Home Sweet Home

We made it home about an hour ago, and here I am back with a quick update before I call it a night.

I feel spoiled now typing on a real keyboard rather than poking at those little keys on my phone.

Anyhow, Team 904 wrapped up a great weekend in Wisconsin today. We did not score a lot of wins, but I feel we had a successful regional. We had a lot of electrical problems that we feel are now behind us and we are ready for West Michigan.

With a little cheering support from our team, our drive team did an outstanding job in the final matches. They performed well under pressure and I'm sure they'll be up to the task next weekend.

We did end the regional on a high note. I am proud to announce that Team 904 was awarded the Chrysler Team Spirit trophy for 2008 at the Wisconsin Regional! I am very proud of our team, they rallied around to give uber-support to our drivers. Congrats Team 904, you deserved that one!

Tomorrow I'll sort through the photos I took and post some to my flickr account. Check back soon for a few pics of Milwaukee.

The only other thing I need to add is that it feels great to be home!

The finals

After an awesome final match and another win, team 904 wasn't selected to compete in the finals. We're waiting for the finals to start, teams are cheering as the robots are starting to enter the field. And the wave starts.

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Match 1 results

Another tough loss for 904. We like our set up and aren't changing anything. Next match we'll be in a better position for hybrid.

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This message is from a Virgin Mobile customer. Enjoy.

Saturday schedule

Team 904 is all up and ready for day 2 of competition. We have at least 2 more matches this morning @ 9:42 and 10:42 cdt.

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This message is from a Virgin Mobile customer. Enjoy.

Friday evening

We got back from the team social a little after 9. It was very nice, we went to a very cool museum on lake michigan. Afterwards we had a team meeting and planned tomorrow. We've got a long day ahead of us. More tomorrow.

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This message is from a Virgin Mobile customer. Enjoy.

End of saturday

Well, we lost our final match of today, giving us a 2 and 4 win / loss record. We are now getting ready to go to the team social. More later.

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This message is from a Virgin Mobile customer. Enjoy.

Last match

After a loss and a win we are up for our last match for today

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This message is from a Virgin Mobile customer. Enjoy.

3rd match

We lost 40 to 70. Going for lunch

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This message is from a Virgin Mobile customer. Enjoy.

Match 2

We just entered the field. Match 2 to start now. Autonomous mode is a little better. Red alliance hurdles twice. Score pending. Close match. 904 loses 32 to 44.

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This message is from a Virgin Mobile customer. Enjoy.

Next match

We've tweaked our autonomous mode. We're back up in a few matches.

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This message is from a Virgin Mobile customer. Enjoy.

904 wins

Red alliance with 904 wins first match of the wisconsin regional 28 to 16.

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This message is from a Virgin Mobile customer. Enjoy.

And we begin

We're waiting for opening ceremonies to begin. Team 904 is waiting on the field. Our new autonomous mode is loaded and ready to go. More soon.

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This message is from a Virgin Mobile customer. Enjoy.

Schedule

Times may change, we're not exactly sure of what times it starts tomorrow. We are in match 1 @ 9:30, match 13 @ 10:42, match 21 @ 11:30, match 36 @ 1:54, match 44 @ 2:42 and match 52 @ 3 :30. I will post saturdays schedule later.

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Practice over, back at hotel

Check www.firstobjective.org go to links and look for a link to wisconsin regional for tomorrows webcast. We are in the first match at 9:30 cdt (10:30 edt) more of our schedule soon.

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After dinner practice

We're back for little after dinner practice. These are not matches, just testing on a very small field. I'll post match schedules a little later.

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This message is from a Virgin Mobile customer. Enjoy.

2 more practice matches

We had 2 more matches that were full field matches (6 robots). We lost both, but they were very close. There will be webcast tomorrow. Check the wisconsin regional website. I'll post a link later.

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Another win

That may have been our last practice match. We won uncontested. Not many teams are practicing.

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This message is from a Virgin Mobile customer. Enjoy.

904 wins

2nd practice match we win 84 to 20. Next match - right now

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This message is from a Virgin Mobile customer. Enjoy.

904 wins practice

Our first match was uncontested. We win 40 to 0. We still have lots of problems to fix.

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This message is from a Virgin Mobile customer. Enjoy.

Preparing for Milwaukee

Our time has finally come. We've had a couple weekends to watch webcasts of other regionals; we've been able to learn how to score points and also how to lose them. Now it is our turn at the plate. Our first regional will begin in 3 days on Thursday March 13.

Our robot was shipped several weeks ago and lately we've been tinkering with sensors and tweaking things here and there. Not everything is working, but we'll have time on Thursday to make modifications to the robot and also apply what we've learned from software tests to our competition code. It certainly is getting exciting!

As of this morning, there doesn't appear to be a webcast for the Milwaukee regional.
If you're interested in Team 904's performance in this regional, keep your browser pointed to this site. I intend to blog the whole time we're in Milwaukee. I know my posts have been sparse lately, but I hope to post quite frequently, with less content. I also intend to snap a lot of pictures and post them to my Flickr account.

If any readers have questions about Team 904 or the Wisconsin Regional, leave me a comment and I'll do my best to deliver an answer.

Look out Milwaukee, D Cubed is coming to town!