Posted by Ken Leung at 03/18/2001 7:34 PM EST
Student on team #192, Gunn Robotics Team, from Henry M. Gunn Senior High School.
Congratuation to team 254-cheesy Poofs, 330-Beachbot, and their partners 698, 294, 260 (I apologize for not knowing their team name) for winning the South California Regional with a score of 500!!!
It takes perfect machines, perfect alliance, and perfect stratrgy to do such thing. You truely deserve it.
I also like to thank Team 256 and 524 for picking us as alliance partners. And because of how well we work together as a alliance, we were able to get a score of 336 tie with the winning alliance, forcing the finals into the 5th and 6th match.
The SoCal regional have been a really meaningful experience, and I am looking forward to the Silicon Valley where we will be competing with a lot of Bay Area teams!
Be ready… to see G-Force balancing with its two arm!
Posted by Ken Leung at 03/18/2001 7:37 PM EST
Student on team #192, Gunn Robotics Team, from Henry M. Gunn Senior High School.
In Reply to: congratuation to the SoCal winner!
Posted by Ken Leung on 03/18/2001 7:34 PM EST:
It must be the fact that for the past few days, I went to bed at 3am and wake up at 6am…
So… Tired…
Posted by Ernie Wright at 03/19/2001 12:57 AM EST
Student on team #254, Cheesy Poofs, from Bellarmine College Prep and NASA Ames, Unity Care, Cypress Semiconductor.
In Reply to: congratuation to the SoCal winner!
Posted by Ken Leung on 03/18/2001 7:34 PM EST:
Kenneth,
Thanks very much for your congratulations! I speak for myself and my teammates when I say hats off to you and all your teammates for a great robot and an awesome performance in the finals. We look forward to seeing you at the silicon valley regional!
Posted by Andrew wyatt at 03/19/2001 2:09 AM EST
Other on team #524, Alpha Omega Robotics, from South High School.
In Reply to: Re: congratuation to the SoCal winner!
Posted by Ernie Wright on 03/19/2001 12:57 AM EST:
On behalf of team 524, I’d like to congratulate team cheesy poofs,the beach bots, and the other members of the winning alliance names who’s names I have forgotten (through sheer stress, I assure you.)
I’d also like to thank GRT for giving us a consistant 4x multiplier, team 410 for being the fastest and most stylish bot on the court, team 256 for being good and leading us well, in addition to their sterling performance on the court, and team 589 for just being there.
Posted by Fred Agnir at 03/19/2001 8:44 AM EST
Coach on team #126, Gael Force, from Clinton HS and Nypro Inc…
In Reply to: congratuation to the SoCal winner!
Posted by Ken Leung on 03/18/2001 7:34 PM EST:
: Congratuation to team 254-cheesy Poofs, 330-Beachbot, and their partners 698, 294, 260 (I apologize for not knowing their team name) for winning the South California Regional with a score of 500!!!
Unfortunately for me, I had to leave Los Angeles before the elimination matches. However, before I left, I told everyone who would listen (all two of them) that Team #330 (ranked near 30th when I left) would win over Team #254. I’m glad to know I was half wrong 
So, with what I saw as the two top power scorers on the same alliance, can someone tell me what the winning strategy was?
Fred
Posted by Bill Gold at 03/19/2001 10:56 AM EST
Student on team #258 from Lincoln High.
In Reply to: Winning Strategy?
Posted by Fred Agnir on 03/19/2001 8:44 AM EST:
The winning strategy for the SoCal Regional was to scout the teams early and often, and to have your choices numbered off and ready to go. It appeared that two (and possibly three) of the top four seeds had never thought of who to pick as alliance partners.
Posted by Joe Johnson at 03/19/2001 11:46 AM EST
Engineer on team #47, Chief Delphi, from Pontiac Central High School and Delphi Automotive Systems.
In Reply to: Picks…
Posted by Bill Gold on 03/19/2001 10:56 AM EST:
At the NYC regional the top seeds were fluid.
2 matches before the end of the Seeding Rounds, we were sitting in the Mid-teens with little hope of being a picking team.
Then we had 2 good matches (the last two) and bing-bam-boom we were seeded #5 and paired with the #1 seed in the Elims.
When we went to meet our partners, they were literally reading the rule book to find out what happens next. Beyond one pick that they were certain about, they had no other firm plans about who they should pick.
In the end, things worked out great, but it was very nerve racking to have your team called up to the front with little or no idea of what teams they were going to pick.
I really don’t know why FIRST is in such a hurry with the draft.
Fairness to teams really requires at least 1/2 hour be set aside for teams to think about their picking strategy.
Joe J.
Posted by Ken Leung at 03/20/2001 4:37 AM EST
Student on team #192, Gunn Robotics Team, from Henry M. Gunn Senior High School.
In Reply to: Time to think…
Posted by Joe Johnson on 03/19/2001 11:46 AM EST:
Right after the qualifying rounds, I thought FIRST would allow the teams to go to lunch and recover a little bit so that they can be more prepared for the elimination rounds… but turns out I was wrong.
At the end of the last match, FIRST called a representative from each team to the main stage, and called up the top 8 seed and immediately ask them to pick the partners…
Two of the alliances seem to be unprepared for this, and as we were picked by the 3rd seed, we were caught off guard and did not know which partners to choose, neither. We managed to get through the selection, but it was an extremely stressful experience. We feel that we would’ve been more well-prepared if we had a little time before the selection…
It should mean no harm to FIRST’s schedule, and it will only improve the over quality of the alliance, making the competition more interesting…
So, I seriously hope in the up coming regionals FIRST will allow a break before team selection, which will only help the rookie teams as well as the veteran teams to have a more enjoyable experience, while not reducing the challenge of the competition, only making it tougher.
Posted by Andrew wyatt at 03/21/2001 12:56 AM EST
Other on team #524, Alpha Omega Robotics, from South High School.
In Reply to: more time before picking!
Posted by Ken Leung on 03/20/2001 4:37 AM EST:
Our team had already gone to lunch, leaving one student in the pits to watch everything.
We were quite lucky that that student was our primary manipulator guy and qas one fo the more squares away guys in our team.
We had exactly NO warning about when the team pickification would go on, and we were seriously caught off guard.
we were qite lucky that we went ahead and made a list of the well designed bots beforehand, and our drive had a copy of it in his posession. (that didn’t help as much as it could have, because the list had some typos on it)
more time and/or notification would have been appreciated.
Posted by Fred Agnir at 03/19/2001 11:47 AM EST
Coach on team #126, Gael Force, from Clinton HS and Nypro Inc…
In Reply to: Picks…
Posted by Bill Gold on 03/19/2001 10:56 AM EST:
: The winning strategy for the SoCal Regional was to scout the teams early and often, and to have your choices numbered off and ready to go. It appeared that two (and possibly three) of the top four seeds had never thought of who to pick as alliance partners.
Okay… I wasn’t looking for something so esoteric What I was looking for is how the robots as a team scored 500 points. Which was the balancer? Which was the ball grabber? Which did a post pattern?
Fred +~~~ scouted the teams, early and often
Posted by Joe Ross at 03/19/2001 12:32 PM EST
Engineer on team #330, Beach Bot, from Hope Chapel Academy and NASA/JPL , J&F Machine, and Raytheon.
In Reply to: Re: Picks…
Posted by Fred Agnir on 03/19/2001 11:47 AM EST:
: Okay… I wasn’t looking for something so esoteric What I was looking for is how the robots as a team scored 500 points. Which was the balancer? Which was the ball grabber? Which did a post pattern?
Fred, sounds like even I wasn’t detailed enough for you
I the 500 point round, Cheesy Poofs grabbed the near goal and filled it up. 698 and us (330) went to the far side in tandem. We were both trying to get a ball and stick it on the far goal. Whichever one was faster put the ball on. In that match we did it a little faster. Meanwhile 294 drove under the bar, and then back over the ramp to reset it for Cheesy Poofs. Cheesy Poofs came over the ramp clamped onto the far goal and balanced, all in less than 1 minute.
Posted by Joe Ross at 03/19/2001 11:51 AM EST
Engineer on team #330, Beach Bot, from Hope Chapel Academy and NASA/JPL , J&F Machine, and Raytheon.
In Reply to: Winning Strategy?
Posted by Fred Agnir on 03/19/2001 8:44 AM EST:
: Unfortunately for me, I had to leave Los Angeles before the elimination matches. However, before I left, I told everyone who would listen (all two of them) that Team #330 (ranked near 30th when I left) would win over Team #254. I’m glad to know I was half wrong
Fred,
First of all, thanks for leaving! After our first match on saturday we where ranked 30th exactly and in our next match we finally got the right alliance partners and everything clicked. We scored 336. We ended the qualifying rounds in 9th.
The Cheesy Poofs pulled a coup in the alliance selection. Besides being paired with a robot that could handle large balls, they chose us with their first choice. Their second choice was 294 who was not only fast and could limbo, but they had successfully pulled a stretcher in an earlier round. They also got 260, another reliable, limbo robot.
From there we did our best to get 3 robots in the endzone, cheesy poofs balanced with 1 filled and 1 empty goal, and one large ball in less than 1 minute.
Several things went wrong in earlier matches that kept us from completing that strategy, but in our last match it worked and we scored 500 points.
Joe
PS, thanks for having faith in us, even when we didn’t have it for ourselves.