First of all, I would like to give a BIG congrats to MIKE RUSH who won the Woodie Flowers award!!! Not only did he deserve it, as Eric B. said, “It took us seven years to realize just what he truly did for us”. Thank you Mike!
Alright, here’s the rest. Great day of competition folks, congrats to all those teams who won an award! I can’t wait to see how tomorrow turns out :yikes:
Imagery – 991
Leadership in Control – 1212
Creativity – 190
Driving Tomorrow’s Technology – 585
Team Spirit – 294
Judges Award – 1492
Rookie Inspiration – 1456
Woodie Flowers – MIKE RUSH
Ok, I talked to a member of 254 who is there helping out and this is what he told me:
190 has been able to get to the platform during auto mode, but theyve only ben able to hang 50% of the time.
190’s shields, when deployed optimally, leave around 3" of the bar uncovered on either end, which allows someone with a good enough driver to get a hook on there, or to push up on the end of it to get their hook on under the shields.
60 made a new hook last night that allows them to deal with 190’s shields (Im not sure what’s going on with this)
330 can shimmy on the bar, but apparently 60 is fast enough to drive to the other end of the bar before 330 can traverse it.
234’s 3rd pick (868 I think) has been doing nothing but disrupting teams from hanging, which theyre real good at.
60 is hitting the ball in auton, grabbing the goal, decapping it, and bringing it back to the player’s station. Then they go to the opponents side of the field, herd all the balls back to their side, then do the same on their side. They get around 60% of the balls to their HP per match
I cant remember what else I heard, but it sounds like it’s going to be 60+234+868 and 980+190+their partner in the finals.
Both the 234 and 980 alliances lost in the semifinals. 60 broke in the semifinals. 330 had their robot controller die before the second match of the finals. Between the 6 minute timeout and scoring trouble, they had approximately 15 minutes to replace it and did. The Head Ref approached the opposing alliance and said that according to the rules 330 shouldn’t be allowed to play, but asked them if they would like him to enforce that rule. The opposing alliance said that they would like 330 to compete.
Wow! What a trip! We got back at 6:00 A.M. Sunday after what turned out to be a fourteen hour drive. We went as an evaluation team and ended up being volunteers when they got caught in a pinch late Thursday. It was a great way to get to know things close up.
All of my people ended up on the field or thereabouts. I (the short shooter) was in charge of blue alliance reset with Evan (pole boy) and Lisa (the other shooter) helping out, Cara (the redhead) was put in charge of red alliance reset, and Karl was the one who helped you all cue up on the blue side of the field. Everyone says they had a blast and are now completely obsessed with starting a team. This is largely due to the example you all set with your courtesy, enthusiasm, and sportsmanship. We were especially impressed with the gracious professionalism shown by the teams that allowed team 330 to participate in the final round. It also made for an exciting finish for the day.
Thank you so much to the teams that provided valuable information and offers of support to us. We’d also like to especially thank those of you who gave us a heads up when entering the field while we were distracted with the reset. We avoided many bruises because of you. Thanks for your patience as well when the balls came back down on us while shooting.
I’d also like to thank the girl who loaned me her blue poodle/circle skirt so I could be the head ref’s example for his brief lecture on proper dress after giving our announcer friend a fashion penalty.
The people who worked with us at the side of the field made us feel like family and we were sad when it came time to say goodbye. We felt really bad that we had to leave right after the last match in order to get back in time to fill our responsibilities back in Utah, but alas that is life.
We hope to see you all again as a new team next year.
Thanks from:
The CEU Evaluation Team
Cara, Karl, Evan, Lisa, and Amber
P.S. some of the bots earned pet names from the reset crew for their stand out performance and appearance. I’ll post them later if anyone is interested.
That was a really fun regional. My team had some iincredible lunk and we were able to win this regional. The strat we used was a good strat. This will be our first time going to nationals which should be really great.
Oh lord amber, I was so overwhelmed I forgot you were there evaluating for Utah when you came with a big hug. Keep us updated on all that happens about that, and don’t hesitate to ask us for anything you think we can do to help.
Our team loves the Phoenix regional and it’s become a training ground for our new team members and to bring other teams’ students/mentors and teacher reps so they can see what a wonderful intimate well-run extremely busy fun regional is like.
We had a parent/mentor and student from 2nd year team 1115, then a couple of weeks ago were able to recruit a mentor from their team to join us, and just a very few days before Phoenix were able to recruit a mentor from rookies 1453 to join us in Phoenix. We had a teacher rep from our high school who hasn’t been involved with the team.
Thank you to Phoenix and all competing teams. You contributed to the people with us to being inspired to brainstorm about “connections” to get more LA Regional funding and facilities for a party in the future, to encourage their “rookie” teams to continue at their schools, to inspire using “connections” to get more rookie teams from local schools not yet in the program, for our teacher to go to the school activities teacher to get us into the pep rally from now on to demonstrate what a regional is like including impressing them with hanging from the bar because he believes people have GOT to know that there’s so much more to the robotics’ program than people think…
A FIRST official came by our pit and spotted a pink bag. He wanted only the bag and I emptied what was in it, still puzzled what he was up to. He asked for a button to weigh down the bag, and then told me it was a penalty flag for the emcee. I didn’t get a chance to see it in action. Love the stories.
I want to hear the pet names.
Here’s some more stories I can think of…
Our retired school district technology director, now a board member on the nonprofit foundation that handles our money, was so impressed with Team 60’s chairman’s award application that she brought me over to see it, but there wasn’t a copy left. Team 60 searched down a copy and made sure she had one. Thank you for personally taking care of a VIP from our team!
Two little girls with their mom visited our pit and their mom read to them off our posters about our virtual team member Tessa. Those girls were enraptured by that and, I’m sure, the entire experience at the regional. Future team members are dreaming about their future in the program.
Thank you to Team 60 for organizing the Thursday night party. We were worried about the rain, and called the party facility to have Team 60’s Amanda paged, who took care of reassuring us that the rain wasn’t going to prevent the fun to be had. Despite the very light sprinkle, there was unlimited miniature golf, and 50 credits for the video games - that I thought wouldn’t last long. Students and adults alike had plenty of fun for the entire evening and our team hopes that evening becomes a Phoenix tradition. They are looking forward to it not raining next year to take advantage of what would have been a wild time with the cool looking outside rides that were included in the modest $10 price. Thank you 60!
We have a new female member who’d joined very recently, only been to one meeting. At the last minute someone had to cancel out of going to the regional, and I called the girl to replace them. She was very unsure that she’d find anything to do to be useful, and she was worried she didn’t know anyone. Needless to say she learned there is so much more to the competitions than just working on the robot, and we kept her very, very busy, and during the Phoenix regional she was inspired to ask to be our team’s co-programmer and she was already being trained on the spot up in the bleachers with Sid, who I believe will be our head programmer for the new season.
Loved seeing Canada and Mexico recognized well by the regional, and the two country’s teams participating being so visible, i.e. by singing their national anthems. Our team of course loves Jesse, the incredibly talented and inspiring trumpet player who does our national anthem.
Great to see the Woodie Flowers and the unique teacher’s award given out, and how much those people meant to their students. Seeing a student fly down the bleachers, jump across the field, to hug the winner, and more students rushing out to hug and congratulate the winners - our team and others can relate to seeing the appreciation for adults’ hard work in this program, and the camaraderie between adults and students that develops. Thank you adults and students for making that such a visual memory.
If I think of more stories, I’ll be sharing them. Please share yours.
Why exactly was it that 330 shouldnt have been allowed to compete? Was it because they had to switch their RC (I don’t see why this would be disallowed)?
330 called a time out, a time out is for six minutes only, they barely missed the six minutes and the teams’ graciously allowed them to compete anyway.
