2009 Midwest Regional

[GearsOfFury]

THANK YOU to teams 135 Penn Robotics and 2039 Rockford Robotics for an AWESOME alliance! Thanks for having faith in a team that had bad luck in qualifying but knew it had a competitive 'bot - I hope we did you proud.

Thanks and congrats to 1625, 1675, and 111 - you put on an awesome show and brought the punishment. Super-congrats to Winnovation on the Chairman's award - every part of your team's organization is awe-inspiring - and thanks for having us and all the Caterpillar teams over for "Bago-Bots" this Fall! We still have so much to learn from you.

Watching the last 10 seconds of that last finals match on BlueAlliance is heartbreaking yet encouraging - one little juke and we might have lived to a rubber match! SO looking forward to Milwaukee...

[RMiller]

Originally Posted by keehun

Talking of the Robettes, does anyone know how they performed? I remember them having a lot of trouble at our local pre-ship..

They were in KC this weekend, not Midwest. Looking at the FIRST website, it looks like they did well (10th after qualifications and quarter finalists).

[Rachel2177]

Originally Posted by RMiller

They were in KC this weekend, not Midwest. Looking at the FIRST website, it looks like they did well (10th after qualifications and quarter finalists).

Robettes also got the Judges' award !

[MadeAtMidnight]

Originally Posted by GearsOfFury

Super-congrats to Winnovation on the Chairman's award - every part of your team's organization is awe-inspiring - and thanks for having us and all the Caterpillar teams over for "Bago-Bots" this Fall!

Thanks, it was so much fun to play against you and Rockford since we knew your teams so well! Between the teams that came to the Bago Ball Blitz, various demonstrations we went to, or the camp we had last summer, we were cheering for someone we knew almost every match.

[A-train]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Norris

1625 was the best robot at the competition, its amazing how far simplicity can get you. 1625 robot was just a pure simple dumper, you can tell they spent a long time perfecting their dumping mechanism when they got in position and unleashed on a goal it was scary how quickly they filled up a goal. 1625 continues to impress everyone in FIRST, with their Chairman's award they are convincing everyone that they are a special team.

watching both 1114 and 217 at midwest, there is a ton of untapped potential in both of those robots. I expect with a couple more regionals and some programing time with their practice bots both of these teams are going to be scary good come Atlanta.

Thank you very much. I enjoyed being at Midwest and seeing our team compete. A special thanks to 111, Wild Stang, and 1675, U.P.S. It was awesome having you guys for an alliance. See you in Atlanta!

[A-train]

Special thanks to 111 and 1625 for making an amazing alliance.[/quote]

Thank you 1675. You guys played awesome defense. Can't wait to play with you again at Milwaukee!

[A-train]

Originally Posted by Mike Soukup

For all the hype surrounding 71, 111, 217, and 1114 at the Midwest regional, I believe the best performing robot at the event was 1625. The other teams may make some improvements or get more practice, but the star at MWR was Winnovation. They've turned into a regional power and will hopefully become better known across the country; they have consistently turned out amazing robots the past few years.

Thank you. It was an honor to play with you guys and win the title. We could not have done it without you and 1675. It was a blast!!! See you all in Atlanta!

[chanj]

Thanks 2041, 1652 for making up this alliance with us. We were really surprised that both of you were still available to be picked.

[Scott Hill]

Wow, what a ride!!

Thanks to Wildstang for putting together a great alliance and UPS for being a great partner. Congrats Raul on the Woody Flowers award.

Congratulations to the GDC for putting together a game with so many facets, all of which I don't think have been fully explored yet.

Some of the anticipatory talk about Midwest was concerned with the effect of a few top tier robots and the rest of the field. There may have been some evidence of disparate performamce levels during practice and early qualification rounds but any significant gap diminished greatly as teams stepped up performance of robots, understanding of game play / successful strategy, the value of driving skill in accumulation / scoring and defense / pinning, and the importance of good human players (that IRS girl!!). This was defintively proven in elimination rounds with the early departure of the #1seed, escorted out by #8. Congrats to all teams for stepping up and making Midwest a VERY competitive regional.

There was no team there without an achilles heel in their ball flow path, ours included, we were lucky enough to be able to minimize ours to prevail over three other alliances, and not by large margins. Tough fights were put up by the Kilobytes and 2358 & 3067 in Qtr finals, Thunder chickens, Robo pride & 2022 in the semi's (Paul, great job coaxing every ounce of performance out of your alliance, you had us worried for a while, hope you enjoyed the Dew), and 135, 2039 (Adam & Rockford robotics great performance) & 2338 Oswego in the finals, close matches as well.

Simbots & Thunder chickens fast turrets have significant advantage in omnidirectional ball delivery, very important in not having to be perfectly aligned to deliver balls. This combined with what I am sure will be improved ball acquisition / avoidance of defensive pinning by their teams will put them back on top of the game so watch out for them in the future!

Fast dumpers can perform very well, 71, 111 & ourselves included, as long as you can acquire balls quickly and keep free (not get stuck in a non-scoring position in a scrum) especially in endgame when that last score can make all the difference.

So many other great teams!! Chicago Knights, congratulations on the Engineering Inspiration award! You do so much for other teams, ours included (showing that there is so much more to FIRST than having the best bot), and no one deserves it more. The young women of 2781, Robo Pride, are one of the classiest teams I have met and have shown that the game doesn't always have to be played to the lowest common denominator, thank you for your gracious professionalism.

It will be hard to top this experience but we are all looking forward to seeing many of you in Milwaukee and at Championships in Atlanta!!

Scott Hill