Folks,

The [COLOR="Blue"]Potomac Robotics League, Prince William County 4H, and Osbourn Park High School[/COLOR] will collaborate to host a VRC "Regional" Tournament, Jan 17th at Osbourn Park High School in Manassas, in Northern VA. This will be an "official - qualifies you for the Championships", tournament.

Use this thread to discuss plans for the event, and/or ask questions, and/or give your potential opponents the graciously professional tauntings that you know they so richly deserve ;)

If you intend to participate or want to volunteer - You can let me know informally here, or can send an email to the account listed below in my signature info.

The RobotEvents site will be used for formal sign-up (once I finish my budgeting and set entry fees).

Remember, you need nothing more than a correctly programmed squarebot to attend, have a good time and make a positive contribution to your alliance; but if you want to come with your latest 18"x18"x18" marvel - I'll be delighted to give you a chance to see if it is has "the right stuff".

Blake
PS: Past season Champions already planning to attend are the Vexy/ACME powerhouse (5 teams this year), and the Osbourn Park hosts (3 teams this year). Who else is going to come and keep those folks honest?

@bellpride Are there plans for tournament videos?

It is pretty unlikely that I will formally plan and capture any videos; but one teacher at the host school posted plenty from his team' appearance in the VA FTC Championship last year. Maybe he will do that for this regional.

Blake

Folks

While we are waiting for me to work with IFI to get the latest info into RobotEvents.com and open it for making formal registrations (I'm slow, not IFI); I will really, really appreciate it if teams who would like to attend this tournament would post (here) a short and sweet message along the lines of "We want to bring ___ teams from ___."

Thanks in advance!
Blake

We would like to bring two teams (24A and 24B).

I still look forward to hearing from more of you...!

Blake

So far we are expecting 14 Teams and the competition should be pretty fierce. Lets add another 16 teams or so to this list and burn up the tiles on our way to Omaha and Dallas!

[LIST=1]
[*]Team 42
[*]OPHS #1
[*]OPHS #2
[*]OPHS #3
[*]Team 12A Acme
[*]Team 12B Acme
[*]Team 12C Acme
[*]Team 12D Acme
[*]Team 12E Acme
[*]Team 24A
[*]Team 24B
[*]GFHS #1
[*]GFHS #2
[*]GFHS #3
[/LIST]
[LIST]
[*]Acme took more than one team to the FTC World Championship last season, and they spent a lot of time on the fields during the elimination rounds (Semi-finalists, I think).
[*]GFHS students have earned the Virginia FTC championship, and have taken that title to the FTC Worlds in each of the two past seasons.
[*]OPHS and Team 42 shared the Virginia Championship honors with the Team Apollo GFHS Students last season.
[*]Team 42 and OPHS also took a trip to the FTC Worlds last year
[*]Team 24 and Team 42 (and 1894) won the Dunbar Lab Rats VRC Regional this season.
[/LIST]

Blake

IFI and I will get this info up onto the RobotEvents site shortly, but they are a little busy at the Pan-Pacific Championship the moment... so I'll initially post it here. The attached MS Word file contains the info also.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

[SIZE="7"]The 2009 [COLOR="Blue"]NOVA[/COLOR] VRC Regional[/SIZE]

Date(s): Saturday, Jan 17th, 2008
Venue: Osbourn Park High School, http://www.osbournpark.groupfusion.net/[/url] , “Once a Jacket, Always a Jacket”
Address: 8909 Euclid Avenue
[url]http://local.google.com/maps?&ll=38.7638,-77.4485[/url]
City: Manassas
State: Virginia
Capacity: 32 Teams
Entry Fee: $100
Registration Opens: ASAP (RobotEvents.Com will update shortly - contact gblake directly until then).
Registration Deadline: Jan 13

Centrally located between Richmond, Baltimore, the Shenandoah Valley and the Chesapeake Bay; Osbourn Park High School, in cooperation with Virginia 4-H, Lockheed Martin, Triangle Fraternity, and the Potomac Robotics League is proudly hosting the 1st Annual NOVA VRC Regional Tournament!

We will meet in the school's main Gym ([url]http://local.google.com/maps?&ll=38.7638,-77.4485[/url]) starting at 7:30 and no later than 8:00. By 8:30 you should have settled into your pit, queued for Inspection and be ready for our driver’s meeting and the opening ceremonies…. (if you need overnight accommodations, maybe we can find you an inexpensive couch to borrow for a night – let us know)

We will have at least two fields for match play, a PSC/DSC field, and a practice field, all for your machines to strut their stuff upon; bleacher seating for spectators, ample parking outside, and a concession stand inside. In addition to matching wits on the fields, teams will also have a chance to earn VRC judged awards, and maybe a fun PRL award or two.

I’ll see you there!
Blake Ross
gblake in the Vex Forums at [url]http://www.vexforum.com/index.php

----------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm just giving this a little nudge to keep it visible in the list of recent forum threads...

Blake

Registration through the RobotEvents site is now open!

http://robotevents.com/event.php?eid=861
Blake

@JanetLathan Hi Blake, et al.
When the Registration fee is listed at $100, does that mean per team or per robot?
I am trying to get funding from my school and I need to be specific.
Thanks,
Janet

Hi Janet - Good question,

Per "Team", with the definition of a team being
[INDENT][INDENT]A group of students who bring one or two robots. These robots are for creating one entry in the Qualifying Matches and/or the optional DSC, and/or one entry in the optional PSC. Not two for PSC, or two for the Quals/DSC.[/INDENT][/INDENT]

A team gets one entry into the Qualifying Match schedule.

The VRC tournament structure is not organized around teams in the sense of a team being a group of people who all attend a single school, or are all from the same Scout Troop, or are ... otherwise affiliated.

The VRC tournaments are organized around one or more students (a team) bringing their one or two robots (see above) to the tournament.

To put it another way, if a Church or school or garage full of students wanted to bring 5 robots and put them all into the Qualifying matches, they would have to divide up into 5 teams and enter the tournament 5 times.

For the NoVa Tournament, I will lower the fees (give rebates) if it makes sense to do so (beyond perhaps buying important equipment for future tournaments, the tournament is supposed to break even).

Blake

Just a little poke to briefly bring this thread to the top of the heap again.

And a good time was had by all....

After 8 Qualifiying Rounds:
Rank TeamNum TeamName
1 12A Weather Makers
2 33 Leviathan
3 53 Alchemists
4 24A S-Cubed
5 24B S-Cubed
6 12C Vexy Things
7 2068C Metal Jackets C
8 12D Steel Panthers
9 42 Mostly Harmless
10 12B Sand Crawlers
11 2068B Metal Jackets B
12 12E Easily Distracted
13 2068A Metal Jackets A
14 154 Winds of Plague

Tournament Winners on the Field = Teams 12A & 12C
Excellence = Team 33
Robot/Driver Skills Challenge = Team 33
Programming Skills Challenge = 12A
Create = 12A
Unite = 24B
Judges = 12C

These results give 12A, 12C, and 33 a berth at the two North American Championship Tournaments.

Also Informal polling produces these results:
Support = Team 33
Energy = Team 24B
Sportsmanship = Teams 154, 24B, 24A, 12A, 12D, 12B (all Tied)

Thanks to everyone,
Especially to my friend Jeff Tjuputra, who I comepletely for to thank in my closing remarks :eek:

Blake