DEWBOT VI IRI Trip Reports
Trip Reports
Foster
These are the quick notes from Foster's trip to IRI in 2010.
Thursday - My car (Clem, Siri, Rizzo, Carley, Jen) left at exactly 8:30AM according to plan. After a short stop in Bedford we arrived at the Mecca of West Virgina Quaker Steak and Lube about 1PM. After fueling up on world class wings we headed west on I70. A mere 3 hours later we were at our next milestone Fricker's Chicken in Vandalia. After eating their world class wings and Chicken Chunks (are you seeing a theme here?) we got back on I70 to head towards the hotel. Wow, is I70 long and straight!
The trip was filled full of music, bad puns, silly stories etc. The best part was the mini-button factory that did the final assembly of I'm xxx on CD and the Non-engineering Mentor buttons Doing all the work that isn't rocket science for Friday.
It was cool to have technology in the car, we were able to keep up with CD and news of closing the oil well off. I wrote the first part of this post on I70 just outside of Indiana. (Did I say I70 was long?)
We checked into the hotel and then it was off to Dave & Busters to deliver some buttons, Frickin Chicken Chunks to my sister and to meet the mentors. We spent about 2 hours there meeting new people, playing some games for cool prizes and having an end of the day beverage. Siri's buttons were a bigh hit, people were happy to get them.
I met the wonderful Jane Young, Alan, Andy and Mark of AndyMark fame and spent some time talking to Ed from Rochester. Rizzo met most of the judging staff and swapped some "Well when I was reffing there was this team ..." stories. A pretty good session to close off the first day of IRI.
Friday Dawn in Indianpolis came early, the final set of people didn't arrive until 2AM, so they had to sleep fast. But, when I got to the breakfast area most of our team was eating breakfast. We got out of the hotel about 7:20 and headed over to the school.
The school is huge with two huge gyms. One that has an indoor 1/4 mile track, the other that holds 2 full sized basketball courts.
I was busy working with Jack getting him set up with the VEX and getting the two demo robots ready to go so others could play on the. Jack did a great job of keeping the robot running and an even better job of driving the wheels off of it. It was a tough schedule with three matches in each round and three rounds. The finals were best out of three and Jack ended up with a flawless record of 11-0. He also had the high score of the day at 49 points.
The big robot also had a pretty good day. We had some amazing partners that we played with and against. We closed out the day in 21st place. Somewhat due to our good seeding, somewhat due to the improvements we made to the robot.
Dinner was cafeteria style with salad, lasagna, bread, and 5 kinds of dessert. I had a chance to eat with my sister. I don't see her very often and to be honest mostly at robot events. She had been a scorer / queue manager for most of the day (71 matches) so I got to hear about her day.
The talent show was amazing, the acts were good, but the best part were the comments (written on whiteboard) by the panel of judges. Needs more cowbell takes on a new meaning! The best act was a spinny lighted ball act set to music that was very impressive. The encore with the Tesla music machines was very cool.
So far IRI has exceeded my idea of what it would be like. I've see great robots in action and I've been able to go up and talk to the builders on how the robot works. People have been super nice helping out where they can. This has got to be one of the best organizied events that I've been to.
Saturday - We started off the day getting the robot set up for the days matches. We gathered together for the opening ceremony. Afterwards was the long wait to play our next two matches.
During the wait we watched some amazing matches. We got to see matches that ended with 5 robots hanging, the amazing Team 469 looper in a 6v0 match and the top teams in FRC going nose to nose. We lost our last match but got to see the first ever Breakaway suspension.
Thanks to my sister and Team Exploding Bacon I had Skyline Chili the 5-Way: A 3-Way (spaghetti, covered with chili and topped shredded cheddar cheese) with diced onions and red beans. I ate with the team and learned that when someone comes into the room and goes "oink oink" they all go BOOM. Very entertaining. The chili was pretty good too.
At the end of the qualifications we ended up in 31st place. A pretty good showing for the weekend. At noon we went through alliance selection, we were not chosen.
Next up was the mentor match. We had enough donations in our bucket to have us be the 5th Seed Captain. We did quite well in the first two matches. I was the human player, grabbing balls from the goal for the second match. It was fun, but it's very bright and noisy on the field so it's hard to communicate with the other players.
In between the second and third games one of our alliance partners found that their robot was broken. Since they were in the real finals they withdrew from the match. We promptly lost the next two matches against the Second Place seed and were out of the tournament.
Next up was the loooonng finals cycle. There were an amazing number of ties and an even larger collection of rubber matches. Not to mention rubber matches that ended up in ties. All in all we got to see some great competition, but the last match did not finish until 6:15PM
Sunday - We left the hotel for breakfast at 6:15AM and were headed East at 7AM. With some minor problems due to Dayton road construction we arrived at the [|National Museum of the US Air Force].
Which turned out to be a super place (well if you are into airplanes or rockets) to visit. It consists of three giant hangers that are filled with aircraft. The first exhibits are early gliders and a replica of the first Wright Flyer. From there on it's a chronological tour of US aircraft with some from England, Japan and Russia. At the far end is a tall round building that has exhibits showing off manned near-space and space flights. There is also a collection of rockets.
After a three hour tour we headed off to lunch at the Olive Garden. By 1PM we were once again heading east listening to bagpipe music and popular songs from Spain in 1496. We hit a backup in Columbus so we did a quick detour through downtown Columbus. Since it was Sunday there was very little traffic so it wasn't a big deal.
Dinner was a gas and go at Sheetz, but I got one of my favorites, a slaw dog with bacon and cheese! We pulled into Downingtown at 9:45, and I was tucked into bed by 10:30.
Overall - It was a great weekend.
- I got to see and talk to my sister, which has been one of the biggest bonus features of FIRST
- Great robots, I got to see the insides and talk to the teams of some very good robots.
- Great people, I met a ton of people that I've wanted to meet face to face
- The Saturday NEMO meeting gave me some good contacts for things we need to do in 2011.
- Food!
- Air Force Museum
- Fun - it was 4 days of non-stop fun
More Cowbell!!! and "I have to ref a match!"
Other pages about the DEWBOT VI Indiana Robotics Invitational
- DEWBOT VI IRI Photo Gallery
- DEWBOT VI IRI Scouting
- DEWBOT VI IRI Matches
- DEWBOT VI IRI Problems Encountered
- DEWBOT VI IRI Trip Reports
