DEWBOT VI Indiana Robotics Invitational
16 and 17-July-2010 at Lawrence North High School in Indianapolis, IN. This is the first year we've been accepted into the Indiana Robotics Invitational (IRI)! IRI is the largest and most selective of all off-season competitions and is even larger than any FIRST Regional, with over 80 teams in attendance. Check out the event website.
Scouting
This is a very deep field. In fact, in 82 teams there are 41 championship placers, including 2 of the 3 international champions and 1 of the finalists. In addition, there are 147 regional placers, including 47 regional wins. (Placers include quarterfinal, semifinal, final & champion awards at the regional, divisional & Einstein levels. Many teams attend more than one regional in addition to the championship and often place multiple times.) There are also 163 regional awardees and 7 of the 20 championship award winners. This is a great learning opportunity and should be an amazing competition!
Team 1640 garners an average of -4% RPD from the IRI mean for several important metrics. (Exactly on-average would be 0% relative percent difference.) For explanations of these metrics, see DEWBOT VI Scouting.
| Calculated Contribution | Offensive Score | Seeding Score | Defensive Score | World Contribution Rank % | Average Match Score | Average Contribution to Margin | Regional Rank % | Overall Championship Rank % | % of Qualification Matches Won | |
| 1640 Value | 75 | 81 | 90 | 31 | 69 | 1.4 | 2.4 | 64 | N/A | 67 |
| 1640 % Rank | 29% | 34% | 50% | 23% | 34% | 20% | 73% | 30% | N/A | 62% |
| Average | 82 | 83 | 84 | 60 | 74 | 2.5 | 1.4 | 75 | 72 | 60 |
| 1640's RPD | -8% | -3% | 8% | -48% | -6% | -43% | 66% | -15% | N/A | 12% |
| Avg of Top 1/4 | 99 | 99 | 99 | 96 | 98 | 3.6 | 4.2 | 99 | 96 | 84 |
| Avg of Top 1/2 | 97 | 97 | 96 | 86 | 94 | 3.2 | 3.1 | 96 | 90 | 76 |
| Avg of Top 3/4 | 92 | 92 | 92 | 72 | 87 | 2.9 | 2.3 | 88 | 83 | 69 |
VEX at IRI
We were invited to come play Swept Away the classroom / TSA version of Clean Sweep at IRI. The rules are similar, but it's on a 8 x 8' field and there is a limit of the parts the robot can have.
Jack and Foster built a robot 2 weeks before the event, borrowing ideas from past robots (the shoulder and slide extension) and a football basket Foster had seen at the TSA National Championships. Jack then spent a few hours honing his drive skills before heading west.
The practice paid off. Representing Team 1640 (sab-BOT-age) Jack took the event with 11 wins 0 losses. "Chris is me" from FRC 2791 Shaker Robotics took second place.
Jack did very well driving the wheels off the robot to make an unblemished win streak and to score 49 points (out of a max of 60) in a single match.
Trip Reports
Foster
These are the quick notes from my trip to IRI.
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.
