Team 1507 went all the way to the top and faced the boss at the Fingerlakes Regional at Rochester Institute of Technology this past weekend. (March 16-17, 2018)
We Powered Up our way through the elimination matches coming in ranked at 5th. We won 7 and lost 3 matches, but accumulated enough ranking points to become an alliance captain.
But the number 1 alliance had other plans. Team 340, Greater Rochester Robotics, already an regional winner at the new Central New York Regional in Utica, chose us to work with them on their alliance. You can’t say no to a chance to team up with a GRReat team like that.
They chose team 3550, Robotronix from LaSalle Quebec to round out the alliance.
This was not the first time that 340 and 1507 have paired up. We won the Buckeye regional together in 2012. We were finalists together as recently as 2017 in Cleveland.
Although we did not win every match, we did nearly always come away with at least one ranking point every match. This placed us near the top of the team rankings consistently.
Otis
Our robot’s ability to quickly and nimbly handle the cubes as well as our nearly foolproof ability to hang from the scale at the end game, earned us attention from the other teams hoping for a strong alliance partner.
The Warlocks were also honored with the Creativity Award sponsored by Xerox.
As a regional winner, we receive an invitation to the championship competition in Detroit, April 25-28. We are planning to attend that, but first we will be attending our second regional event at the Buckeye Regional in Cleveland OH on March 29-31.
We are looking forward to competing and excelling at these two upcoming events. The Warlocks have not attended a championship since 2014 when we won at Fingerlakes and also attended Buckeye.
The FIRST Robotics Competition begins for the 2017 season this Saturday with Kickoff, the game reveal that sets the stage for the world-wide competition.
The Warlocks will be meeting at the school to view the game reveal video and immediately begin planning the 2017 strategy. The school will be open at 9:00 am. Attendance is mandatory for all student team members, and parents, sponsors, former team members, and the general public are welcome to attend.
When the kickoff video is over, the team will immediately begin studying the rules and developing a game strategy for the season. The team has been preparing by studying the basics of robot construction and recently completed sessions on brainstorming techniques. The hope is to have a strategy and design direction developed after three days. There will also be an optional day on Sunday afternoon at the Lockport YMCA.
It was a long day at the Fingerlakes Regional at RIT for the Warlocks. In a semi-final series that the alliance of 1126, 1507 and 3838 put up the high score of the finals round at 196 points, it still wasn’t enough to bring up our average after a disappointing 94 point first match. Our semi-final average of 147.33 only put us in third place, just shy of the final round.
The three match semi-final series sends the alliance with the highest average score on to the final round. Our valiant effort to bring up the scores in the last two matches wasn’t enough to overcome the match where 1126 broke and dropped a potentially winning stack of totes.
We were chosen to the #2 alliance by Rochester’s Sparx, Team 1126 and joined by third team 3838, Roc City Robotics, also from Rochester. It looked like a strong team and we all were very happy. Only bad luck stopped us.
But we didn’t go home empty-handed. The Warlocks, Team 1507, were awarded the Innovation in Control Award, sponsored by Rockwell Automation by the judges. The award recognized our point-scoring autonomous routine that picked up a bin and three yellow totes and took them into the autonomous zone, all in the first 15 seconds without the drivers intervention. The judges were so impressed, that the award was presented in the form of an “interpretive dance” where MC Angry Eric played the robot, knocking over the extra bins. It was a highlight of the awards ceremony.
The field is being set up for the 2015 Fingerlakes Regional at RIT March 26-28 (Photo courtesy FIRST Rochester)
The field is set and teams are loading in for this weekend’s FIRST Robotics Competition at RIT in Rochester. This is the closest competition for Buffalo area teams. The competition features teams in the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) which is the highest level of competition offered by FIRST with High School aged students and their 120 lb. robots. Besides seeing which robots designs excel at the game, which is different each year, the students are recognized with awards for many areas, such as engineering, safety, team spirit, and overall team quality including their business plan and community service. They also have an opportunity to meet college recruiters and receive scholarship information. This is the 11th annual Fingerlakes event and 45 teams from Ontario, Maryland, and all parts of New York, will compete for the honors and an opportunity to go to the Championship event in St. Louis in April. The exciting competition is open to the public and free. You can watch the matches and tour the pits and see teams working on keeping their robots running. The event is held at the Gordon Field House on the RIT campus. The event’s web site has full details. It’s worth the drive to see, but if you can’t make it, it is being telecast on the internet. The direct link to the video is http://www.wasapi.com/event.php?id=16 or can be found at the hub for all FRC videos: The Blue Alliance.
The Lockport High School robotics team #1507, the Warlocks, placed 3rd overall at the Pittsburgh regional this past weekend. The Warlocks competed against 54 other high school teams from across the region over the course of three days.
During the qualifying rounds, each team played a total of 9 matches, and were paired with random alliance partners and opponents. Team 1507 performed well, achieving a qualification match high score of 155 points. At the conclusion of the qualification matches, the Warlocks earned a qualification average of 61 points and seeded in the 8th position.
During alliance selection, Team 1507 was drafted by the number 3 seed, Team 3015 from Spencerport, NY. Team 3260 was also drafted, in order to form the 3 team alliance that will continue to compete in the elimination rounds.
The Warlocks achieved an average alliance score of 109 points in the quarter finals, which advanced the alliance to the semi finals. After suffering a breakdown in the first semi final match, Team 1507, 3015, and 3260 were still able to earn an average score of 91 points. Unfortunately, this wasn’t enough to advance to the finals, where 1629, 144, and 337 eventually won the event.
The Warlocks are currently making improvements to their robot for their next competition, which takes at the Rochester Institute of Technology from March 26th through the 28th.
The webcast for the Greater Pittsburgh regional will be available on the blue alliance, along with many other websites (a list that seems on growing larger and larger each year). Thebluealliance.com is probably the most reliable source, and the direct link is listed below.
thebluealliance.com/gameday
There are many different sources for match schedules and results, but the only official source is from FIRST themselves. FIRST has overhauled there event pages dramatically this year, and they can be accessed at the links below. Like anything new, FIRST experienced some technical difficulties with populating these brand new pages with match data this past weekend. Those issues should be fixed, but it is possible that these pages won’t be working as expected this coming weekend. If that happens, make sure to check our website for updates on our progress throughout the day.
Practice Match Schedule
Qualification Schedule (and results)
Rankings
Playoff Alliances, Schedule, and Results
Awards
The Warlocks will be competing in the Greater Pittsburgh regional from March 5th-7th. This is the first of two regional events that the team will be competing for a spot at the World Championship in St. Louis.
The event is located here:
Convocation Center
California University of Pennsylvania
California, PA 15419
March 4-7, 2015
Travel Itinerary
Our Itinerary for the trip and any other important info can be found here.
Match Schedule and Results
Match Schedule
Match Results
Standings
Awards
*Note* Links may not be active before the event starts
On February 16, 2015, The Warlocks held a press conference and Robot Revealing at our school, Lockport High School. Channel 2 News and The Buffalo News were invited to document our reveal. Reporters were taken by surprise that high school students were capable of making such a complex robot in a limited time. Channel 2 News interviewed Warlocks President James Rogowski and took incredible footage of the robot constructing stacks of totes.
While The Buffalo News was here, we took a group photo and spread the word of FIRST. The reporter was very interested in what we have done, after our robot successfully made a little more than a dozen stacks of 6 totes. A few of our stacks were topped off with a container and a few with a container and a noodle! We were very pleased with the minimal amount of errors with our robot and are looking forward to our first competition.
