Bills Blog - Champs info 04/14/11

[JohnBoucher]

Thursday, April 14, 2011

The clock is ticking


Good Afternoon Teams,

Now that week 6 is behind us, my staff and I are able to turn our attention to Championship. I still can’t tell you anything about Friday or Saturday night (watch for an official announcement from FIRST, most likely on April 20th), but there are a few more details about FRC that I can share.

On April 15th I told you there will be two qualification/elimination fields in the dome and two in the pits. That is still true. I also told you teams would switch fields at noon on Friday (move from a dome field to a pit field or vice versa). That has changed. After discussions with Staff, FTAs and support organizations, teams will switch fields at the end of the day on both Thursday and Friday.

Newton and Curie will spend all day Thursday on the fields in the pits while Archimedes and Galileo will spend the day on the fields in the dome. When competition concludes for the day on Thursday, teams and field volunteers will move to the new field. This gives my staff and the volunteers all night to ensure the switch goes smoothly. Archimedes and Galileo will spend all day Friday on the fields in the pits while Newton and Curie will spend the day in the dome. When competition concludes for the day on Friday, teams and field staff will move back. Newton and Curie will run Saturday’s qualification and division matches on the fields in the pits while Archimedes and Galileo will run qualification and division matches on the fields in the dome.

Note:

• Divisions will change fields twice, once at the end of the day on Thursday, and again at the end of the day on Friday.
• There will be two driver’s meetings. One Thursday, April 28th from 8:15-8:45AM and one Friday, April 29th from 7:45-8:00AM.
• Teams are invited to calibrate their sensors on BOTH fields Thursday 8:00-8:45AM
• All field volunteers – with the exception of queuers -will switch fields with the division
• Curie will switch fields with Archimedes; Newton will switch fields with Galileo
• Practice fields will not be open Wednesday night.

We’re working now on signage to direct teams and the public to each field each day and we’ve spoken with Sargent Productions about ensuring the live feeds of division play are labeled with the division name, not the field location.

The fields from MN 10,000 Lakes, Dallas Regional, Colorado Regional, Buckeye, Utah, Silicon Valley, and North Carolina are already on their way to St Louis. Two more trucks, loaded with Championship specific supplies (banners, trophies, program books, FLL and FTC fields, etc.) will leave Bedford next week.

In other news:

The May edition of Popular Mechanics has a special pull out supplement all about FRC. The author Eric Sofge followed the GDC this year and shares his insights on the process. If you can, track down a copy, it’s a good article.

The highest score during the FRC Regionals was 150 points. It was scored by teams 1114, 3756, and 2056 during Semifinal match 1-1 at the Waterloo Regional. The highest possible score in LOGO MOTION is 158. I wonder if we’ll see that at Championship.

If Dean didn’t visit your Regional/District event, you can see what he has to say about the FIRST Green e-watt saver program here: http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr....aspx?id=18445

You can vote for Dean Kamen in the STEM Superhero Sweeps (and register to win an iPad2).
The last time I checked Dean was in first place.

This Saturday, April 16th, FIRST president Jon Dudas and a FIRST student will be speaking at the
National Robotics Week event at the Boston Museum of Science in Boston, MA

13 Days until Championship
See you then!