Silicon Valley Regional (Day 1) (#FRC)

"I don't wanna watch Philly silly I wanna watch Silly!!"

Those immortal words were spoken by me in a IM chat circa 1999 or 2000, right around the time when the Silicon Valley FIRST Robotics regional was the new kid on the FRC regional block. If someone had told me back then that 10 years later I would be living within driving distance of that very regional I'd probably have thought them nuts and yet today cruising down I-880 through the East Bay and Oakland, CA that is exactly the reality that confronted me.  I decided to take my final opportunity, on almost the eve of leaving the Bay Area and returning home to New England to go down and check out the best FIRST Robotics California has to offer.

My first impression, as it was when I attended the Sacramento event last year, was how small the San Jose University Events Center seemed as a venue.  This got me thinking about how far the production level of FIRST has come in the last 13 years. Back when I first became involved with FIRST there was a single regional held in a Manchester, NH College Gym with a maximum capacity of about 2000, not exactly a huge venue. It struck me that even that venue would seem small and paltry compared to the BAE Granite State Regional held annually at the 10,000 seat Verizon Wireless Arena in Manchester. The arena in San Jose was setup in the typical arena style configuration with about 1/4 of the floor space dedicated to the playing field area and the other 3/4 dedicated to the pits. I'd say the stands were crowded for a Friday, judging by my east coast regional standards, so I will be interested to see what seating is like tomorrow.  I will say that one thing I enjoyed is that there was very little policing of the field side areas so I was able to stand down by the field for many of the matches.

Alright so what about the teams well if you look at the rankings as of this evening what you'll find is the expected "power house" veteran type teams in the top 8 teams like 100, 192, 254 all of whom were doing what they do quite well today.  I will say that 254 of course has the target of their many years of consecutive wins at this regional painted squarely on their backs and teams were doing their best to pin them when they could.  Now let's talk about two teams in particular 971 and 1280.

Okay 971 is #1 seed as of Friday night and as I watched them in the final match of the day from field side this doesn't surprise me in the least.  Their robot is competent for sure but they have an absolute ringer as their human player.  This kid is amazing you look at him and he's a short kinda scrawny kid frankly and you might wonder okay is this a H.S. student? But we've not reason to suspect otherwise.  I watched this kid sink shot after shot he is deadly accurate and he was making some 1/2 court shots, shots obstructed by robots, etc. He made it look easy and was hitting 4 or 5 shots in a row like it was nothing.

My favorite team/robot at the competition though is by far 1280. They're currently around #13 seeding wise and I hope that they'll either move up to the top 8 or be picked.  Their robot is really something, I felt compelled to stop by their pit and mention to them that their robot is a "testament to what simplicity can accomplish." The kids were funny and joked that they were sure it was to simple to be effective. Let me assure you that is NOT the case. Essentially they're a dumper and their robot is a tower with a belt made of tubing up one side this runs constantly and serves to suck the balls in but also keep them percolating within the robot. At the base of the robot is a plate angled at about a 45 maybe a little less degree angle when they go to "dump" the plate is on an elevator or forklift type mechanism and because the plate is angled the balls they've collected simply roll into the goal. As one of the students told me "we wanted to be like The Poofs and we're so simple compared to them but we ended up dumping faster" and it is true they can pile balls in to the trailer very quickly. I'll be rooting for them tomorrow especially if they're in the finals.

All in all FIRST in Silicon Valley is different but it is still FIRST.  Of course you also have the added bonus of blue-haired Mark Leon as your MC, you never quite know what he's going to do next he is unique in the absolute best possible sense of the word.  Interesting, as I type this I was just looking at the awards page and noticing that 192, GRT, Gunn won the Autodesk Visualization award, as they did consistently back in the days when I was working at that same award.

I wonder sometimes after 13 years why do I keep going to these things anyways? It occurred to me today that the shirt I had on from the 1995 Ramp and Roll competition was older than MANY of the students competing in this year's competition. Certainly the FIRST of today is nothing like the FIRST I knew back in 1996-00 but perhaps my realization above cuts to the heart of it, FIRST today is different but it is still FIRST.  I plan to write a similar post after the finals tomorrow and for those interested in watching check out the action on the webcast starting at about 10am PST tomorrow morning.