

I've got that one on tape also ... working on some edit's as I've got 2 clips ... ball yelling in clip 1, and final score in clip 2. Once I splice them together I'll upload it and provide a link here.

I clearly saw, first-hand, the entire contact-patch of the ball completely across the finish line. The tape isn't conclusive, but it's supportive. I've gotta' re-read the rules regarding how much of the ball has to cross the plane, because if the whole ball has to cross, then it was clearly not enough to score. The alliance penalty somewhat negates the relevence of this call, but it was suspensefull nonetheless. Without that penalty, and if that final ball crossing counted, it would've been a tie!

(and Thanks for the 'bot compliments, we were very proud to ally with y'all)

From Section 7 of the Manual:

CROSSING: The act of a TRCKBALL or ROBOT passing through the plane defined by a line (i.e.
LANE MARKER or FINISH LINE) when it is projected vertically upwards. A TRACKBALL or
ROBOT shall have CROSSED a line when all parts of the object, while traveling in a counterclockwise
direction, have completely passed through the plane.

So the entire ball would have had to cross through the plane to score.

[falconmaster]

"What made this especially obvious was a rookie team with absolutely no idea how alliance selections worked picking numbers at random."

I agree, it did seem strange to watch some of the rookie teams pick. It looked random to me. You do have to ask your self one questions though, some of those rookie teams must have had some good mentoring to be in the finals.

We learned alot about our bot and from other bots concerning launching the trackball. We will be testing these ideas in LA and LV when we attend the regionals there. Hopefully by Atlanta we should have a very competitive bot.

Thanks to all the teams that helped us, like 1725 and 39. Also good job to all the PUHSD schools out there. We need to get the remaining three schools in the district involved so we can become possible the first district to have all its schools in FIRST.

Overall I thought the AZ regional was great. As much as I dread seeing 100 teams that we have to compete with in the near future AZ regional I look forward to it as well. It will mean that we will be fast approaching Dean's vision of all the H.S. in the US having a FIRST team. Where the quality may be lacking for a awhile, their hearts and minds will not and isn't that the point anyway. All of us can help raise the quality of the teams, that is what GP is all about. I want to thank 1726 again for the launching idea they shared. I know that there are a grip of teams out there using the concept! Thanks Again and see you in LA or LV which was it I don't, remember you are going to?

[JB987]

Congrats from Team 987 goes out to all who competed at the Arizona Regional, but special props to our friends in Team 60 and 39 who continue to show the rest of the FIRST community that there is a growing number of great teams from places west of the Mississippi! Looking forward to playing with/against you guys in a couple of weeks in Vegas...

[Donut]

Originally Posted by falconmaster

Overall I thought the AZ regional was great. As much as I dread seeing 100 teams that we have to compete with in the near future AZ regional I look forward to it as well. It will mean that we will be fast approaching Dean's vision of all the H.S. in the US having a FIRST team.

With the new regional set up there was lots of room left in the main arena floor. I think that with a bit of re-arrangement to fit some more teams in the new pit area and possibly opening a second large room for pits, the coliseum could easily house a super-regional with 2 fields.

...of course I'd also love to see a 2nd regional pop up in Northern or Southern Arizona instead, so single regional teams could choose between them and better financed ones would have another option for Regionals within easy driving distance.

I forgot to mention in my previous post as well, congratulations to 842 on their 4th straight Chairman's Award! Hearing their impressive list of accomplishments for the year, I think this may be their year to take home the grand prize at the Championships.