Built On The Rock attended the New Jersey State Championship tournament on Saturday. It was an exciting event, with several teams scoring very well in the robot performance rounds. Built On The Rock achieved 1st Place Robot Performance with a perfect 400, and the Landroids, a first-year team, came close behind with a 395. The Landroids also won the Champion's award, which means they'll be going to the World Festival later this year - an amazing achievement for a new team! Built On The Rock could have gotten all perfect scores, but an unsecured mission model prevented them in the second round, and they didn't have enough time to finish the last mission in the third round because the match was started without much warning, which caused them to start several seconds late.I noticed that teams scored significantly higher than last year, on average. Last year, the second highest score was a 298. This year, however, eleven teams got a 300 or higher! I've also heard of other states doing significanly better this year. It seems that, although the missions were intended to be harder, they've turned out to be easier. We'll probably be seeing quite a few perfect scores at the World Festival this year.
The other thing I noticed at the tournament is that the increased number of rules and complications seemed to be causing trouble with scoring. In our first round (when they got a perfect score), the referee scored at least half of the missions incorrectly!
You can read more about the tournament and see pictures and videos at http://www.teambuiltontherock.org/
-Jonathan
16 comments:
I'm excited to hear that a Christian team won! That is a pretty awesome score. FLL sounds like so much fun.
Bu92
What if a Buddhist team won? ;)
Just teasing you, Bu92.
Yes, Congrats all around to those teams that are doing well this year.
I also want to congratulate those first-year teams and I hope they enjoyed the experience and are looking forward to next year.
I hope all the teams competing this year are having fun; please email me with details and pictures of your competitions and we'll share with our readers as we can...
Jim
I wonder if the higher scores than expected are due to use of the NXT vs RCX? Any data on that?
Ha-ha.... I'd say congrats!
Bu92
Similar story at the Novi Michigan tournament for us. We had the Oil Rig not reset the arm correctly which resulted in a dropped oil barrel. The only Oil barrel we missed in 12 competition matches.. That was probably our Atlanta trip... We ran 6 400's at state, just none of them during competition, all on the practice board. That oil barrel was 60 point deduct on 335 run... or 395
We also had a miss/re start at State and at Regionals.
Oh well always next year. A home school team from South Lyon won, we ended up 4th overall. www.oxfordenergy.us
I'm curious to know, how do other states determine the team to advance to nationals? In New Hampshire, only the team that wins the directors (Champions) award goes. Is it like that in other states as well?
Thanks, Bu92... they were excited to win too, especially with the tougher competition this year.
Anonymous,
Actually, I've been watching what robot system teams are using this year, and the vast majority are using NXT's. Not sure how that's affecting the scores, though.
Scott,
Ouch... my team didn't use the lever arm on the platform to get the barrels, beacuse apparently it can be a little flaky. Their problem was that the platform had not been dual-locked down properly, so it moved when the robot bumped into it.
Catpit,
I think it's still the Champion's award winners that go... it's just that only some of the state winners get to go to the World Festival.
-Jonathan
Refs are supposed to award points if the team activates a model in a way that should result in the desired action, even if the model fails to work.
It's my opinion that the scores are higher because the missions are simpler. Only the vehicle choice mission offers much of a challenge. The main hurdle is finishing everything in time. Both RCX and NXT robots are posting high scores. Some experienced teams are using the RCX to get the fairness bonus.
Many teams are grumbling that this year's challenge is not as much fun as previous years. But the energy at tournaments I've attended is high and the kids are having a good time.
Teams that win the director's award are invited to the World Festival. But FLL has gotten too big to invite all the winning teams. This year Minnesota FLL (INScITE) is hosting a tournament for deserving teams that aren't invited to the World Festival.
Many coaches have been complaining about the unfairness of not all tournament winners having an opportunity to attend the World Festival. I wonder how they would feel about the obvious alternate solution; fewer championship tournament winners (fewer championship level tournaments).
Personally I think that the reason for the higher scores is the position of the base. While the missions might be harder to actually accomplish, it is really not that hard to get to anywhere because you are close to everything being in the middle. Whereas before the base was always on one end of the table and so for many teams the missions got progressively harder as you got further away from the base and navigation and precision became a bigger key in being able to accomplish the mission.
Yes, that has been my impression also on the FLL events I have attended - it was more about precise placing and targeting the robot by the team member at the base than navigation by the robot. In a lot of cases, you actually could have used a windup machine instead of a programmable robot.
Buckskinn92 expressed an opinion as a comment about something that made him/her happy - obviously this person identifies with a Christian team. The comment posted did not come across as insulting IMO. If I were a coach or member of a Christian team, I would be excited to hear about a fellow team's success...
Further comments on the issue that were just inflammatory were removed.
Blogs are considered personal expressions of opinion (or 25 personal opinions!) and moderators are free to delete/edit comments as they see fit. And since they're also protected speech, it means we can delete/edit anything we feel does not fit with our overall mission - including threats of lawsuits.
Let's move on.
Jim
I'm excited to hear that humans won! We're so sick of the Rigellians cleaning up every year! Go EARTH!!!!!!!
Some people just live to pick fights and get their feathers ruffled. And this is an adult behaving this way who cannot even post his name when making threats. What an inspiring and courageous coach. I want my two children on his team next year. NOT!
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