Congratulations to FIRST Team 3710 who participated in the Inside Ride a non-for-profit organization that raises money for cancer. The team along with more than 40 other teams from our school participated raising over $15,000!! FIRST Team 3710 had the 3rd best mileage at our school too!! Great job Cyberfalcons!! And great job to the rest of our school too!! -Miki

The fun conversations that we had at our different tables at East Side Mario’s before leaving for the competition

Bruce Willis going crazy on the cops

How we all stopped at the same ONroute at the same time even though we were travelling separately

The funny conversations and debates I’m sure we had in each of the vehicles

Getting lost in Montreal (several times throughout the 3 days, especially if you were in Bekki’s truck)

The whole team ditching those dropping off everything at the pits and going to supper with out them

The scouting meeting on wednesday where no one would shut up, Ian being a man, and getting the green wigs and Mike knocking on the door

The Chairman’s meeting following the scouting where no one had really prepared

The lobby on thurday morning with everyone in green wigs, Mike coming down, just looking at us weirdly but not saying anything

The falcon tail breaking in one of the strongest places, not the weaker ones that are easier to fix

(I can’t remember a lot of really funny moments on thursday at the arena…… Any one got any???)

Stealing Ian’s 2056 hat and Bekki getting lost (which gave us the chance to steal his hat)

Supper thursday night when Mike was walking back and forth the really long table discussing strategy with different people

The scouting meeting thursday and how irritable everyone was

The Chairman’s meeting after, getting confused if the mentors were being mentors or judges. Ian’s judges face. All the questions they asked us and none of them really actually got asked. “Tell a story” (but not THAT story)

The funny conversations at breakfast friday morning, dancing at breakfast

Brian doing the Eye of the Tiger on his melodica, slightly modified with O – LIE in line waiting for the stadium to open, then the FLL kids in front of us joining in

The opening ceremonies with Dean Kamen and Mike yelling “I love you Dean” at him from the stands, some of us missing them because they were helping a rookie bot pass inspection

Ian accusing everyone of having his hat, then later giving people the choice of an awesome life or a miserable one for his hat

(not really funny but…..) How absolutely AMAZING the scouts were

The chairman’s presentation (Raf: NO, that one’s LAST) and the Judges calling Bekki Mikaela

Quebec and Ontario Balancing

Matt balancing the robot in 3 seconds

O – LIE, and dancing in the stands

Getting the award at the end of the day (remember our autonomous???)

The scouting meeting that night, all the speeches from the mentors, then the funny stories we all told

Chelsea’s hat, which Brian borrowed

Figuring out the pick list, Nikhil and Raf as Ian’s secretaries

Saturday morning, Ian’s 2056 sweater waiting for him at breakfast

Dancing in the car, and in the parking lot

The Green Wigs

Our 9 win streak during qualifcations

Everyone stressing out to the extreme (you can laugh about it now)

The strategy meeting with our alliance partners

Duct taping Ian to the floor, so that Mike could find him

Everything breaking during eliminations, not qualifications, but us fixing it in time and still getting to semis

Everyone sleeping through closing ceremonies

MacDonald’s on the way back, the jokes there, Ian’s hat

Stopping barely out of Montreal to take the shooter off Oile in the back of the truck at a french petro can

Stopping again to cover the battery station because we got texted it was raining up ahead

Some thanks and congratulations are in order from our team. Thank you to our parents and sponsors. Thank you 2809 for lending us your battery charging station (as the person in charge of batteries, THANK YOU THANK YOU I have no idea how we would have managed without it) and thank you for all your support throughout the season (and our existence) and at the competition (we did notice and appreciate the blog and facebook comments). Congratulations to 3981 La Loups a rookie team we help to pass inspection, who won the Montreal regional along with 2590 (congrats to them too) and 3990 (congrats to you too) and is now going to worlds!!!

We had an amazing season people, think about it. Last year all we had was a drive train, we did practically no scouting, applied for no awards, we were in (I think) 25th place, we were a first round pick. Got beat out by 2056 and 610 in quarters. This year, we definitely had more than a drive train, we were the 1114 of Montreal, we did amazing scouting, we were captain of the 5th alliance, WE picked teams, we carried our alliance (though we couldn’t have gotten there with out our partners) to the semis where we lost to the winners of the regional. So if we keep improving like this where are we going to be next year???

-Miki

We won all three of our qualification matches in the morning.

By the end of the qualification matches we were in 5th place out of 37. We picked our alliance to compete in the eliminations matches, we were the 4th alliance and then invited the 5th alliance 3379 as our first round pick and then team 3975 as our second round pick.

After the picking ceremonies we had some stratagy meetings and then the pit crew went around to our alliance partners and help them with the small problems they were having with their robots.

Then came the matches. We won quarter finals (the matches are best 2 out of 3 we won 2 matches). Although we had some problems the wiring to the C-rio and lost communications so we lost a match.

We moved on to the semis, we lost the first match to the 1st alliance because our robot became dead half way through the match, because the wire connecting the battery came loose. But we gave them a run for their money in the second match, we won by one point!!! But one of the chains on the sprocket popped off, we got it fixed by the next match. Though we lost it. We were out of the game but we had a good time!!

We had so many problems thrown at us during the eliminations that were never even hinted at during the qualification matches. Our team dealt with them in stride and lost to the alliance that ended up winning the regional. Great job team!!! We had a great run this season, can’t wait to see what happens next season!!! -Miki

Today we had 8 matches, lost the first 2 (though the team has some disagreement with our second match) and won the next 6. We got some co-op balance points with some of those matches too!!

The opening ceremonies were enjoyed, though some of us missed it due to us helping out a rookie bot passing inspection but it was well worth it!!

We had some issues with the falcon tail but we fixed it up, good as new (or better) between matches and after that there was no other mechanical problems………(knock on wood).

Our Chairman’s team presented today too!!! The mentors think the students did really well (based on what we’re told them) and we are just glad it is over…..We had some laughs with the judges and helped each other out with our presentations, really showed we’re a team.

The closing ceremonies……honestly most of us used as nap time (it was mostly in french). Then when they started speaking in english and giving out awards we woke up and payed attention (good thing we did!).

After that we came back to the hotel, most of us then had showers and got into our PJs. We then went to the lovely conference room to eat pizza, make some speeches, share some stories, and make our pick list!! -Miki

http://www2.usfirst.org/2012comp/events/QC/schedulequal.html

We’re scheduled to play at the following times, but there’s habitually delays (up to about an hour at the end of the day) – you can check with the match schedule and check who’s playing to figure out where we are.

9:52, 10:34, 11:37, 1:24, 2:36, 3:15, 3:50, 4:32

We’re hoping it’s streaming on:

http://watchfirstnow.com/

But, it doesn’t seem to be up yet.

We’re team 3710. Our robot is named “Oiley” so perhaps you’ll hear some shouting from the field.

Yesterday we un-bagged our robot and organized our pit. We mounted the shooter which we were holding back as our 30lbs of manufactured materials, and got everything wired and connected. We got it inspected and PASSed!!! Then went straight to the practice field…..without testing anything……So we found some things didn’t work. We took it back to the pit, tweaked it did some testing and got it good to go.

Then we went back to the practice field and decided to go back to the pits and tweak the autonomous mode. We got it working, then by then it was almost the end of the day. We tidied the pit and went back to the hotel. We then went to supper and talked about strategy. Then came back and had a scouting and chairman’s meeting. Then went to bed.

Good, productive, long day.

-Miki

After that it was meeting time!! We had a drive team meeting, followed by a scouting meeting, and then followed by a chairman’s meeting!! Of course not everyone was in all those meetings, some were in 2 but no one was in all 3. Everyone is really excited and looking forward to tomorrow!!

And a thanks to 2809 for loaning us their battery charging station and some batteries!! We really appreciate it!!! -Miki

So today we had a huge To Do List, but most of it didn’t happen. Though the important things did, we decided that driver training was more important than most of the things on the list.

We switched out a sprocket for a bigger one for the loft on our shooter. It worked really well!! We then played with the spacers surrounding that sprocket until it worked consistently the way we wanted it.

Then we got some practice. Then we found some issues with the programming, so we tweaked it. Then we got some practice. And (guess what??) we found some other problems, so we fixed it!! (That happened like 2 more times) Then the drivers had no more complaints and neither did the shooter!!

After that the students called it a night and left the mentors to work on the programming for hybrid mode. (The first part of the game where you cannot control your robot using physical controllers, it must be pre-programmed or this year you can you the kinect).

We’re looking good people!!! -Miki