[VEX] 2008 Pennsylvania: PSU Abington/Abington Bank/STEMRobotics Scrimmage results

[Foster]

On Saturday 6 December the Penn State Abington / Abington Bank / STEMRobotics Vex Elevation Scrimmage was held in conjunction with the PSU Robo-Hoops event.

There were 12 teams present at the scrimmage. One of the teams was initially there for Robo-hoops and noticed the similarity between the two games. They signed up at the match and did quite well in the competition.

Since it was a scrimmage, we played a “Ready, Set, Go” format: Get your robot ready, get into the queuing and get set in a match bracket, go play. This means that every match had four robots and maximized game play by all the teams.

Of the 32 matches that were played, each team played at least 10 times, one team was able to compete 24 times. Overall teams were pleased about the amount of game play they got during the day.

The original plan was to allow the top two teams pick alliances and battle for bragging rights. The top three teams were very close in scores, so there were three final alliances created. Second and third place alliances play, winner moves to the finals.

Top seed team 81 from DEWBots of Downingtown, PA chose 1640 also from DEWBots / Downingtown.

Second seed Christopher Dock High School, Lansdale PA team 420 chose team 82 from DEWbots / Downingtown.

Third place seed team 424 from Springfield High, Springfield PA chose as their partner team 197 Harrinton High School, Lower Marion, PA.

In a best out two out of three series the second and third place teams fought it out in a tough battle. Blue win, red win and then a tie. The next match pushed the third place alliance to the match with the first place Downingtown alliance.

In two hard fought battles with close scores, the Springfield / Harrinton alliance came out on top.

The roboteers had a great day. But I think the parents had a better day. We pressed our parents into being referees, judges, scorekeepers, doing queuing, crystal management and media (taking 100's of pictures). They pitched in and did a fabulous job!

Thanks need to go to Bob Avanzato at Penn State Abington for hosting us and letting us share space with the Robo-hoops event; Abington Bank for the free pizza and sodas; and to Steve Rhoads and Foster Schucker of STEMRobotics for being a driving force to get the scrimmage produced.

We will get some pictures posted in the next few days. There were a number of very agile “claw” robots that held their own with the tread/track style robots.

Reminder that Christopher Dock is having a VEX scrimmage on January 24, 2009 and that Downingtown is holding the Eastern Pennsylvania VEX Regional on February 29, 2009. Contact Foster.Schucker with STEMRobotics.org or see Robotevents.com to sign up.

[Rick TYler]

The last two years we've held a May Vex scrimmage which drew 6-10 teams. At the end of the day, the best robots get certificates printed on my laser printer. Attendees have always said, "This is great -- even better than the tournaments." Just getting together and banging robots around is a ton of fun. Thanks for sharing the results.