The Atlanta Debrief

Ok, we've been back a week so it's time for a recap.

Most who follow TechTiger Robotics pretty much know what happened in Atlanta. Here's a breakdown:

Thursday:
Background: David Guzman, our on field coach, couldn't join us until Friday. So that meant yours truly had to fill in.

First match was encouraging despite a 2 point loss on our side.

Second match started interestingly - in autonomous mode we ended driving on top of one of our alliance partners. Sean skillfully extracted us to the floor and off we went.

Our alliance partner in the far zone wasn't running.

One of the other field coachs directed us to go play defense. I wasn't thinking and before we knew it, we received a red card for 2 machines in the defensive zone. No points for us is the penalty.

Prior to the third match, the crew prepared to charge the pneumatics system. Robot controller indicates "No Robot Code". We literally jog round trip to the pits and back to retrieve the programming computer.

By the time we were attempting to download the code, our match was going on the field.

The field personnel gave us every second they could to get it done but it wasn't happening. Instead of placing the robot on the field (even if it didn't run) we left it off. Result, no qualifying points - my second big mistake.

Friday/Saturday
David is in the house - Thank God!

There's no need to go into a match-by-match description but despite me putting him in a big hole and having some issues with the robot, David was able to make us look respectable.

Unfortunately we weren't consistant enough to grab the attention of one of the ranked teams. As a result, we watched the the eliminations from the stands.

Final Thoughts
Despite several obstacles, our kids hung in there and kept fighting. We had a meeting Thursday evening and reminded everyone of the importantance of teamwork. They responded and you should be as proud of them as I am.

We are already laying the foundation for next year and beyond. Look for details in the near future.

Last but certainly not least, I want to thank eveyone that contributed to our successes this year. We can't do it without you!

In your servce,
Mr. E