[Yaaarc] FIRST Great Lakes Regional and Brick Bash! this weekend

[Keith Mc. (Route-To YAR)]

(Attn GO-Tech...)
Here's some information on the Great Lakes Regional, the free to 
attend FIRST Robotics Contest that is happening this week locally.  
It runs Thu 3/27/08 through Sat 3/29/08 at the EMU Convocation Center 
in Ypsilanti, MI.  Address, links to maps, et al are included below.

"Joe Zimmerman" <zimmer62 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Looking though the website about the FIRST regional it seems a bit vague 
> for people not involved in the competition.  Do you have to be a guest 
> of a team to show up and watch?  Does it cost anything to come watch?  
> Joe

It is definitely free to attend.  As was mentioned, bring along some 
safety glasses so you can tour the pit area.   Thursday is only a work
and practice day. Friday all day through Saturday AM are the qualifiers.

Sat from about Noon to about 3 or 4 pm is the Elimination Tournament of 
the top 8 qualifying alliances.  24 out of the roughly 64 teams compete 
to choose a winning alliance of three (IOW, the top 8 qualifying teams 
choose two partners apiece from the rest at Noon on Sat to play with them.  
Once THEY play, ALL THREE members of the winning alliance are then considered 
the "co-winners" of the event, regardless of how the individual teams 
were ranked during the qualifiers.  This means even a mid-level ranked
team still has a CHANCE of winning a regional.)

> Is there a better time/day to show up and watch that would be more exciting?

IMHO, if you have to take time off, forget about Thursday.  Instead, come 
all day on Friday (9AM - 5PM), and then Saturday.  If you can only afford 
ONE day, come early on Saturday to see the end of the qualifiers (9-Noon), 
and stay to watch the exciting final elimination after lunch. (about 1-4PM).

However, if you're interested in talking with teams and seeing the pits,
I'd DEFINITELY go on Friday for that.  Many teams are WAY too busy on 
Thursday trying to work on (or fix) their machines to talk much, and 
on Sat teams pack up to leave the second it becomes obvious they're not 
going to be in the Elimination Tournament (or as soon as they're eliminated).
The pits become a ghost town by the time the Elimination Tournament is over.

For everyone's convenience, I've included links below to various
resources, including the manuals, the agenda, and even the WEBCAST 
of the Great Lakes (Ypsi) event below.

Hope to see you there!

- Keith Mc.
---
ACTI - Automation Computer Technologies, Inc.
Sponsor of Team 1502 "Technical Difficulties"

USEFUL LINKS
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The 2008 FRC Game description (watch the "Competition Animation" here):
http://robotics.arc.nasa.gov/events/2008_frcwebcasts.php

Here's the WEBCAST of the Ypsi (Great Lakes) event itself!
http://www.team291.org/Team291/GLRWebcast.htm

For the technically curious, here's the 2008 Game Documents 
(and updates) - for the actual build rules:
http://www.usfirst.org/community/frc/content.aspx?id=452
(See THE GAME, THE ROBOT, THE ARENA, and THE TOURNAMENT PDFs,
and the UPDATES area for rule revisions.)

Ypsilanti Event website, site info, agenda, and list of teams attending:
http://www.greatlakesregional.com/
http://www.usfirst.org/uploadedfiles/community/frc/events/2008/2008_GL_SiteInfo.pdf
http://www.usfirst.org/uploadedfiles/community/frc/events/2008/2008_GL_Agenda.pdf
https://my.usfirst.org/myarea/index.lasso?page=teamlist&menu=false&event=GL&year=2008

On the team list...
Click on team NUMBER to find out where they'll be and what they've won.
Click on team NAME to jump to the team's website, if available.

Useful links for the results (active AFTER the contest):
http://www2.usfirst.org/2008comp/Events/ON/matchresults.html
http://www2.usfirst.org/2008comp/Events/ON/rankings.html
http://www2.usfirst.org/2008comp/Events/ON/awards.html

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