[FTC]: Virginia Championship Results

[gblake]

Who has some feedback for us from today's VA FTC Championship?

[Eric.DaddyOh]

What sort of information are you looking for about FTC at U VA?

I'm not sure who won? Please someone post that here. We left before the end of the final match. But the tournament was lots of fun. I was a field controller, so had a somewhat limited view of the action (but up close at the field).

The teams, mentors, coaches, volunteers and everyone was great. There were some amazing robotics and positive attitudes. Given that we were using a new platform, it seemed to go pretty well overall.


Some things I noted that other teams might want to consider for your tournaments:

1) Please charge your NXT batteries ahead of time and have spares that are charged. Maybe even has have some disposables just in case.

2) Please take you battery our of the nxt for at least 30 seconds PRIOR to coming to the field controllers table.

3) Don't change your batteries after registering at the field controllers station for that match. If you do you will have to re-register the nxt.

4) Registration of the nxt bluetooth with the field management system was at times problematic and slowed us down much before we figured some work arounds.

5) There were a few times that bluetooth connections were lost during a match. If you suspect that has occurred, ask the field controller to look at the Field Management System screen and see which teams were disconnected. It is up to the tournament organizers and chief referee to decide if any matches are rerun because of this. We have limited data around cause and effect. Your NXT program can be problematic, interference in the building can be and as well the field management system can be. We did manage to get through this and everyone kept a positive outlook for the most part on the problems associated with the new platform.

6) Early matches were plagued with teams not understanding how to set their NXT up for running the autonomous mode and the tele-operated mode via the field management system. I'm not an expert in this so if you are uncertain, please research this in advance and find out for your software platform how others are making this work successfully.

7) Get your robot inspected early before the matches begin.

8) Have fun, Its all a learning exercise.....

For Tournament Directors
1) You want field controller volunteers that understand the MS XP environment. We will be posting information somewhere about how to ensure timely connections to the bluetooth on the nxt using the field controller management system. I'll reply to this link when we have that information posted so you know where it is posted.

2) have a spare or two field controller system

3) Don't use the cheap USB cables provided with the field controller kits. Get one of those lighted USB cables (we have a bad USB port and the lights made diagnosing that a snap).

4) Set up an alternative robot inspection location outside of the match area for the teams that just couldn't make inspection in time.

Thanks to everyone for a great tournament.

Eric

[qwertyuiop[]\]

It should be clearer what kind of field malfunction dictates a re-do, because 226(blue alliance 7?) had to do way too many re-dos for nothing and 369(orange alliance 3) didnt get a replay when the field stopped our robot and 69's robot within the first seconds of the match.

[wilsonmw04]

Originally Posted by qwertyuiop[]\

It should be clearer what kind of field malfunction dictates a re-do, because 226(blue alliance 7?) had to do way too many re-dos for nothing and 369(orange alliance 3) didnt get a replay when the field stopped our robot and 69's robot within the first seconds of the match.

I can shed some light on 369 and 69. 69 stopped working because their main battery became disconnected. This was not a field malfunction. 369 got one re-do because of a suspected field malfunction. During the redo, they had control issues that may or may not have been field related. The field said they never lost contact. It might have been a programming error. As the alliance captain mentor, I talked with my drive team on the field and we decided not to officially challenge the match results. Everyone in U-Hall was getting tired and we didn't want to hold up the rest of the event. Congratulations to Twisted Bots 2, Kilroy and their alliance partner (sorry I can't remember their number) for winning the Blue Division. An even bigger "congrats" to Blue Cheese, Twisted Bots and Holy Rollers for winning the Orange Division and the overall competition!

[jbbjjbt]

UNOFFICIAL RESULTS

Winning Alliance and Orange Division Champions
1086 Blue Cheese
177 Twisted Bots
3061 Holy Rollers Too

Finalist Alliance and Blue Division Champions
3165 Twisted Bots 2
339 Forge Robotics
343 Devils Are Blue

Think Award
2859 Team Tiki

Motivate Award
194 ILITE Robotics 194

Connect Award
354 ILITE Robotics 354

Innovate Award
177 Twisted Bots

PTC Design Award
1033 Holy Rollers

Inspire Award
3165 Twisted Bots 2

[vavex]

Consider these results official! Thanks, Jon, for posting them.