2005 Midwest Regional

[Dave Flowerday]

Just a quick announcement that we have established a website for information regarding the 2005 Midwest Regional located at www.midwestfirst.org. If you have comments on the site please either PM me and I'll direct it to the right person or use the contacts page on the site.

As most everyone knows, the 2005 Midwest Regional is being held at a new facility this year, the UIC Pavilion. I think it's going to be a great time and I'm looking forward to the new location!

{edit} The site has been updated with some pictures of the Pavilion if anyone is interested. It looks like it will be a great place to have a regional! {/edit}

[Kyle Love]

I am very excited to say team 45 will be going to MWR again this year. I can't wait to see all the great competition that is always there. Good luck to all teams!!

-Kyle

[Arefin Bari]

i guess 108 couldnt resist to see the best drive train teams out there again. HERE WE COME...

[Josh Hambright]

I cant wait. the midwest regional has always been my favorite.

Im so excited for Midwest...it gunna be lots of fun this year..It is one of my favorite regional and i think by far the coolest of any regional lol

[JP_1163]

It is great that the Midwest Regional has a website. This is very helpful. The former site on the NWU campus was very much appreciated. My hope is that the new site will be as accessible and functional. Keep us informed as new information becomes available.
See you in March!

[Jim Schaddelee]

Dave :

Do you Know if it possible to tailgate at the new location? If it is are there any teams that would be interested in having a multi team tailgate lunch.
Also in your picture taken in the Holland Chanel because the light House looks like Hollands Big Red?

Jim Schaddelee
Team 107

[Dave Flowerday]

Originally Posted by Jim Schaddelee

Do you Know if it possible to tailgate at the new location? If it is are there any teams that would be interested in having a multi team tailgate lunch.

I don't know this yet, but I will try to find out. The last I've heard is that they're still working out parking arrangement details with the University. I know the area is basically surrounded by large parking lots (very similar to the Northwestern setup) so I imagine it will be possible to tailgate. It's probably too early to commit to anything yet, but I bet at least some of my team would be interested.

Also in your picture taken in the Holland Chanel because the light House looks like Hollands Big Red?

Yes it is, I grew up in Holland and my family still lives there. In fact I was part of the Holland High FIRST team (as a student) from 95-97.

[Gamer930]

Bringing this old forum back to life.
Does anyone have any updated information on the Midwest Regional??

Webcast??
How will the Venue be setup?? Split the arena in half?? (Half Pits and Half Field)
Parking??
Power in the stands??
Area for practice autonomous modes??

Any more information would be wonderful.

[Dave Flowerday]

Originally Posted by Gamer2028

Bringing this old forum back to life.
Does anyone have any updated information on the Midwest Regional??

Webcast??
How will the Venue be setup?? Split the arena in half?? (Half Pits and Half Field)
Parking??
Power in the stands??
Area for practice autonomous modes??

Any more information would be wonderful.

Like most regionals, there is still planning going on. We are trying to get answers to many of these questions.

We are expecting to be able to have a webcast. Check http://www.midwestfirst.org - we will keep the site updated with information as it becomes available.

[Kyle Love]

Now that we are a couple days away, who do YOU think will win the 2005 MWR? I personally think 108, 269, 383 possibly. I think they would make a dominating alliance. So, who do you think?

[Justin]

Hi All,

Can someone who saw the finals of the Mid-West regional let me know what happened in the quarter finals. There was a match where the 45 alliance, they were red, had all 3 robots disabled. Why?? Also does anyone have the scores from the finals at mid-west?

Thanks!!

Justin

[Kevin Kolodziej]

***I want to preface this by saying that I am not complaining, whining, or angry about this. What's done is done and I am not asking for any mistakes to be corrected. I am merely pointing this out as an example of how what I consider to be an obvious error had a significant impact on the event. I just want to see things like this be prevented as much as possible in the remaining events this year.***

Match 53 turned out to be a terrific battle with 269, 525, and 1675 vs 71, 92, and 970. At that time, 71 was ranked 2nd and 269 was ranked 3rd. During the course of the match, tetras were being stacked in rapid succession and everyone was doing very well (except for us - our tetras fell on our hook and prevented us from scoring ). The final score ended up being 34-37 in favor of blue, pushing 71 into the #1 seed.

Towards the end of the match, 269 and 71 got in a bit of a pushing war and 71 ended up on their back (no call was made, and from the video on Soap, based on my ref experience last week, I would not have called a high hit or intentional tip either). While this was happening, the far (from the audience) middle goal had a red-blue-red stack on it. One of the blue teams went up to cap a blue tetra on top of the red, but couldn't quite get it and descored the red tetra in the process (it was still hanging but was off to the side...unseated). At the end of the match, I noticed the red tetra hanging and realized that we should have gone over there and pushed it up to cap that goal and take away the middle row from blue to get the win. I asked my fellow coaches for that match if they knew how long that tetra was hanging there and the consensus was for about 30 seconds. Unfortunately, none of us saw the descore, which actually happened with about 10 seconds remaining. Apparently, NONE of the refs (despite two standing next to the goal) saw it either. With this descore, the final score SHOULD have been 37-27 in favor of red.

I recalculated the final average points for each team involved in that match and redid the rankings based on the results of that match and assumed that EVERYTHING else that happened before and after that match stayed the same. Here are the top 16 (with actual ranking in parenthesis):

1. 269 (3)
2. 111
3. 71 (1)
4. 383
5. 648
6. 45
7. 9
8. 970 (13)
9. 1646 (8)
10. 79 (9)
11. 903 (10)
12. 74 (11)
13. 525 (17)
14. 108 (12)
15. 81 (14)
16. 1675 (24)
(unfortunately 92 would have actually fallen from 29 to 33)

The only reason I point this particular instance out is because it wasn't a judgment call that some people may or may not disagree with - it was an obvious rule infraction that was missed. The video on SOAP doesn't show the actual descore because, like I said, it occured during 71's fall...but if you watch before that, you'll see the far middle goal have red-blue-red and blue trying to cap, then the fall, then you can see that same goal having red-blue-unseated red. I have video from another viewpoint that shows the actual descore.

Again, the fact that this occured doesn't matter - nothing can be done about it and that is fine with me. The referee's decision IS final. Having been a referee, I know that when something big happens, you want to watch it. But if you are a referee, you must resist that urge to watch if it is not in your designated area to watch, unless there is nothing going on in your area. I don't know if the refs at Midwest had assigned areas, but that is how we did it at Boilermaker. It seemed to work fairly well.

Its constructive criticism...do with it what you want.

Kevin

[JonA]

Originally Posted by robo hottie71

The video on SOAP doesn't show the actual descore because, like I said, it occured during 71's fall...but if you watch before that, you'll see the far middle goal have red-blue-red and blue trying to cap, then the fall, then you can see that same goal having red-blue-unseated red.

The SOAP video from match 53 can be found at
http://soap.circuitrunners.com/2005/.../il/il_053.wmv

The top red tetra on the far center goal can be seen being scored at 1:40. It can be seen properly seated around 1:45. At 2:03 team 92 can be seen trying to score a tetra. At 2:16 the previously scored red tetra can be seen precariously hanging from the goal.

I have a somewhat bias opinion on this topic but I am sorry, but this kind of omission is simply unacceptable. I know that all of the refs take their jobs seriously and they get a lot of complaints and hassle from teams, but it comes with the job. I just hope that this type of thing will be watched more closely in the future.

Team 1675 did end up being picked in the first round to for the elimination rounds making it the team I have worked with in the last 3 years that played after lunch. Then we proceeded to demonstrate that we were in fact a rookie team by putting the wrong battery in the robot...sorry Alliance 8, it'll never happen again.

But our FIRST spirit lead us to win the Rookie All-Star award which, in taking us to nationals, extends our season beyond just one regional and it gives the students, mentors, school and parents something to be very proud of.

-JonA

[Ricky Q.]

The alliance of 269, 45, and 706 were all disabled in our 2nd quarterfinal match. We were disabled for safety reasons dealing with the tetras/arms and the player station walls.

We still won the match and advanced.