i, along with the rest of team 1086, would like to thank Gar-field robotics for putting on this scrimmage!!
i had a great time along with my teamates!!
i really hope that something like this happens next year!!!
edit: if anyone has any pics please post!!!
~Alex~
The Gar-Field scrimmage was really good but it did take a while and we didn’t get to play as many rounds as originally planned I still had fun even if I lost in the finals. gamErfrEEk (his vex name) took videos and pictures of all the rounds we were in so you might send him a message asking for them.
cool!
ill have to talk to him soon.
~Alex~
Being from Gar-field I think we did good for our first hosting event, although it was stressful~
It’s too bad that the event wasn’t able to go on longer, but everything had to be cleaned up before the basketball groups came in.
For me it was a lot of fun because I got to help set-up then help running the event, and with two of the other girls on the team we went and competed with the old robots (even if we didn’t do as good as was hoped).
Someone from our school was taking pictures all day, but we havn’t gotten them up yet, and because our team won’t be meeting this week I don’t know when they will be up…
Thank you to everyone who came 
I think that Gar-Field High had a better system of points than at the Dec. 9th Competition, probably because there was so much chaos before. You guys had it alot better organized. And by the way, what was the reasoning behind the HOUSE robots not going into the rankings
Thank you, that means a lot to us ^^ sometime in the future we want to have more scrimmages at Gar-field.
There where two house teams, if I remember right, one was Gar-field while the other was a group that was home-schooled - if I remember correctly. The group that was the homeschooled group went into the finals.
Well the reason behind the House team not entering was because since we where hosting the event we didn’t think it was fair. Also the ‘girls team’ was driving it and two of the members had to leave so it was only me left.
To Tmaxxguy and everyone who attended:
Please think for a bit about why the pace of the matches was slower than we all wanted (the root causes, not the superficial ones) and then help suggest what to do differently next time. I have a couple of ideas, but I don’t want to prejudice anyone’s thinking by offering them up now.
Post them all here and I/we will try to implement them next time.
I think first of all, the matches started a little late and there was too much time allowed in between matches and I think that 1-2 minutes late to a match just added up.
The short answer is that the house robots were substitutes for any and all no-shows during any match.
Because the OTHS and House robots were just simple Squarebots, they couldn’t be accused of dramatically affecting the scoring, but if you were a team that had an alliance partner forfeit a match, having a “house” robot step in to fill that void at least gave you and your robot a fighting chance to pull off a win.
The long answer is that when I created the schedule of matches I expected 19 robots to be entered by teams and I wanted 20 so that the scheduling would involve batches of five 4-team matches. So, I tossed one “House” robot into the list. This original one was the one called OTHS, since my Olde Towne Hobby Shoppe team (3040) would supply the Squarebot.
Then when we had a couple more no-shows, instead of going through the ngihtmare of creating a new schedule ( I don’t have that automated yet) and instead of having lots of forfeits, in the schedule we replaced the no-shows with more “House” robots. They weren’t actually robots crafted by teams trying to do their best, they were just Squarebots with a simple flat plow on front. They filled the gaps in matches are were one way that we got the matches to occur at a faster pace as the day went on.
Blake
PS: The GFHS team that was one of the five tied for top Qual Points (at 4 QP each) decided to use a little Gracious Professionalism when they stepped aside and let their guests claim all four top seed slots. That was a very commendable thing to do!
OK - Agreed
Now, what would you do to prevent having those 1-2 (or 5-10) minutes of delay from ever happening in the first place? Ask yourself why team were not standing in line waiting to start each match at the scheduled times…
Sometimes in this sort of situation a good trick for getting to the real core of the issue is to ask yourself “Why” five times.
For example, If my car won’t start…
[LIST]
*]Why? Because the battery can’t have enough power to start it.
*]Why doesn’t it have enough power? Because it is Winter and starting a car take more power in winter than in summer.
*]Why don’t I have a battery powerful enough for Winter use? Because this one is old and is nearly worn out.
*]Why do I have an old nearly worn-out battery? Because I didn’t pay attention to the age of the battery before Winter arrived.
*]Why didn’t I pay attention? because I don’t have a reminder checklist/schedule of car maintenance items posted next to the door connecting the garage to the rest of the house.
[/LIST]Solution: Post a list of quarterly car maintenance reminders in a high-visibility spot in my garage.
Now, there is nothing magical about the number five in this method. Something 3 will get you where you want to go; sometimes seven or eight. The key objective is looking below the surface symptoms to find the real (controllable) causes.
Can do? Why did we have those delays???
Everyone put on your thinking caps and submit the results.
Blake
First - Thanks! But I am a little confused. Are you referring to the Qualification Points plus Ranking Points system? Unless I made a mistake, I thought that I used the standard FIRST approach; and that consequently, I used the same system that was used at Farmville.
Were you referring to that “system” or to some other part of what we did?
Blake
PS: When I have a get copy of the spreadsheet file containing all the match scores, I intend to post it here so that other folks can copy or improve it.
If all the digital photos & videos are either posted on a web site, or snail-mailed (or emailed) to me and/or Luke Hejnar; we will put them onto CDs and mail those CDs out to every participant for whom we have an address.
Please figure out a way to get them to him or me and we will do the rest!
Blake
PS: Luke is the guy who was photographing the robots on the lazy susan so that he could create animated GIFs of them for everyone. However, if he wasn’t given your address, then he won’t be able to mail you your CD…
what i ment was that you guys split up the points to show us how it was broken down for the final score. At the Decc 9 competition, it was very confusing for the players to add it up and really see if there was a mistake or, how we always like to do, break down the points ourselves.
Oh, and Blake, I am trying to upload the videos to the Spotsy Robotics website first (I am creating a new one which I am putting them on) and then I will send them to you by e-mail if that is fine.