NEFIRST Championship

[brinoc]

Figured I would start off this thread

New England will send 35 teams on to the FIRST Championship Event in St. Louis at the end of April. This includes:

• Four (4) New England District Championship Chairman's Award Winners
• Two (2) New England District Championship Engineering Inspiration Award Winners
• Two (2) New England District Championship Rookie All-Star Winners
• Three (3) New England District Championship Winning Alliance
• The next top 24 teams from the FRC Leaderboard in New England
  -Team #125, the Nutrons, has already earned one of these spots by winning the Chairman's Award at the Florida Regional earlier this season.
  -Team #195, the Cyberknights, has already earned one of these spots by winning the Tech Valley Regional earlier this season.

District Award Winners:

• Chairman's Award: 195, 467, 178, 4905, 2877, 2648, 558, 1058, 1519, 230
• Engineering Inspiration: 228, 811, 176, 1735, 5112, 3930, 78, 2648, 172, 2067
• Rookie All-Star: 5400, 5746, 5782, 5422, 5735, 5687, 5506, 5494, 5459, 5686

Teams Currently Attending:

58 The Riot Crew
61 The Intimidators
88 TJ(Squared)
95 Grasshoppers
125 NUTRONS
126 Gael Force
133 B.E.R.T
138 Entropy
155 The Technonuts
166 Chop Shop
172 Northern Force
173 R.A.G.E. (Robotics & Gadget Engineering)
175 Buzz Robotics
176 Aces High
178 The 2nd Law Enforcers
195 Cyber Knights
213 The Dirty Birds
230 Gaelhawks
236 Techno-Ticks
237 Black Magic Robotics
246 Overclocked
319 Big Bad Bob
348 Norwell Robotics
467 Shrewsbury Colonials
501 The PowerKnights
558 Robo Squad
663 Robonauts
811 Cardinals
885 THE GREEN TEAM
999 MechaRams
1058 PVC Pirates
1073 The Force Team
1100 The T-Hawks
1124 UberBots
1519 Mechanical Mayhem
1735 Green Reapers
1768 Robo Chiefs
2064 The Panther Project
2067 Apple Pi
2168 Aluminum Falcons
2170 Titanium Tomahawks
2342 Team Phoenix
2648 Infinite Loop
2836 Team Beta
2876 Devilbotz
2877 LigerBots
3146 GRANBY GRUNTS
3467 The Windham Windup
3718 Junkyard Battalion
3930 SMART Spruce Mountain Area Robotics Team
4048 Redshift
4055 N R G (Northwestern Robotics Gearheads)
4564 Orange Chaos
4761 The Robockets
4905 Andromeda One
4909 Bionics
5122 robOTies
5687 The Outliers
5735 Control Freaks

[Nathan Streeter]

What a fantastic team list; I can hardly wait to see the level of play throughout the entire event, let alone how our team does!

Should be fantastic; WPI always does a great job hosting! With the large team list (compared to older regionals and districts) and DCMP being a significantly higher-profile event than BattleCry, I am hoping seating (and quality seating!) won't be too bad though...

[Dan Petrovic]

I have heard that the gym at WPI, with both sets of bleachers deployed, has more seating that can see the field than the Agganis Arena at Boston University.

Pit sizing is the biggest concern for me, really. Battlecry was pretty cramped last year and that was with fewer teams.

[Riverdance]

Apparently it's not being held in the same space as BattleCry, rather another venue on campus. Or at least such is the rumor on my team. But the venue for BattleCry was so nice! D:

[Nathan Streeter]

Originally Posted by Riverdance

Apparently it's not being held in the same space as BattleCry, rather another venue on campus. Or at least such is the rumor on my team. But the venue for BattleCry was so nice! D:

I feel like one of the last ones to hear such news, but the NEFIRST site lists it as being held in Harrington Auditorium at WPI... where BattleCry's been held for years. Obviously it was expanded a few years ago to better house the pits though....

[Riverdance]

Originally Posted by Nathan Streeter

I feel like one of the last ones to hear such news, but the NEFIRST site lists it as being held in Harrington Auditorium at WPI... where BattleCry's been held for years. Obviously it was expanded a few years ago to better house the pits though....

That's why I was very confused to show up to a meeting and find my teammates complaining that it was going to be a different venue! Obviously I'm hoping it's still in Harrington and I'm very curious as to where the rumor came from. It's a gorgeous venue and a fantastic competition setting.

[electroken]

It's my understanding that the event will be in Harrington, all of the practice fields (including a real competition field) will be in the adjacent recreation center, and the pits will be under the rec center, just like Battlecry. The back corner of the pits has a freight elevator to get to the practice fields.

The pits are going to be tight. The last map I saw had 11 teams in the loading dock!

[ColleenShaver]

Happy to provide some clarity on this.

Like our many past Regional, District, and Off-season events, the NE FIRST Championship will be hosted in Harrington Auditorium & the Sports & Rec Center.

Harrington (and its 2500+ seats.. meaning each of the 60 teams can have 40+ people with plenty of room) will host the competition area, mentor lounge (with birds-eye view of the field), scholarship row, t-shirt sales, and other displays.

And yes, they are just bleachers. Seat cushions are recommended!

In the connected Rec Center will be the pit area. No doubt, this will be a cozy fit! Like BC last year, it will feature up to 60 teams. In the choice between a little more elbow room and a few more teams, we decided more teams is better.

In the lobby between Harrington and Rec Center there will be inspection, as well as displays from EI and RAS winners who are attending without their robots.

One floor up from the pit, accessible via the freight elevator in the pit, is the practice area. This will include a full field (with full electronics running matches), 2 quarter fields (what is typically provided at a district), and an open carpeted area (teams are encouraged to bring their own totes/bins for this area).

I hope this clarified the locations of the event. WPI is looking forward to hosting the top teams in New England in an awesome event!

[Trey178]

Where is the Chairman's interview location?

[Riverdance]

Does anyone know how many qualification matches there will be, or how many matches each team is supposed to get? Either works. Just for match planning/scouting sheet printing purposes.

[Nathan Streeter]

Originally Posted by Riverdance

Does anyone know how many qualification matches there will be, or how many matches each team is supposed to get? Either works. Just for match planning/scouting sheet printing purposes.

Each team will (or is supposed to) get 12 matches, as with all district events... the points work best that way.

[Riverdance]

Here is the list of teams that qualified. So many CT teams! Makes me so incredibly happy and proud to be a part of one of them. Anyone who saw me at all after awards, would be able to testify to that with my happy tears as evidence!