Nothing about our day had been truly disappointing…but the award was an awesome boost.

Second Award Ceremony
The final award ceremonly.  Would be achieve our highest hopes…could we earn our way to Atlanta.  Many awards were given out to many deserving teams.  The Rookie Inspiration Award came up both too soon and not soon enough.  In the same manner, as the award was being described, we soon realized that it was going to us, 2361.  This was undoubtedly the most bittersweet moment of the weekend.  Winning the award was great, but almost everyone immediately realized that it meant we were NOT going to win the Rookie All-Star.  We weren’t going to Atlanta.

Are we really disappointed?  I guess a little.  But we have accomplished so much this year with so little that the truth is we’re still incredibly proud of everything we achieved.  And the best part is that we get to do it all again next year!

Alliance Selection

Perhaps the most nerve-wracking part of the entire weekend was the Alliance Selection Ceremony.  There were 30 teams at Waterloo, and 24 of them would continue through to the elimination matches.   The top 8 teams were in charge - everyone’s fate was in their hands.  When team #1 (2154) chose team #2 (1114) the beginning of a dynasty was being put in place.  More of the top 8 teams allied with each other, and seeding moved up to reflect this.  When it came time for the 8th place seed to chose our second alliance we were nervous but not particulary on edge (we hoped to be picked in the second round of selections).  After a miscue on the team numbers, they chose us as an alliance member.  WOW!  We could relax - we were in!

Elimination Matches

First Place Alliance vs. Eigth Place Alliance - best 2 out of 3.  Some might call it David vs. Goliath, but we were just glad to be there.  Our alliance had a strategy planned that hoped to negate the awesome point scoring abilities of our opponents.  All we could do was hope it would work.  It didn’t.  Our defensive strategy didn’t really put a dent in the scoring of the awesome alliance we were up against.  But we weren’t out yet all 3 alliance members were ready to go again. A quick team meeting resulted in the scrapping of the defensive strategy and a decision to go all out offense.  We’d score as many points as we could and just hope it would be more than the other team.  It wasn’t.  But at the end of the match we could find solace in the fact that we had done our part but that we were just beaten by a stronger alliance.  No shame in that.  And of course we lost to the alliance that eventually won it all.  We can live with that.  

The butterflies of that first elimination match were huge….what would Marvin do?  How would he perform?  Could we do what we had set out to do?  So many questions…so many possibilities (good and bad).  And then it happens, our first match of the day! The countdown begins signalling the beginning of our “Hybrid Mode” where Marvin graciously runs into the wall, hard. Admittedly we didn’t do well at all for our first round, but hey we still had 7 more matches to go. 

The next matches certainly had their ups and downs.  The ups were the matches where we slowly improved our performance in hybrid mode, and Scot steadily improved on his ability to handle Marvin in the crush of the competition.  The downs started with the chain problems.  The first one to go was the left.  And wow what a good job Scot did driving then.  With drive power only on one side, he still managed to work his way down the track in fits and starts.  Luckily we managed to recover the chain and re-attach it in time for the next match.  During which the right chain went.  It was like mirror image deja-vu (and not in a good way).  Once again, we collected the chain and headed back to the pits.  And here the spirit of gracious professionalism was made loud and clear to us.  Two teams came to our rescue.

Both 1114 and 2166 were there to help.  Special thanks go to Stu of 2166 who single handedly saved our chains (and our day) with his personal assistance, spare chain parts (including the magic of the half-link), and his time (he worked all through the lunch break on our chain).  Some quick structural adjustments to supplement Stu’s work and we were ready to go.  As we headed into the next match with our newly tightened and adjusted chains we were full of confidence and positive competitive spirit.

One of the greatest highs was the match against 1114.  Luckily we were partnered with the other real powerhouse of the day, 2154.  And our alliance won!  Just as important for us is that we felt that we had positively contributed to this close match (without our points we wouldn’t have won).  Way to go Scot!

After Day 1 matches our team was sitting at the 23rd place, we felt we had the opportunity to place ourselves in a comeptitive position to be chosen for the elimination alliances.  Fully aware that the top 24 teams don’t automatically move into the elimination round, we still hoped to place ourselves in that group and give the team as much of a chance as possible.  Three matches left to go.

Day 2: (10:55AM): What an exciting match! We had two games left and we were facing a very tough alliance. These last matches are very important as we went to impress so we can be chosen in an alliance. After autonomous mode resulted in a tie, we knew were going to have an exciting match. The time zipped by as we were cheering and waving our flags. It came down to the last 10 seconds. One of our alliance members, 2056, got the trackball on the overpass. In the dying seconds, Marvin managed to get a final lap in. We were down 10 points but we had that bonus ball on the overpass. We all watched, biting our nails, to hear the penalties. Our hearts lifted as we heard the announcer say “penalty-free match”! :D Our alliance had won! This was definetly the most exciting match yet and we still have one to go - and the rest of the awards ceremony! Another update to come.

update (2:12PM): Marvin is taken apart, the crowd is calming, and the shipping crates are unloaded. It’s unfortunate, but the Waterloo Regional is coming to an end. But we have some good news at the same time. Not only did Marvin ranked 21st but we were chosen to play with the 8th seeded alliance in the final rounds. After two intense games against the 1st seeded alliance our Cinderella story came to an end. Not to fret though, we still have the award ceremony to watch. Hopefully us - being a rookie team - can recieve the rookie award.

Day 1: update (10:10AM): Marvin has been through his first round already. Starting off with the new autonomous code he managed to score four points for blue alliance. Unfortunately after “Hybrid” mode was finished, Marvin knocked down one trackball, and managed to get its “pneumatic stick” stuck on the over pass. This was only resolved after we disabled Marvin, releasing the pressure. Remember though this is our first run and there are many more to come!

update (11:29AM): Marvin has gone through 2 more runs, improving each time. Our team is constantly amending minor issues with the both the code and the construction of Marvin. It is safe to say that Pace Invaders (pause for dramatic effect) have invaded.

update (4:30PM): We just expierienced our first awards ceremony. Unfortunately, we did not get the website award as we had hoped to (but be sure to see some great updates in the near future); congratulations to 1114 for winning that category - check out their great site at http://www.simbotics.org/history! But there was still very good news. The Invaders have won their first award ever - The Judge’s Award! We won for our environmental efforts (which can read about here) and we are excited for the next round of games and awards tomorrow.

Get to know our team! We know you want to know more about us! So check out our page. Know our personalities and our names!

Click & Scroll!

A special team deserves a special page! So our web team whipped together this amazing page to reflect what our team is about. Click on people’s names to find out who they are! Just for fun, click around a little more! We’re sad to say, it is addictive!

Looking deep into a secluded section of our site you might be able to find our ”Extras (Minty!)“ page! You can see that one of our photographers Ronen Ackerman has taken some fantastic shots of our team and Marvin in action … and sometimes wildly out of control.

Left, Right, Left, Right

We have made this page easier for you to navigate (looking at a plethora of beauty shots does get overwhelming). Clicking on an image will put it in focus, and using your “left” and “right” you can navigate through all the images. Better yet, click on the slideshow button to sit back and enjoy our “Kodak Moments” without even touching a key.

We Did It.

We have finally completed Marvin, and the Web Site. We only need to do a few minor tweaks and we will be pretty much ready for this years - 07-08 - Overdrive competition. We want to thank each and every team member for their hard work, and their true dedication. Furthermore we would like to thank everyone who help us achieve our goal, from our sponsors, to most importantly Mrs. Yearwood. Thank you once again, and we hope to continue our ambition and hard work to next year.

The re-design of the web site was one of the projects that our team felt needed much work, and I couldn’t agree more. Our graphic artists and web developer have collaborated to create a phenomenal web site that can easily deliver our important messages to you. The new site is yet to be revealed but it will be judged at Waterloo. Winning this award is a crucial step for a rookie team like ours in order to gain a name for ourselves.

This is one of our first steps towards a bigger Pace Invaders. Thank You for your support and patience, together we can give Invaders a huge entrance.

On Saturday January 5 the entire team attended the FIRST Kickoff event at the Ontario Science Centre. There, we learned the nature of the competition, which should prove to be an exciting speed oriented and technically challenging event.

Even more exciting, we picked up our kit of parts, which we will be unpacking on Monday. Since we’ve already started brainstorming design ideas, we’re definitely off and running.

Ship date for the Robot is February 19, so the clock is now ticking.