Regional Recap: North Carolina Regional

Another long summary of a 2011 FRC regional

Thursday:
As team members arrived at "The House of the Rising Sun" aka Dorton Arena on Thursday, everyone could feel the excitement building for the next 3 days of competition. Everyone from Thy Flying Platypi that was present got in line with our robot cart and pit materials as we waited for the event staff to open the doors at 8:30.
After what seemed like forever, the doors open and the team walked into the arena. Some team members began setting up the pit while others ran up the stairs to reserve seats to watch matches later that day.

Once the pit was set up, the robot was un-crated and everyone in mechanical, electrical and programming went to work. The team's goal for the North Carolina regional was to have a working and consistent minibot and minibot deployment system. While everything had worked perfectly in the machine shop at home, not everything went smoothly once at the competition. Even though everyone worked hard on the robot all day, we only made out to the practice field once, just so we could connect to the field and be ready for seeding matches on Friday. While not everything was going according to plan, everyone was still very optimistic about the next day of competition.

Friday:
Once again, all members of The Flying Platypi arrived at Dorton Arena early in the morning to wait for the doors to open. After opening ceremonies and a really inspirational talk from the great Woodie Flowers, it was time to get to work. As soon as we were allowed into the pit, work began on the minibot and it's launcher. Sooner then we liked, 10:30 arrived and it was time for our first match. Unfortunately, we had trouble with connection and we were unable to control the robot for the entire match. While it was a little sad, everyone was still really motivated to get everything working.
Even more unfortunately, the team was unable to get everything working and we continued to lose matches because of robot malfunctions. It seemed that once our hard-working pit crew got something working, another thing would break without hope of finding a replacement. As we headed to our fifth match, there was definitely a feeling of dread; none of us wanted to watch something else break on the field. And then, after so much work, both the minibot and the launcher worked perfectly and the won our first match of the NC regional. There was a great deal of cheering and high-fiving, we were SO reveled to finally see mechanical, electrical and programming's hard work pay off.
We won the rest of Friday's matches although our win-loss record was not admirable as we would have liked. Regardless, Friday had still been very successful; the minibot and launcher finally worked, our Chairman's Award presentation had gone really well and we had had some really great conversations with judges and referees. At the end of the day, the pre-judged awards ceremony was held to to our great surprise, we were once again awarded the regional Website Award.

Saturday:
Saturday started with a quick opening ceremony followed by a couple announcements on how the day would run. Then the matches began and the team rushed to put more finishing touches on the robot. The two matches we had that morning went by really quickly and we came out of seeding matches with a 4-6 record. Although out record was below the standard we had set for ourselves, the team was glad to have worked out most of the mechanical problems with the robot.

As usual, alliance selections were held right before lunch; it was time to see if we would be chosen to compete in elimination rounds. Even though we were not expecting to be picked, it was still was a little nerve racking to watch the slots slowly be filled by other, very competitive, teams. Much to our surprise, we were picked by the 7th seed alliance, Team 1225 The Gorillas and Team 527 The Dragons. After a quick lunch and a couple adjustments to the robot, we had our first elimination match. We were paired against the 2nd seed alliance, which was headed by team 2415, The Wiredcats, one of the teams that had one the Peachtree Regional. Our alliance lost to them within the first two matches and we went to pack up the robot and watch the rest of the elimination matches.
We would like to congratulate the winning alliance of the North Carolina Regional; Team 2415, the Wiredcats, Team 3506, YETI (Yay rookie team!!), and Team 2751, SPARK Robotics. You guys are great competitors and really inspiring teams!

After all the rounds were over, it was time for the last awards ceremony of the regional. The Flying Platypi watched some really incredible teams receive awards and it felt great to cheer for them as the accepted the awards they worked so hard for.
As the ceremony wound down, there was only one award left, the Regional Chairman's Awards. As the emcee began to read the description of the award, the crowd grew silent waiting for the winning team to be announced. Then, a brief description of the winning team was read and everyone on our team just stared (and a couple members screamed!). They were describing us! As we walked down the (many) stairs to the arena floor, it was so incredible to hear other teams chanting our name; that really meant a lot to all of us, thank you for your support.
Many high-fives, tears of joy, and congratulatory hugs later, The Flying Platypi (including Archimedes!) posed for our team picture with the Chairman's trophy. We still can't believe that we were chosen for this amazing award and eveyone would like to thank our parents, coaches and mentors who helped us learn and become the team we are. We never could have done it without them.

We would also like to thank/congratulate:
Team 435 The Robodogs for their help not only during the regional but in the off-season as well. And even bigger congratulations to Rebecca for becoming a Dean's List Finalist, you deserve it!
Teams 1225 & 527 For picking us for elimination matches, you were both great alliance partners!
Team 281, EnTech For being great pit-neighbors and offering us help whenever you thought we needed it. Congratulations on the Engineering Inspiration Award and we'll see you in St. Louis!
Many thanks to anyone who wore our buttons, cheered for us or hugged our platypus mascot. We really do appreciate it.

Next up for The Flying Platypi, the Championship Event in St. Louis, MO!