Cowtown Throwdown 2014

[rbrown1]

Cow town ThrowDown planning team is hard at work getting ready for this years event. As mentioned we have a full slate of teams from 6 states with others on the wait list. So please have your payments in by Oct. 1st. If payment is not received the team will be moved to the bottom of the wait list. To answer the question on FMS we will be using the FIRST FMS system.

We will also again have the FLL scrimmage going on Saturday. Presently 10 teams are registered with an opening for 6 more teams.

Stay tuned for more information on events taking place during the 7th annual CTTD.

[mott]

Cowtown Throwdown Mgmt,

In past years, some/all of the IRI Rule Changes have been used for the Throwdown. On this year’s Detailed Competition Information page, the Rules of the Game section indicates that no rule changes to the game will be made.
Is this just the initial/current position OR has the topic of incorporating IRI Rule changes been considered and declined already?

For those who attended or observed IRI this season, most felt the rule changes used there made the 2014 game far better than the “original” FRC game (as a competitor, an official and as an observer).

The elimination of the zone requirement for “Assists” and the adjustments to G12, G14 and G21 seemed to have the biggest impact on the game (and without requiring adjustment the game management software).

Please let us know if these rule changes could be considered. If not, what considerations lead to NOT incorporating these changes into this year’s Throwdown?

For other Cowtown participants who have experience with the IRI rule changes, please let us know your thoughts. Maybe the people I've heard from are a "biased" sample.

[rbrown1]

We have a meeting tonight to discuss rules for CowTown.

[Nemo]

I think the small changes from the IRI rules are great. They're unintrusive tweaks that take advantage of hindsight to improve the experience for everybody.

[Alpha Beta]

About a month away. Took a sneak peek at where our participants were registering for their first events.

Team # Team Name Regional
0016 Bomb Squad ----- Arkansas - Wk 2
0938 Team Botman ----- Kansas City - Wk 3
0967 Iron Lions ----- MN North Star - Wk 6
1094 Channel Cats ----- St. Louis - Wk 4
1108 Panther Robotics ----- Arkansas - Wk 2
1444 Lightning Lancers ----- St. Louis - Wk 4
1619 Up-A-Creek Robotics ----- Colorado - Wk 5
1710 Ravonics Revolution ----- Unregistered
1723 "The FBI" ----- Kansas City - Wk 3
1730 Team Driven ----- Kansas City - Wk 3
1764 Liberty Robotics ----- Kansas City - Wk 3
1769 Digital Hawks ----- Kansas City - Wk 3
1775 Tiger Bytes ----- Kansas City - Wk 3
1777 Viking Robotics ----- Kansas City - Wk 3
1785 United Robocats ----- Kansas City - Wk 3
1802 Team Stealth ----- Kansas City - Wk 3
1806 S.W.A.T. ----- Kansas City - Wk 3
1810 Jaguar Robotics ----- Kansas City - Wk 3
1825 Metro Homeschool Robotics ----- Kansas City - Wk 3
1847 Bulldogs ----- Unregistered
1939 The Kuh-Nig-Its ----- Kansas City - Wk 3
1982 Cougar Robotics ----- Kansas City - Wk 3
1984 Raider Revolution Robotics ----- Unregistered
1985 Robohawks ----- St. Louis - Wk 4
1986 Team Titanium ----- St. Louis - Wk 4
1987 Broncobots ----- Kansas City - Wk 3
1997 STAGrobotics ----- Kansas City - Wk 3
2001 HERMES ----- Unregistered
2335 Sargon ----- Kansas City - Wk 3
2345 Animal Control ----- Kansas City - Wk 3
2346 Cel-Techs ----- Unregistered
2410 Metal Mustang Robotics ----- Kansas City - Wk 3
2874 Eagles ----- Kansas City - Wk 3
3284 Camdenton 4H LASER ----- St. Louis - Wk 4
3397 Robolions ----- St. Louis - Wk 4
3485 Cyclone Robotics ----- Unregistered
3528 Up Next! ----- Kansas City - Wk 3
3612 GearHogs ----- Lone Star, TX - Wk 6
3792 Army Ants ----- Kansas City - Wk 3
3928 FIRST Team Neutrino ----- MN North Star - Wk 6
3931 Cockadoodle Dominators ----- Oklahoma - Wk 5
4329 Lutheran Roboteers ----- St. Louis - Wk 4
4522 Team SCREAM ----- Oklahoma - Wk 5
4455 The Burger Bots ----- Kansas City - Wk 3
4646 ASAP ----- Kansas City - Wk 3
5006 Apophis ----- Arkansas - Wk 2
5013 Trobots ----- Kansas City - Wk 3
5437 Rocky Balboabots ----- Arkansas - Wk 2

5 teams attending CTTD who are still unregistered for the season. (Or on wait-lists)

Rocky Balboabots now have an official number. Not sure if they will be using it at CowTown. Welcome aboard 5437.

[accoo72956]

Though it might be a blast to be on Halloween mentors, coaches and even some of our members have obligations to children and their trick or treat bag

[audietron]

With the rule change for allowing a 4th ball but not changing any other rules during autonomous. Would this mean that an alliance can have all three robots in shooting position with one team having a second ball? Does that ball still have to be in contact with an alliance member?

[mott]

Originally Posted by audietron

With the rule change for allowing a 4th ball but not changing any other rules during autonomous. Would this mean that an alliance can have all three robots in shooting position with one team having a second ball? Does that ball still have to be in contact with an alliance member?

The Cowtown officials will make the final call on this but I seem to recall at IRI that balls in excess of robots in the white zone starting position were essentially treated as if their "owner" was set up in the goalie zone. In other words, the 4th ball (if all 3 robots were already in contact with another ball) could be placed without contacting any robot.

This would translate to mean that if an alliance DID have a robot starting in the goalie zone, they could place 2 balls not contacting a robot for the start of auton if they desired.

[wdurgan]

Originally Posted by mott

The Cowtown officials will make the final call on this but I seem to recall at IRI that balls in excess of robots in the white zone starting position were essentially treated as if their "owner" was set up in the goalie zone. In other words, the 4th ball (if all 3 robots were already in contact with another ball) could be placed without contacting any robot.

This would translate to mean that if an alliance DID have a robot starting in the goalie zone, they could place 2 balls not contacting a robot for the start of auton if they desired.

Hey Mike, you are correct with your Auton ball explanations, thanks

[runneals]

Originally Posted by holygrail

I'm curious as to what FMS we will be using at Cowtown this year. Any chance we might use Cheesy Arena? I've heard so many good things about it.

Cheezy Arena would be pretty sweet!

[runneals]

Photos (and a few video clips) are posted on my flickr page. I tried to capture a photo of every team. Feel free to use in promo materials/etc. Please credit me (David Runneals) if possible.

Enjoy!

[SharonO]

Originally Posted by runneals

Photos (and a few video clips) are posted on my flickr page. I tried to capture a photo of every team. Feel free to use in promo materials/etc. Please credit me (David Runneals) if possible.

Enjoy!

David,
I tried downloading some of the awesome photos you took of 3528. I get the message: "The owner has disabled downloading of their photos". Can you change the permissions?

[hrench]

Videos of all of the matches 1108 participated in ('cept one that I missed) are out on youtube https://www.youtube.com/user/hrench now. Including all of the finals where we came so close to winning it all...

Thanks to a great alliance of Tigerbytes, UpNext and Frog. Had a great time.

Also many photos on our facebook site. https://www.facebook.com/pages/FIRST...0315492?ref=hl

[Ivan Helmrich]

Thank you all for posting pictures and videos. 1775 had a terrific time at Cow Town.

We'd like to thank our hosts Driven and Hermes, Cerner for sponsoring, Jerry from AndyMark, and the host of volunteers who put this together. We'd especially like to thank our alliance partners Panther, UpNext and Frog. It was a real pleasure playing the game with you guys.

[Nemo]

Everything I've heard about the event makes me want to go in person next year. I certainly enjoyed the webcast. It seems like our team got some great experience and had a chance to interact with lots of great people last weekend. Thanks for putting on this event - I know it takes a ton of effort to make something like that happen.