5th Annual Southern Kentucky Battle for the Bluegrass

Competition Off-Season Events
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Your team is invited to the 2018 Southern Kentucky Battle for the Bluegrass Robotics Invitational sponsored by Berea College GEAR UP.
Join our FB Page https://www.facebook.com/groups/531012097000142/

The Battle for the Bluegrass (BftB) is a FIRST Robotics Competition invitational off-season event. This year FRC Team 3844 will host teams from multiple states to reprise the previous season’s FRC game. This is going to be an extra special year for FRC growth potential in Eastern Kentucky. Berea College GEAR UP is partnering with us to sponsor six or so pre-rookie teams for this event. The plan as it stands is for GEAR UP to finance the registration, travel, and meals for the pre-rookie teams to come to the 2018 BftB at Lynn Camp H.S. Several of the attending veteran teams have already pledged their Beta-Bot and mentor help with the pre-rookie teams so that they can compete on Saturday. We will spend Friday afternoon training the newbies on robot control, pit work and basic gameplay. This will be the shortest team formation to competition day ever! We still need a few veteran teams to pledge their beta-bot and mentor support for Friday and Saturday.
Teams already committed to pre-rookie mentoring and beta-bot loan.

Team 2614 - Mountaineer Area Robotics (MARS) Morgantown, WV
Team 5022 - Rat Rod Robotics Jonesborough, TN
Team 323 - Lights Out Mountain Home, AR
Team 5492 - Winner’s Circle Robo Jockeys Louisville, KY

We are also asking that every team provide at least 1 adult for field management on Saturday and time permitting on a busy Saturday have a group prepared to present on one aspect of running a high power STEM program.
In order to make the event financially more affordable for the teams we are offering space at the school for lodging, just bring your sleeping bags. Lock-in at the school Friday night only
We will have two separate spaces for the teams (one for male team members and another for the female members) shower areas are available in gym locker rooms.
As teams register, we will get hotel info out for those who do not want to use the free lodging lock-in at the school.
We will have several Food trucks on site for lunch on Saturday
Still working on breakfast details
WHERE:
Lynn Camp High School Robotics Team 3844
100 N Kentucky 830,
Corbin, KY 40701
WHEN:
Saturday, November,3rd 2018
SCHEDULE:
Load-in 3:00 PM (Friday)
Open Practice Matches (Depending on Field Status and FTA) 6:00 PM-Midnight (Friday)
Practice may be in a secondary area with field carpet, but sans Field Elements
Pits open 7:00 AM
Matches start 8:30 AM
Lunch at 12:00 PM
Finals at 1:00 PM
Award Ceremony at 5:30 PM
REGISTRATION: Teams not providing Beta-bot and support for pre-rookies
$300 for Pre-Pay by check or P.O. (mailing address above)
$350 check, cash, P.O. on competition day
REGISTRATION: Teams providing Beta-bot and support for pre-rookies
$200 for Pre-Pay by check or P.O. (mailing address above)
$250 check, cash, P.O. on competition day
RSVP through email to Arthur_canada@berea.edu and cc acanada@firstinspires.org by 10/23/2018
Finals: The top eight teams will select their alliance mates in a reverse draft. Any unpicked team is open for selection just like any in-season regional.
Trophies: Awards for the winning alliance.

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The Secret City Wildbots Team 4265 just pledged our 5th Beta bot for Rookies

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0 Team # Name School State
1 323 Lights Out Mountain Home AR
2 554 The Bluegrease Crew Ft Thomas KY
3 2614 MARS Morgantown WV
4 3140 Flagship Knoxville TN
5 3814 PiBotics Florence KY
6 3843 RoboRacers Murray KY
7 3844 Kentucky Wildbots Lynn Camp KY
8 3959 Mech Tech Somerville AL
9 3966 L&N STEMPunks Knoxville TN
10 4265 Secret City Wildbots Oak Ridge HS TN
11 4576 Red Nation Robotics Knoxville TN
12 5022 RatRod Robotics Jonesborough TN
13 5125 Hawks On The Horizon Chicago IL
14 5477 Austin East High School Knoxville TN
15 5492 Winners Circle Robotics Louisville KY
16 6023 Discbots Deklab GA
17 6517 Team FTW South Doyle TN
18 7693 Craft Academy Morehead KY
19 Knox Central Barbourville KY
20 7484 Fort Campbell Fort Campbell KY
21 Corbin HS Corbin KY
22 Berea Community School Berea KY
23 Whitley County HS Williamsburg KY

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I am going to try to cover several house-cleaning items in this email.
Request email with attachments by messaging me

Team roster

I have attached an excel spreadsheet roster so that you can submit your team members and adults that will be attending. We are financing this event through a grant so getting an accurate headcount is very important. If we wait until the day of it will really back up at the door getting everyone counted and in. Do not worry if you list people that may or may not attend. It is much easier to take them off later.

Pre-Rookie teams

I am still working on getting some new teams to attend. Some will be competing this year and others may be a year away from competing. As I get those together, I am trying to connect them with their mentoring team. I will get travel info out to the Gear UP supported teams later this week

Lock-in

The lock-in option is for any team member or mentor. Getting a count on that is imperative to make sure we are allowing space. Everyone will need some type of bedding (I use an air mattress, the floor is too hard for my old bones) The Basketball locker rooms under the bleachers have boys and girls showers.

Breakfast

Saturday morning breakfast is still up in the air. I am working with a caterer that we have used before within the grant but they are yet to get me a price or menu. It will be typical country breakfast always-excellent food and their price is never over $9 per head. On the attached form, I am just gauging interest for now. If the breakfast caterer falls through, I will get the word out early next week. There is a MacDonald’s about 1 mile from the school, which should make it easy for a mentor to run out for a team order. I will not be collecting payment for breakfast. That will be a face-to-face transaction with the vendor on site.

T-Shirts

The t-shirt column is just to gauge interest. If you want to pre-order, I have attached our vendor Kayla’s ordering info. She will have a table set up all day on Saturday and can do the work on-site, but if you are sure you want shirts I would pre-order with PayPal.

We will have two Food Trucks on Saturday for Lunch this year.

Philly Connection

http://www.phillyconnectionfoodtrucks.com/

Welcome to Philly Connection Food Trucks!
www.phillyconnectionfoodtrucks.com
The Mobile advantage! Walk up to our trucks and enjoy the fabulous food! Having a special event? Let us roll in and serve you and your guests. Have a specialized catering request?

Handlebar Nates

Handlebar Nate’s - Home | Facebook
www.facebook.com
This is what happens when a guy with a culinary degree decides to open a food cart: the best dogs w… ith the most innovative ingredients at fabulous prices! It just doesn’t get any better. If you want a nasty boiled hot dog with kerosene-style onions this is NOT your place.

There are several Fast Food restaurants about one mile from the school and Pizza delivery to the school.

Volunteer positions

Head Referee Wayne Doenges

Referees x 4

Scorekeeper Larry Bolan

Field Supervisor x1

Field Reset x 6 (I should have this covered with our kids, but may need some)

Lead Queuer x1

Queuing Staff x2

Master of Ceremonies Alvin Winter

Announcer Gregory Napier

FTA Daniel Bravo and company

Sunday Morning outing

For the past two years Team, 5125 Hawks On The Horizon and I have spent Sunday morning after BftB hiking in Daniel Boone National Forest. The first year we hiked the area around Cumberland Falls State Park and last year I guided them into the Dogslaughter Gorge. This is a great outing, but tough for teams to schedule with traveling home. I am not sure where we will go this year, but it will be no more than half an hour from our venue and we will only spend a few hours in the morning. Everyone has to get home at some point. The lock-in is only available Friday night so teams wanting to participate would have to find lodging for Saturday night.

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We had a veteran team bail this week. If any veteran teams are interested we have slot 24 open.

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Here is a spreadsheet with TBA data for official season performance of the veteran teams on the team list above. (I’ll update it eventually if/when the list changes.) Below is a quick summary with number of event wins, number of event finalists, best rank, season match record, season match win percentage, and championship performance if applicable.

Team	W	F	Rank	Record	Win %	Championship Performance
323	0	0	9	18-10-0	64.3%	-
554	0	0	11	6-5-00	54.5%	-
2614	2	1	1	49-16-0	75.4%	Rank 4, Alliance 3 Captain, F
3140	1	0	4	27-14-0	65.9%	Rank 28
3814	0	0	13	11-11-0	50.0%	-
3843	0	0	41	3-8-00	27.3%	-
3844	1	0	13	21-16-0	56.8%	Rank 30
3959	0	2	2	35-13-0	72.9%	Rank 13, Alliance 7 Pick 1, QF
3966	0	0	11	12-11-0	52.2%	-
4265	1	0	8	28-12-0	70.0%	Rank 10, Alliance 2 Pick 1, SF
4576	0	1	32	13-25-0	34.2%	Rank 32
5022	0	0	28	8-11-00	42.1%	-
5125	0	0	43	3-7-00	30.0%	-
5477	0	0	10	9-11-00	45.0%	-
5492	0	0	3	16-17-0	48.5%	Rank 56
6023	0	1	17	14-18-0	43.8%	-
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Can someone explain why multiple bots are regularly holding down the scale and the head ref seems to not care?

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How do you mean “Holding” down the Scale? Were they just knocking it down in passing or they were holding it down for a long time?
How do you mean “Regularly”? Do you mean all the robots were doing it all the time?
We are just volunteers and we don’t have eyes that can see multiple direction at one time. I only volunteer, as a ref during, the off season so I don’t have the training that a seasoned ref does.
We have to watch pretty much all the field all the time and we miss things.
Also, if a robot pushed the scale upwards, we didn’t call it as it wasn’t to their advantage.
Also, if you have a problem with me, man up and talk to me instead of airing it hear.

signed

Wayne Doenges
Head Referee for the Battle for the Bluegrass

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I did Wayne. You heard me call you out then proceeded to glare at my students and yell at a guest we had helping a pre rookie team for the rest of the event. I got no beef, you?

And I mean regularly like a certain team consistently moved the plate for every cube they scored. I had students ask you about it and despite being told the rule you continued to ignore it with the exact defense of “I’m just a volunteer”. That at least gave me a good time to explain to my students that if they are going to do something they should make every attempt to do it well. And if someone points something out they should reflect on it and if needed course correct rather than deflect.

I posted here to see if the event management had made a rule change I was unaware of.

I understand you’re a volunteer. I understand the challenges of watching matches. Which is why I didn’t call you out by name and didn’t say anything negative other than “is there a reason”. There’s a ton of room for “yeah the visibility in there was low, we were short a ref or we decided to be more lenient with certain rules” my response to many of those would be “ok, no worries how can I help in the future” and to the last was “in the future can we make sure that’s articulated to teams”.

I got no beef with you Wayne. I had a question about why things were done and I wanted it to be a public discussion.

As a disclaimer - I despise the “I’m just a volunteer” deflection. Teams are paying and as a head ref you are overwhelmingly the biggest influence to that. Bad reffing can ruin an experience for a team. (Not saying that happened, enjoyed the event, I’m rambling) is there something the community can do to help i prove consistency? Particular game design elements to avoid in the future? Maybe something for folks to think on over the next couple months instead of “how are we gonna find water game in the game hint”

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