Glad to hear it. We’ll have to save up/fundraise some money next year.
The event was pretty good.
Winning Alliance:
1771
1261
1415
Finalists:
1379
832
2415
The matches were great, we were able to get everyone the “field team” experience, not to mention the consecutive match schedule was fun.
The one thing that my team didn’t quite like was the match schedule. We played against the same teams and with the same teams 7 times. Yeah…the exact same match…7 times. That got to be a bit much, but we had fun.
Hopefully we can do it again next year.
In theory, there are probably enough combinations of teams that you would only play the same alliance 3 or 4 times.
Congrats to 1771, after your play at IRI with us (nothing short of amazing offense and defense) I’m not surprised to see you guys winning an offseason. Congratulations!
We had a blast, and look forward to attending next year. Since our team was mostly seniors, we only had three students go to the competition. They did a fabulous job learning the ropes as drivers (it was the first time to drive for all three).
I want to compliment the organizers and volunteers for an incredible job. The event went off without a hitch, despite the difficulties involved. The venue was great, although I wish it was a little closer to home.
All the teams were great, and we met some great new teams, we look forward to seeing them again at Peachtree.
Finally, I have to give props to Ace hardware in Warner Robins. We competed in two regionals, championships and IRI without a failure, but during the first practice match on Saturday, our intake roller got snapped in half. Since we had to travel light, we didn’t bring our toolbox or spare parts. We rushed to the nearest hardware store (Ace) and explained our problem. The whole staff immediately began to look for something that we could use to repair our roller. We found a piece of sink drain pipe and super glue that did the trick, and were able to get the bot fixed after only one crippled match. Thanks Ace and thanks to 1319 for the loan of some tools to get it all back together.
P…S Are the match results going to be posted somewhere? Will they be on TBA? Just curious.
My girlfriend and I woke up at 3:30 AM with the sole purpose of driving to Robins to GRITS.
Totally worth it.
What I loved:
-The Museum of Aviation is hands-down the best venue I’ve ever seen an off-season staged at. Where else can you play thirty feet from an SR-71 Blackbird?
-The field issues were handled as well as field issues ever are.
-Forsyth Alliance for getting their robot in the hands of a pre-rookie when 1746 weren’t even there!
-The half-dozen folks from other teams swarming 1319 to get their compressor running
-Separate pit and field announcing added a good polish to the on-field action.
-Having Chick-Fil-A onsite and not even gouging us on lunch! ($2 for a Coke was a little painful for me–see above about the whole 3:30 thing–but $5 or $6 for lunch is entirely fair.)
-The finals matches were spectacular. You wouldn’t think this was a 13-team event!
A few areas for improvement for next year’s event:
-Getting to the seating from the front door of the building (which involved passing through the immediate field area) felt a little awkward–I wasn’t really sure how to get there without messing up queueing. (Obviously, I stayed clear of the carpet–but does Little Timmy Freshman know that?)
-The absence of a game clock on the field was a little off-putting to me, though I don’t know the ins and outs of FMS Lite enough to offer much of a solution.
-A few more signs guiding folks from the front parking lot to the hangar would be useful. (It didn’t seem like we were the first folks to get to the lady at the front desk of the main building looking for directions.
-Travel restrictions kept my teams from coming this year, but I’m not sure we could’ve pulled off a mid-September date regardless. Nudging back to the first part of October (though perhaps not so late as to conflict with TNT if an overlap seems likely) would make logistics MUCH simpler for us teams that only start revving up in August.
Assuming that there is a GRITS 2.0, I’m so there.
I am one of the new drivers for team 1771. I had a great time and thanks to team 1261 and 1415 for being on our alliance for the finals and good job to all the teams who showed up, the rookie teams, and the volunteers. I hope something like this is put on again next year.
-The Museum of Aviation is hands-down the best venue I’ve ever seen an off-season staged at. Where else can you play thirty feet from an SR-71 Blackbird?-
That was indeed cool. Not to mention the F-16 right next to the SR-71 and the Sea-Stallion hanging from the roof, and that cute little Cessna jet trainer. Very inspiring.
I was a member of the Rookie Luella team, and I must say, the competition was amazing. We brought 1746’s robot, Otto. We received him about a week before the competition, and somewhere in transit, a lot of the wires came unhooked on the controls, so we were basically running him without any way to score. The atmosphere was wonderful-- about a half a dozen teams were in our pit at all times, either giving us advice, explaining the rules, or trying to help out with Otto.
We didn’t actually realize that we would be coming out and competing, if I have the information straight, we were asked the night before to bring Otto with us, so once we were all assembled at the school, we actually ended up “technically” breaking into our own school to get him. One of our AP’s told us to go on in-- and neglected to point out that the police would still be summoned. Very nice. I think it was slightly suspicious when a policecar pulls up, and we’re loading a multiple thousand dollar robot into the back of a van. All things were sorted, though, and we arrived okay. Through the course of the competition, I think everyone from our team that came got a great taste of what FIRST is all about.
A big “thank you” goes out to 1746 for loaning us OTTO, too!
Edit: I’m rather new around here-- are there videos available of the event?
Hi all,
I took a few panoramas while I was not doing stuff with the team or filming our matches. Here’s my favorite. The full version is almost 20 MB and around 5000x2400 pixels.
I’d like to put the others somewhere, but haven’t gotten around to doing that yet.
I’m sure there are a few scattered videos of matches among teams, but as far as I know there is no way to collect them and display them in a organized format (no The Blue Alliance for off season regionals). It would be nice if there was.
-Tanner
