Who watched that? That was a really good regional!
I watched the matches on SOAP and the second set of semis through the finals live. I was testing a scout sheet. The conclusions are…interesting.
(Other than that it works well for predictions…and for figuring out who you want to pick.)
i have, it was awesome!
Why do you lose respect for them. This angers me because if you were in the same position, you would do the same thing. Did you ever stop and think that they were picking them because they wanted them as an alliance partner, and not just to break up a powerful alliance?? Even if that was their only reason, they earned the #1 seed and the first pick, they should do whatever is best for their team. It really bothers me. People keep bringing up 1732 from Cruie last year. People say they didnt deserve it, but most of them didnt even see their robot in action. I talk to some people that are on that team, and I watched their robot for most of their matches. They were one of the better scoring robots I saw last year, but they needed some help from an alliance member to keep defenders away from them. Does it mean they are a bad robot if they need help from an alliance partner? People also talk about their choices in Atlanta last year What is wrong with what they did? Beachbots and 1114 were clearly the best teams there, so should they pick any team that wasnt the best choice? I dont care if you dont think the #1 seed deserves to be there. You can say “They just got carried by other teams”. If that happens, So What? They didnt create the algorithm, its not their fault they were with good teams. I’m sure if you were that team, you wouldnt want to hear others saying you dont deserve it, and you wouldnt say you got carried. Whoever is the #1 seed deserves it. Remember, the #1 seed doesnt mean anything about the best robots. In my opinion the #1 seed usually means that robot was one of the best at working with another team and contributing to an alliance. That is how I feel. Nawaid, when I say you I am talking to anyone in general, not just you in particular. Im not meaning to rant, but this is just something that really bothers me. You wouldnt want your grandma to hear you bashing anothers accomplishments would you?
Joey
What you say is 100% true.
My team has been in situations like you describe in Curie last year.
My take is it’s a 100% valid strategy. If you know that other people consider you a weaker team, and you have the first pick, you have to do what’s best for you.
What’s best for you would be one of two things–the “powerhouse” teams accepting your invitation, and thus making your alliance better, or the powerhouse declining your invitation, and denying them the ability to be picked by another powerhouse, thus weakening all your opponents.
It’s been done to us, and if I were in the position of the team executing this strategy, I’d absolutely do it as well. It’s all part of the game.
They have identical jerseys and identical robots. I’m not sure what the story behind their collaboration is.
Woohoo, i picked the champs!
I had a feeling they were gonna take it.
Way to go McKenzie! Great way to represent Indianapolis! We are proud of you.
Thanks to a few close calls our team had to stay around longer (2433 @ seed 9).
Congrats to team 1024 (The literally smoking robot). Their autonomous mode can score up to 20 points. (Talking about getting a head start)
The robot was smoking after it was placed on the field during semi-final. The cause is unknown. (Our team was summoned to standby because of this.)
Wildstang had to call a timeout to help get one of the other robots working within their alliance (We were called to standby for the final match).
There was a 3 vs 1 match because of two reasons.
- A competing team pulled their robot from the field 10 seconds before play. They should have stopped and brought in the standby team. Would have scored more points instead of being dominated.
- A key robot to the team was on its side.
Killer Bee’s (Team 33) robot did a great job. Unfortunately it fell hard on its side in the beginning of its elimination match crippling the alliance’s chance of scoring. This is the look on their faces when it fell :eek:
1114 has a unique method of cooling the motors / actuators for the arms. Too bad I didn’t grab a photo of their cooling process: Blowing on the motor when they are not competing. Their preparation process before the match was perfect. They insured nothing would come lose and tested the motors and arm before the match.
1114 is a team you can look at at any angle and find a perfect model for your own team. I’d suggest everyone take a peak, if you haven’t already, and find out what they’re doing right. Year in and year out, they are amazing.
Programmer/Driver here…
I am SOOOO TIRED but I couldn’t help but see if anybody was saying anything on CD. Aparently so!
Thank you for all of your kind complements. I’m sure I speak for our entire team when I say we’ve worked very hard this year to put forth a good bot.
Still can’t believe that shooting mechanism came from this prototype…
65_Xero_Huskie: Great prediction. Who would have thought? 
However, you’re pick on closest match wasn’t quite right. I don’t know what alliance # they were, but the bomb squad alliance REALLY gave us a run for our money!
IndySam: Thanks for your kind complements.
Ninja: To clear up some smoke on the smoke, the smoke actually came from one of our ultrasonic sensors. Strangely enough, these sensors keep the robot from ramming (the robot decelerates (note decelerate not decrease power) just before a collision to keep from getting carded). So, are they safety sensors or un-safety sensors? :ahh:
Our gyro now has gunk all over it and I think the fire (yes there wasn’t just smoke) killed one of our encoder cables (hence the robot drifting into the wall in the final match). So, we’re bringing a spare gyro and a spiffy new encoder cable to boilmaker and RALFF should be all ready to drive again.
Some things are lucky like this, but I didnt even realized who’s timeout we were on while fixing the wiring fault. Turns out WildStang called their timeout to fix one of their robots same time ours decided to start smoking all of a sudden. If you hadn’t called the timeout… things may have been VERY different… hmm.
Also, one last note. Remember the team numbers for our alliance? Look what’s odd about them…
1+1+1+4 = 7
1+0+2+4 = 7
2+0+4+1 = 7
A match made in heaven? Perhaps. :ahh:
1024 is updating their travel schedule to include the Championship Event in Atlanta. 1114: I know we’ll see you there. 2041: Don’t remember if you’re going or not, but hope you are!
Thanks guys! See you all at Boilermaker next!
-q
p.s. Any feedback on the speedometer/debug display?
Yah, it looked cool, but have you ever told us what it does? I saw a bunch of numbers without much of an idea of what they were.
And I have to add to everyone else that has already mentioned this, your auto is amazing!!!
Thank you! Sorry it had a little problem at the end there after the fire.
Also, we figured out what one of our problems was with the display being so, well, hard to read (getting dim quickly). Our main battery cable was barely hanging on… so whenever we gunned it (most the time) the battery voltage was very low. 1024 should be a little quicker at Boilermaker.
The display is currently set to display ft/sec speed in competition mode (when in debug mode it can display a number of things from encoder counts to gyro angles). It reads out in fixed-point hundreths of a ft/sec. Example: “12.75” on display means the robot’s forward velocity is 12.75ft/sec. If you see all the decimal points turn on (ex 1.2.7.5.), this means the robot is going backwards at the indicated speed.
-q
That is really cool! You just added another item to my potential offseason project list.
Even to just use it as a debug screen and not even have it on the 'bot for competition seems like it would be very helpful when programming auto.
1+1+1+4 = 7
1+0+2+4 = 7
2+0+4+1 = 7A match made in heaven? Perhaps.
1+5+0+1 = 7 :ahh: WOW, what a coincidence
See you guys at BMR
You guys rock!!
Great work Q and the rest of 1024… also congrats to 1114 & 2041… the triple 7 alliance 
We (1675) had to pull out of the match at the last second because a battery lead came loose from the RA Distribution Block somewhere between our pit (where everything was tested and checked out fine) and placing it on the field. The crew would not grant us a time out to repair it, so we pulled off the field to do so (in hindsight, leaving the bot on the field would have at least caused a bit of a bottle neck in that corner and possibly slowed down 1114 and 1024, but it was fun to see such a high score). There was nothing wrong with our bot so there was no reason to call in a replacement. Our defense took out 1114 in qualifying before, so there’s no way we were going to give it a shot in the second match. Had our alliance had two full matches against them, I think we could have made it a pretty close second match, but the best alliance definitely took home the gold. Congrats to 1114, 1024, and 2041!
that was us 1625,16,648 who took the timeout then, we were trying to get chain back on one of 648’s swerve modules.
so in turn… your welcome? lol
WOW…I went away to university and missed all you guys on CD for a few years, feels great to be back!
Having some free time this year, I came back to this great competition re-assuming my role of Veteran Mechanical Mentor @ 843. This was a special task this year, as 843 fostered rookie team 2386 in our neighbouring city Burlington ON. (as they had minimal resources, and only 6 students)
The end result was a beautiful collaboration, we collectively designed the robots, 843 hosting the machining and welding opportunities. While an inspiring rookie student from 2386 spearheaded an impressive autonomous program for both teams (see match #40)
2386 finished day 1 ranked #1! We all had a blast and a big thanks to all of the teams who made for a great challenge @ Midwest.
I hope this explains the curosity below:
“843 & 2386 have similar jersey’s”…
We were pleased to run the sister teams on the same alliance in the elimination rounds, some rookie preparation errors caused us some grief in the semi’s…so watch out for the well oiled twins @ GTA regional!
Soooooo how about the Canadian presence @ Midwest…
3 CDN teams, all three in the semi’s…1114 the talk & Champ of the regional!
you southern brothers better watch out!