2006 Chesapeake Regional

Competition Regional Competitions
#81

Quite a few good shooters and a couple of good corner goal scorers here. Also a lot of rookies - don’t remember exactly, but I think it was 8-12 of them. The teams which seemed to have it together were (in no particular order and my apologies to any I missed):
181
237 (their own bot, not to be confused with the 4 or 5 others they built yesterday and this morning)
175 (strings of 3 pt’ers when it works right)
888
293 (one huge barrier on defense and very good scoring, too)
56 (excellent 3 pt & 1 pt, with a new, lower profile since NJ)
122
341 (got better and better all day)
1449
484 (reliable corner scores, usually good for 10 in auton)
225 (another good corner bot)
103 (lots of 3 pts, except for some turret control issues)

237 has to be the standout team of this event for how they single-handedly put so many rookie teams, which were in dire straits yesterday, onto the field today. Shouldn’t be any surprise that they absolutely defined gracious professionalism this week. And they have one strong scoring machine of their own.

The game play has been more defensive than NJ was, but not as heavy on the rough play and ramming as I saw in Pittsburgh last week. Strong shooters usually drew heavy defense, so there weren’t any really high scores, with 60 - 80 pts typical for the strong alliances and some single digit vs. teen scores for the weakest. 103 had some problems with their shooter turret mid-day, but came back strongly in their last match today.

My impression is that there are more good robots here than in NJ, but none that are equal to 25 (Lost Wages is in for a treat). Looking forward to seeing what tomorrow brings!

#82

Any private videos of Chesapeake? Love to see them!

#83

15 rookies, and some teams playing thier first comp of 2006 as well here in Chesepeake… :ahh: Craziness all around. I like how the rookies are in between 2 novice teams in the pits. Their is a huge pit map in a nice location, but it causes a bit of a delay when you look for a team in numerical order, but i think that was a great move on FIRST’s part for rookie support at the event.

Speaking of that…

Thanks Pete. We are more than happy to help. Within our team it’s a bit crazy as of now and this has been an interesting weekend to say the least (we got stuck in an elevator at our hotel tonight in one instance among other things :ahh: ) but we’ll continue to offer and give help to any team (novice or rookie who needs it on Saturday as well.

I personally think it was our duty as a novice team in FIRST to offer this support for the rookies (or an team at a competition for that matter). As of right now, we have had no major problems with our robot (knock on wood), and that has made it easier to help more teams at this event.

I want to as of right now thank all the people organizing this event for making our efforts to help multiple teams get through inspection on Thursday, and also as early as we could on Friday morning/noon-ish as smooth as possible.

I’ll try to get some names to put behind that thank you, but for now. Thank you Chesapeake Regional Committee, and the many Volunteers and other teams for your support in our efforts of supporting some less well off teams than us at this regional.

Oh and just a little side note to Pete. We did end up having a team find us a Flux Capacitor, and when we were done with it, we indeed did give it back. :stuck_out_tongue:

#84

This is what I love to hear!

#85

Alright,

Thanks all for the updates, I’m especially interested in how the rookie ref Pat Bogard is handling the pressure. Rumor has it that he’s spent so much time in a Hopkins lab that his physical stamina is limited and he has a hard time seeing anything clearly that isn’t in a Petri dish :smiley:

As long as Jess feels as though I am impatient …
How about some alliance pairings, playoff updates, and Sat award winners?

In all seriousness, It’s very gratfying to see team alums out volunteering in meaningful ways at events.

(and Greg, I think I’d like to know the boys’ room story, but I think I know what happened. When Jess was a student on 103, she was never allowed to eat or go to the restroom for fear that she’d miss something important. It’s possible this is her first experience with public restrooms in more than fours years … you know Jess, when you told me not to comment on this, it was really an invitation to do so ;)).

#86

Alliance 1: 1629, 175, 1184
Alliance 2: 181, 888, 1218
Alliance 3: 293, 103, 1389
Alliance 4: 614, 1111, 339
Alliance 5: 602, 56, 709
Alliance 6: 484, 341, 836
Alliance 7: 225, 237, 303
Alliance 8: 1647, 399, 624

#87

Updates on finals results will be posted shortly pending the start of the matches in just a few mins and their eventual completion.

And Kres, while I may have never been allowed to eat or use the restroom while on 103, I can say that I have indeed visited restrooms perhaps once or twice n the past. :wink: This was just my first adventure into the boy’s room (and was Greg’s fault… he led me into it).

#88

Do I read this right? Not a single rookie team in the finals? That strikes me as a little odd.

#89

Does anyone know what is happening right now?

#90

(Jess Jank posting as Greg)

Alliances 1, 2, 3, and 4 have made it to the semi-finals. more updates later.

correct. no rookies were picked in alliance selections. great job to all the 15 rookie teams at Chesapeake though!

#91

finals #1 vs #2

#92

Whats the current status?

#93

going into the 3rd match… 1 win each
~Jess Jank

#94

Winners: 1629, 175, and 1184
Congratulations to all!

Awards coming up in a bit.

~Jess Jank/Greg Needel

#95

ok…so am AM impatient … anyone have the word on Chesapeake awards?

#96

Alright, sorry this is REALLY LATE, but I had major internet issues. These are the Award Recipients of the Chesapeake Regional 2006:

Autodesk Visualization: 225
General Motors Industrial Design: 56
Motorola Quality: 484
Johnson & Johnson Sportsmanship: 768
DaimlerChrysler Team Spirit: 399
Judges: 293
Underwriters Laboratory Industrial Safety: 303
Rookie Inspiration: 1894
Rookie All-Star: 1719
Top Rookie Seed: 1727
Regional Finalists: Alliance 2: 181, 888, 1218
Regional Champions: Alliance 1: 1629, 175, 1184
Engineering Inspiration: 341
Chairman’s: 612

Congratulations to all! It was an AMAZING event!

#97

Tons of thank-yous now that I’m home from Chesapeake and actually have some internet access (despite how horrible dial-up is).
First off, thank you to my home team, Cybersonics, Team 103, for taking me with them. I am so very grateful to have had the opportunity to go and have such a great time, plus it was great seeing all the kids, mentors, parents, etc again and seeing the team in action. They did an awesome job (despite a some problems with the system that caused a high scoring autonomous game to have to be restarted and leading to a loss in the semi-finals) and I am truly proud of them. Thanks soooo much! Love you all!
Big congratulations and thank you to all the teams who attended the Regional. There were definitely some fierce matches and amazing examples of gracious professionalism. Congratulations to all of the 15 rookie teams at the event… I definitely look forward to seeing you progress throughout the rest of the season and the years to come!
Of course a huge thank you to all those who made the event possible: all the coordinators, directors, volunteers, etc. You all came together to create a spectacular event. There are so many of you who deserve thanks, and really sorry if I miss or misspell your name (running on very little sleep): Carol Kauffman, Ron Taminelli, Steve Chism, Jeff Seaton (the awesome MC), the head refs Anne Bergeron and Steve Shade, IFI representatives, all the field reset crew and refs (including lots of awesome AmeriCorps people), all the other volunteers… ok too many people to name. But truly, I respect all of you for your awesome work. You are amazing people. Big shout out to Greg Needel for letting me help with the game announcing and taking me on as your “helper monkey.” I ended up filling in for Greg on Thursday and was asked to help the rest of the competition. I had a blast working with you, even if you did lead me into the guys locker/restroom (jk…actually we were following so other volunteers to the lunch area and they too a short cut… low and behold it was through the boy’s room…).
I was also so excited to get to meet up with some of my close friends who I haven’t seen in ages. Dori (007), Meyers (56), Anthony (56), Mike (Leicht)(303),and of course Corey (Balint)(25) and my kiddo Bharat(25). I missed you all terribly, so it was absolutely awesome to see you all again. Big thank you to Brat and Corey for making me a MAVERICK shirt (#9!) and for helping 103 throughout the past two days - you two were truly an awesome aid to the team. Also, I was originally told by Brat that only Corey would be coming down, but Brat pulled another Philly 05 on me(told me he wasn’t coming when he really was and caught me utterly by surprise) and once again caught me off guard by showing up. You don’t know how excited I was, so definitely a huge thank you for helping to make the event even better than it already was. Love and miss you all and can’t wait til I see you at Championships/Off-seasons.
Ok, so thanks again to everyone! Hope you have a great rest of the season!

#98

I was surprised that no rookies made it through. The two top pool teams for back-ups were both rookies, 1727 and 1719. Both were ranked fairly high; 1727 was 16th, I’m not sure about 1719 but they were definately up there. 1727 was almost pulled up to sub in several times when robots weren’t working properly. It’s a shame both of these rookies couldn’t compete, they were both impressive robots as well as impressive teams in general. (Both are going to Atlanta, though: 1727 won Rookie All-Star at Pittsburgh and 1719 won Rookie All-Star at Chesapeake.)

I’d like to say that I thought the referees did an excelent job of calling the matches at Chesapeake. I don’t think I saw any penalties that were unwarranted, and they made the tough calls that they probably didn’t want to make. The entire volunteer staff at Chesapeake was awesome, they kept things moving along great the entire weekend. The field problems were comparatively minor in my opinion, even though there were a few scoring system errors. The one big one that I witnessed was the one jessjank posted, the restart of that awesome autonomous mode.

I want to go ahead and thank Buzz (175) and Cobra Robotics (1184) for the awesome alliance we made in the finals. You guys rock, I’m still trying to let it sink in that we won. We’ll see you all in Atlanta!!

#99

I had a good time at the regional, it was a little disappointing for us being a rookie team, but I think we did a great job overall. We had our drive chain come off 3 of our first 4 matches, and then in the other match, we had another teammate’s autonomous drive the wrong way, straight into us, and pushed us onto our ramp and tipped us over before the end of the autonomous period. By the fifth match we were really getting it together, we made about 2 shots into the main goal and got up the ramp at the end, and in the 6th match our autonomous started to accomplish something. However by these matches, at least one of the opposing teams had a very well done autonomous round and we were consistently in a 30 point hole going into the final 3 rounds. By the end of the regional, we had our autonomous nearly 80% completed and our mechanical difficulties had subsided almost entirely, so in that sense we were pretty happy with our accomplishments despite our pretty bad record.

Also, a tale of serendipity. In our fourth match, we played vs a team with the infamous Team Spike (imo best robot there). One of our drive chains came off in the middle of the match, so we were floundering around the middle of the field trying to spin on one wheel to get our shots off before the game ended. Spike came over and pushed us toward his ramp, and most of the way on it. However with our one wheel we were able to flounder all over the place, ultimately preventing all 3 of their robots to get on the ramp. Spike did push us completely onto their ramp though, so we thought that they would get the points for us being on it. However, a link of the drive chain that had slipped off was the only thing touching the ground, so they ruled us not on the ramp. We still lost the match miserably, but it was still a great ending for us.

Good luck to all the teams going to Atlanta, and hopefully team 1895 will be back next year.

#100

Favorite moments
• Watching many teams, especially 237, rally around so many teams, assisting with major retooling. At about 4pm on Thursday, we still had 24 robots that had not passed inspection. By 8:30 on Friday all but a couple passed and they were all passed by mid-morning.
• Watching the British and American students sing the national anthems, as a multi-team effort.
• Watching the 15 rookie teams most of whom had never seen a FIRST event enter the arena floor on Thursday morning
• The conga line and all those great mascots.
• Watching the “pit divas” in action.
• The teams who had major lapses in judgment, but made good with genuine apologies.

Least favorite moments
• Dealing with all the confusion about FedEx shipping. There were mentors who had to spend hours on this frustrating task because of what appears to be some glitches in the system, but each of them, as tired as they were, were gracious.
• Asking teams to please not pull their vehicles in the construction zone in the back of the arena and discovering a team did it anyway. I guess their sense of entitlement and judgment calls is more important than our host, the Naval Academy, and all of us working so hard to make this work for all parties involved.

Thanks to
• Megan and Catherine on 888 and Robyn and Jocelyn on 768 for donating their calligraphy skills for a couple of hundred mentor recognition certificates for me.

• Anne Bergeron and Steve Shade and the entire ref crew for making consistent and fair calls, some of which were not popular, but they were by-the-book.

• Greg Needel who is an amazing announcer. He is professional, has a great voice, and has the knowledgeable banter down to a science. He also has a great sense of humor.

• Jeff Seaton who lights up any room he is in.

• The more than 20 Americorps volunteers who worked hard despite having to get up at 4 am each day to travel to the Naval Academy to get there by 7.

• All our veteran and rookie volunteers. They were a great team.

• Lt. Steve Lepper and Major Mark Tingle from the Naval Academy who have been a pleasure to work with.

• To all the great mentors who were so free with their compliments.
• And lastly, all the 64 teams, who chose to attend the jet-lag regional. You were an amazing group. Thanks to all.