Well you might be wondering what we did all day after the selection process. Between packing up the pits, crating the robot, and loading up the bus, we also got our mascot to the Mascot Parade to kick off the Championships, saw some quarterfinal matches, did lunch, watched the finals, then went to the finale.
Check out this view of the Edward James Dome taken near entrance D. This place was rockin all week.
Our mascot with his friend “Shrek” waiting with the other mascots for the Mascot parade to start.
Not doing too bad even though it was impossible to see.
In line for the 10th time. The opening ceremonies were delayed over 45 min. But that didn’t slow these guys down, they were chanting and dancing the whole time.
Only the mascots were allowed onto the field. This was my view of the show through Entrance D’s double doors.
Team 3838, Roc City Robotix’s mascot on the Jumbotron with the Energizer Bunny. The costume looked great up there.
Everyone should check out this Queen parody ,FRC Rhapsody, by Team 1448, Parsons Vikings, from Parsons, Kansas, USA. They rocked the house. Actually it was shown at the Fingerlakes Regional too but its worth seeing again. I couldn’t say it better.
Our mascot did a great job and survived the parade. He must have a great memory to memorize all those phone numbers as there was no way to write them down.
The scoring for the championship was very high. Einstein consisted of the former Hopper and Newton fields. Matches were played back to back with a short break when an Alliance was playing two in a row. Strategy for the finals was different from the Quarter and Semi Finals where you could not waste time fighting over the center barrels as your score was compared across all finalists. In the finals the Red Alliance stacked three totes and scored a barrel set using one robot while the other two robots vied for the barrels in the center of the field. In the first match Blue won all four barrels though and Red could not overcome the score from the first match.
Congratulations to the champs:
Team 1671, Buchanan Bird Brains from Clovis CATeam 118, Robonauts from League City TX
Team 1678, Citrus Circuits from Davis CA
and 2nd place:
Team 987, Highrollers from Las Vegas NVTeam 2826, Wave Robotics from Oshkosh WI
Team 2512, Duluth East Daredevils from Duluth MN
We were encouraged to display our avionic engineering skills. Though some of us obviously do not know what we’re doing.
The band Boys Like Girls started 45 minutes after we had planned to leave. Urgent texts between Roc City Robotix and X-Cats were communicated so that we could stay another hour.
We were there for only three songs but this young lady didn’t appear to mind.
Nether did a few of the girls from our sister team, X-Cats. A few young ladies from the X-Cats sat with us in the lower section to get a closer view. After sitting in the nose-bleed section for the quarter finals we decided to go back down to a lower level for the finale.
Some of us were ecstatic over just being there. I’ld do it again tomorrow.
When Meghan emailed me that she had applied to go to the Championships I thought we didn’t have the money, our robot wasn’t legal as we hadn’t bagged it properly, the robot was still in Rochester, we didn’t have a hotel, we didn’t have a bus, and that none of this is a problem because we didn’t have an invitation. I was wrong. When the invitation came and Meghan obtained commitment from the Rochester City School District a lot of people stepped up.
We thank the Rochester City School District for supporting our team. Our students behaved as excellent young ladies and gentleman. You should be proud of your children as they represented their city and team in an exemplary manner.
We thank our sister Team 191, the Wilson X-Cats, for offering and sharing with us a ride on their bus. This was a huge contribution to getting us to the Championships.
We thank USFirst for the invitation to the Championships, for the USFirst FRC Program, for patience working with RCSD’s financial commitment, and for waiving our robot bagging requirements. You guys are the best. We thank Dean and Woody too.
We thank Optimation and Kingsbury for crating our robot and getting it to FedEx on time. We thank FedEx for shipping it too.
We thank Thomson Reuters for their financial donation. Along with donations from Arnold Magnetic Technologies, Casey, Mitch, Lee, Mark, and Shelby. We also thank our other sponsors, SMC Metal, 3D Systems, The Coca-Cola Company, SolidWorks, and AutoDesk.
We thank our mentors, Mitch Burberry, Steve Eckel, Wendy Low, Jay Mollis, Shelby Nelson, James Olds, Scott Phillips, Ted Phillips, John Quenin, Bob Smarcz, Lee Tutt, and Mark Vedder. We would not have a robot good enough to show if we didn’t have such a great group.
A special thanks to X-Cat mentors Paul Daniels and Jeff Huspen.
We thank our teachers Jon Lundberg and Mike Couglar.
And lastly we thank our Rookie Lead Teacher Meghan Slack. Way to go Meghan, I can’t wait to see how we top this next season.
Sincerely;
Kurt M. Sanger
Lead Mentor USFirst Team 3838 Roc City Robotix