The teams invited have to make it through a application process and officially be invited to attend. Teams submit video footage of their robot competing as a backup and only the best teams in the World are invited to attend. In Attendance this year were teams from the US, Canada and a team even traveled from Israel to attend.
Day 1: FRC Team 1657, Hamosad, traveled all the way from kibbutz Ein Shemer, near Pardes Hana. Their robot was a creative masterpiece that effectively address the game challenge and challenged all other participants to think outside the box. Here is their robot reveal video from earlier in the season:
This was definitely one of the highlights of my weekend as a coach.To see the ingenuity of this team from another country was just amazing. The little mini robot they deployed was just as entertaining as their factory robot that could keep up with the best stack-ers in the event. This robot was the highlight for my first day at the event. Personally, my team competed very way this day the last two matches we competed in were 280 and 275 points respectively and put us ranked 21st out of this tremendous field of 67 teams. My team was able to compete with some awesome other teams such as FRC Team 179, The Children of the Swamp from Riviera Beach, Florida. We also got to compete with one of my favorite group of students from FRC Team 379, The Robocats. I got to hang out with a few of these kids at the World Championships in St. Louis, Mo, in April. We had a blast making a rainbow of Tshirts at the driver's meeting in the Edward Jones Dome. They are great kids and I look forward to seeing them again next year.
Day 1: FRC Team 1657, Hamosad, traveled all the way from kibbutz Ein Shemer, near Pardes Hana. Their robot was a creative masterpiece that effectively address the game challenge and challenged all other participants to think outside the box. Here is their robot reveal video from earlier in the season:
Friday Evening - Geeks Unite and Put on the Nerdiest Talent Show in US History.
At first, I though this would be really lame. So much that the past 5 years of doing FIRST Robotics, I chose not to attend this event. But this year, Andy Baker of AndyMark, Inc, said that there was a special treat for my team. I had to be there to see it. I am so glad he suggested I attend. Geeks can put on an EPIC concert and talent show and I will never miss this again.
It started with an EPIC lip sync battle from some of the coolest, nerdy mentors in all of FIRST Robotics. ( I am working on video for this, I will post it once I have it.) This was just plain awesome. To see some of the mentors that the kids idolize let loose and have some fun was awesome. Next, we had a Laser Light Show. This was tremendous to have the IRI, FIRST and all of the team's Logos worked into the performance. It really made it personal and really was an awesome performance. We then moved into the Geekiest, Nerdiest rock band I have ever seen in my life, there were referred to as Dean Simmons and the Kamen Brothers. Appropriately named after the famous inventor, Dean Kamen. This band started with a medley of the greatest rock anthems of all team and moved into a set list of parody songs all relating to this year's season and the lyrics included great anecdotes and reference to funny situations from this season. The kids loved this and what was really cool was that the last song in their set list was a Parody of Uptown Funk, by Bruno Mars, where they changed the lyrics to Truck Town Funk. Our team was then asked to come up and stage and dance in front of the entire full auditorium. I could tell my students really loved it and they were really having a blast. I have to give a huge thank you to the band for doing this for us. I really hope that I can get a hold of the lyrics to the song and share it with the rest of my team that couldn't attend the event. After this excellent night of laughs and fun, we all went back to our hotel rooms and passed out for the night.
Day 2 - History is Made!
My team, Truck Town Thunder, had a great experience on Saturday morning. Another one of my seniors showed up to hangout and was able to help the team out on the field. It was great seeing members of my team stepping up to fill in new roles. I has a senior step up to be the drive coach. It was great seeing him mature over the my years of a coach into a tremendous leader. I even got to experience him coach another student who had never been in a match to be human player on the drive team. It was awesome to see students taking what they learned from the team and applying it to lead other students. I have never been so proud of everyone on my team. The team supported each other and the kids did an excellent job. We were able to get our can stealers working and got to use them in our last match so people could see they were effective and this eventually lead to us getting picked to move into the playoffs.
We were picked onto the 5th Alliance with FRC Team 195, The Cyber Knights, Southington, Connecticut, FRC Team 33, The Killer Bees, Pontiac, Michigan, and FRC Team 233, The Pink Team, Rockledge/Cocoa Beach, Florida. We all met, discussed strategies and it was decided that we would sit out the first match. Unfortunately, this did not work in our favor. The match did not go very well and we had an extremely low score. So, we switched up our strategy which allowed for us to enter into the second match. The match started very well, but unfortunately, while traversing one of the platforms on the field, our robot tipped over and we were unable to stack totes. This was very disappointing but the students on my team did an excellent job and left everything out there on the field. I have never been prouder. We all pulled together as a team and had an excellent competition.
We quikly loaded the trailer and took off back to the stands to watch history unfold right in front. We go to see the best robotics teams go head to head and see who the best really is! At the end of the competition, four teams prevailed with the highest score every recorded in Recycle Rush (345 points).
I would like to congratulate four excellent teams for a great showing and winning this event. It was earned and I will never forget seeing all 10 recycling container in the air under stacks of 6 totes. The winners were FRC Team 1023, Bedford Express, Bedford, Michigan, FRC Team 2056, OP Robotics, Stoney Creek, Ontario, Canada, FRC Team 1806, SWAT, Smithville, Missouri. and FRC Team 2502, Talon Robotics, Eden Prairie, Minnesota.
IRI Live Stream - http://livestream.com/FIRSTRobotics/events/4202783
IRI Website - http://www.indianaroboticsinvitational.org/
Truck Town Thunder Website - http://trucktownthunder.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment