Washington Jump Start Tournament

[Rick TYler]

Our VEXnet field controller works fine (thank you, Ricky Torrance) and the only Exothermic team with the VEXnet upgrade is up and running. I sure wish we had nine more of these upgrade kits.

Only two days...

[murdomeek]

only a few more days
everyone is making final adjustments
and of course autonomous
we dont even have a proper field yet with the tees and such so we can only guess its "half" done...
see you all there
oh btw
just a thought on running the event:

last year there were 2 fields being played on
while one field was "on air"
the other field were being reseting up and placing the robots
the only thing is that there were 3 "queing spots" on EACH SIDE
so that means if you got called,
you would have to wait in line behind 3 sets of aliences
PER side
meaning you would have to wait for 6 matches to be played before its your turn
and if each match is 4 mins long (setup, lag, counting scores included)
you would need to wait 24 mins in line!
thats is a bit too much for my taste
my team and i would rather be at the pits fixing something or making adjustments
last year at gladstone there were only 3 "queing spots" in total so the wait wasnt that bad
just something for the event organisers to think about
thanks
(ive finished rambling now )

[Rick TYler]

Originally Posted by murdomeek

just a thought on running the event:

Thanks for the feedback.

[dtengineering]

Originally Posted by Advic

By the way (at david thompson) is that from the registered team list, or your own knowledge? I, for one, would love to know what we're up against

You can't tell from the team list who the students are, however since I am the teacher responsible for the teams, I can assure you that all of the students from David Thompson will be taking part in their first VEX tournament. Allan will be there to help out, but we'll probably find a job for him as some kind of tournament volunteer.

That said, this won't be the first robotics tournament for all the students coming down. A few were at Key Arena last year for FRC.

We don't have enough VEX kits at DT for everyone who wants to play to play every year. Many of the students from last year's VEX teams are doing PIC Machine language programming at the moment and working towards building their very own mini-sumo robot, built and programmed from the ground up for about $20 each.

Others are gearing up for another run at the Microsoft Seattle Regional FRC tournament.

[dtengineering]

Wow! What a tournament. Lots of returning veterans, some great new teams, and further proof that I am completely hopeless when it comes to predicting who is going to win a robotics tournament.

It was great to see some new teams from Washington taking part (a special welcome to our FRC friends from Aviation High School), to see the very talented teams from Cambie Secondary taking home some heavy hardware, and a fabulous run by 1426 from Lord Tweedsmuir Secondary in Surrey in their very first VEX tournament.

I've posted some photos here. If you're posting media from the tournament, please add a link to it to this thread.

The next tournament in the Pacific Northwest is the Gladstone tournament, December 12th at Gladstone Secondary.... but that deserves its own thread.


P.S. Congratulations to the GDC for designing a great game... there is SO much room for gameplay to evolve, and so many different ways to play the game well.

[Sunny]

Which teams won?

[dtengineering]

As I recall, with alliances listed in no particular order:

Champions: 1346c, 2z, 1899
Finalists: 1346a, 1107a, 1426a
Excellence: 1107a

Why we never realized that the second place alliance should have been called "The A team" until the tournament was over is beyond me, especially as "The A Team" movie was being shot in Vancouver this weekend.

Team 1107 however, did notice that the tournament took place on 11/07. Will team 1212 be competing at Gladstone on December 12th?



P.S. Those familiar with VEX in the Pacific Northwest will notice the absence of perennial favourites 721 and 575 from this list. Although they were on top after elims, and formed 2/3 of a very formidable alliance, they were knocked out in the semis in what has to be one of the biggest "upsets" I've seen in VEX. That's what makes this a sport... you have to play the game to find out who wins! Watch for them at Gladstone, though... they'll be back even better than they are now.

[Rick TYler]

Event winners: 1346C, 2Z, 1899 (Fifth seed)

Event finalists: 1426A, 1107A, 1346 (people call it "1346A", but the team is registered as "1346")(Sixth seed)

Excellence Award: 1107A
Amaze Award: 1426A
Build Award: 575
Innovate Award: 2Z
Judges Award: 10V

Standings after Qualifications
Rank, Team#, Team Name, Wins, Losses, Ties, WP, RP
1 575 Exothermic Haiku 5 0 0 10 276
2 2K Epic Farce 4 1 0 8 314
3 10Z Exothermic Billy Mays 4 1 0 8 303
4 721 TBA 4 1 0 8 231
5 2A Ourselves 3 2 0 6 338
6 10E Exothermic Albatross 3 2 0 6 321
7 1346C Trobotics 3 2 0 6 308
8 1426A LTSS 3 2 0 6 291
9 1107B GorDova 3 2 0 6 287
10 10B Exothermic AI3 3 2 0 6 284
11 10C Exothermic Astley 3 2 0 6 281
12 2Z DeathFromAbove 3 2 0 6 263
13 1107A Donuts and Timbits 3 2 0 6 246
14 10X Exothermic Stairs 2 3 0 4 340
15 1346 Trobotics 2 3 0 4 335
16 10D Exothermic Flounder 2 3 0 4 321
17 2Y Know One 2 3 0 4 321
18 2T Xsis 2 3 0 4 320
19 10V Exothermic Victory 2 3 0 4 310
20 10Q Exothermic Salsa 2 3 0 4 300
21 1983A Skunkworks Robotics 2 3 0 4 294
22 10A Exothermic Cybernetics 2 3 0 4 276
23 2605A Sehome Robotics 2 3 0 4 275
24 1899 Interlake Saints Robotics 2 3 0 4 274
25 1983B Skunkworks Robotics 2 3 0 4 254
26 1346B Trobotics 0 5 0 0 319
27 2C Tyrannosaurus VEX 0 5 0 0 268

[Sunny]

Wow...5th seed alliance took home the gold.

[Rick TYler]

Team 1899, Saints Robotics from Interlake High School, meets and practices with Exothermic Robotics. They are a separate team, but they are a part of our extended family. For a robot that was in what you might call "really bad shape" a couple of days before the tournament, they clearly over-achieved. Super job, guys.

My personal favorite moments were 10V winning the Judge's Award and 1107A winning Excellence. 10V is a junior high school all-girls team (average height about four foot-eight ) who LOVE robots and LOVE their team. They are a great group and I'm very proud of them. I wonder (a little) if 1107A was just about the most surprised group in the building when they won Excellence. A hot, fast robot that reminded me a lot of 420 from last year. Good jobs, and congratulations to Cambie Secondary.

I'm still tired and sore, but I think I can recover before Gladstone.

Oh, and we had dinner last night with students from 575 and 10Q (last year's 417). I don't think their robots will look the same at Gladstone as they did at Redmond.

Side note: Has anyone else noticed that most of the Exothermic teams are now 10, and most of Gladstone is 2? And that "10" in binary is "2" decimal? I don't think this means anything -- or does it?