Congratulations to the 42 Teams from California and Switzerland PLUS all the Mentors, Volunteers, Sponsors, Friends and Family members who participated in the Ventura FIRST Robotics Regional from March 27-30, 2019!
ADVANCING TO CHAMPIONSHIPS IN HOUSTON!!!
The following teams and individuals earned top honors at the Ventura Regional and earned their way to compete at the FIRST Championships in Houston in April.
Regional Chairman’s Award
Team 4201, Vitruvian Bots from El Segundo, CA
The Chairman’s Award represents the true spirit of FIRST. It honors the team that best serves as a model for other teams to emulate and that embodies the goals of FIRST. It remains FIRST’s most prestigious team award. The Chairman’s Award is presented to the team judged to have the most significant measurable impact of its partnerships among its participants, school, and community over a sustained period, not just a single build season or school year. The winner is able to demonstrate progress towards FIRST’s mission of transforming our culture. The recipient will be invited to the FIRST Championship where it will compete for the Chairman’s Award against the winners from all the other qualifying events.
What the judges had to say …
“This team exists to inspire students to become learners and innovators. Using exploration and inclusion in a spacecraft designed to support FIRST crew members. They are launching many to infinity and beyond. Their home is a small galaxy in the universe of FIRST.“
Engineering Inspiration
Team 2486, CocoNuts from Flagstaff, AZ
The Engineering Inspiration Award celebrates outstanding success in advancing respect and appreciation for engineering within a team’s school and community. This team will advance to the Championships and receive a $5000 NASA grant toward registration.
What the judges had to say …
“Houston-we have a problem. This team has the solution with over 40,000 hours connecting to other teams, producing training programs, spreading enthusiasm, and building a legacy. Their influence lights up the universe. Mars rover, Mars rover-send the CocoNuts right over!”
Regional Winners
Team 5199, Dolphin Robots from Outer Space from San Juan Capistrano, CA Team 4414, HighTide from Ventura, CA Team 6934, Scorps from Camarillo, CA
Rookie All-Star Award
Team 7650, Monte Pacis Robotics from Sankt Gallen, Switzerland
This award celebrates a 1st year team demonstrating an early but strong partnership effort, implementing the mission of FIRST. Its winner understands what FIRST is really trying to accomplish and realizes that technical work is fun and challenging, made better by building a partnership among team, community and school. This is not an easy challenge for a rookie team but the judges want to recognize and reward one team that got it right.
What the judges had to say …
“This team’s inspiration and dedication to each other has outweighed the best. The calculated effort of this team allowed them to build a functionally designed robot. The robotic movement was hands down as precise as a Swiss Watch’s timing.”
Regional Finalists
(Advancing to Championships because of 3 Wild Cards) Team 294, Beach Cities Robotics from Redondo Beach, CA Team 114, Eaglestrike from Los Altos, CA Team 7887, Final Frontier from Camarillo, CA
Dean’s List Finalist
FIRST Dean’s List Finalist – Isabel Guerrero from Team 3512
What the judges had to say …
“This finalist started with a passion for FLL and Robotics. This has grown into her commitment to business and financial acuity for the team with grant writing, fund raising, balance sheets and planning. Her enthusiasms, energy, and attitude values everyone and will be useful in her future goals in medicine. “
FIRST Dean’s List Finalist – Giovanni Giacalone from Team 1138
What the judges had to say …
“This finalist has a great appreciation for all the opportunities and assistance he received. He is humble and believes that his priority should be paying it forward with summer camps, mentoring FLL teams and starting a FTC team. He is an expert in CAD with a Solidworks Certification and teaches freshmen design principles which will be useful to his future in Robotics Bio medicine.”
In an effort to recognize the leadership and dedication of FIRST’s most outstanding FRC students, the Kamen family sponsors an award for selected top students known as the FIRST Dean’s List.
This award celebrates a student’s outstanding leadership and effectiveness in advancing respect and appreciation for engineering and engineers, both within their school, as well as their community. FIRST Dean’s List Finalists will compete at the championship for the FIRST Dean’s List.
Woodie Flowers Finalist Award
Fazlul Zubair from Team 4201, The Vitruvian Bots. Learn more about Fazlul in this recent post about Raytheon’s support of FIRST.
Additional Awards
Congratulations to the Teams and individuals that earned the remaining awards at the Ventura Regional! See the list here.
An immense THANK YOU to all the Sponsors who contributed to this very successful Regional with funding, mentors, volunteers and enthusiasm! Regional Sponsors include the Gene Haas Foundation and Ventura College.
We hope you too had a memorable experience at the Ventura Regional. We’d love to hear your stories. Please consider sharing them with us here in the comments below or on our facebook page. Photo and video links welcome!
(Cover photo credit: Team 4414, HighTide)
68 teams, from USA, Puerto Rico, Canada, Mexico, Korea, Japan, India, Australia, New Zealand, Ghana and Zimbabwe landed at LEGOLAND California to compete in the FIRST LEGO League International Open from May 17-19, 2019. Helping us celebrate this year’s space theme, Into Orbit, NASA Astronaut Dan Bursch joined us for the fun and was impressed with the teams’ innovative projects, which were similar to things he explored on the International Space Station.
It was an action-packed weekend filled with excitement, discoveries, new friendships, FUN and memories of a lifetime …. plus teams were also able to enjoy the LEGOLAND and Water Park attractions in their “down” time.
Many thanks go to the 76 volunteers from FIRST Robotics teams, engineers, community members and educators plus the So Cal Robotics League, the local non-profit arm, who provided medals, trophies, meals, polo shirts, photography, VIP escorts, and a Board Dinner to thank our VIPs and leadership team. Without you all, none of this would’ve been possible!
We so are proud of all our teams, and grateful to the coaches, volunteers, and sponsors – Qualcomm and Viasat!
Photo Credit for all photos: Sandy Huffaker Photography.
Thank you Sandy Huffaker for helping tell the story of the weekend with your amazing photography! This video created by team Narwhal of Ideas commemorates all of the teams who competed over the weekend.
RESULTS
Champion Award: 8 to Automate from Ohio Champion Award, Runner Up: Tiger Tech Black from Pennsylvania
Robot Performance 1st Place: BWW from Japan Robot Performance 2nd Place: 8 to Automate from Ohio Robot Performance 3rd Place: BlockStars from Australia Robot Performance 4th Place: Scientific Sorcerers from Ohio Robot Performance 5th Place: The Renaissance from India
Robot Design – Mechanical Design 1st Place: Puzzle from Korea Robot Design – Mechanical Design 2nd Place: STAR LAB from Korea
Robot Design – Programming 1st Place: Gear Gang from Missouri Robot Design – Programming 2nd Place: Super Smash Bro Bots from California
Robot Design – Strategy & Innovation 1st Place: C.A.T.S from Washington Robot Design – Strategy & Innovation 2nd Place: The Narwhal Of Ideas from South Carolina
Project – Research 1st Place: HashTag from India Project – Research 2nd Place: Hawkes Bay All Stars from New Zealand
Project – Presentation 1st Place: Guardians of the Galaxsee from Ontario, Canada Project – Presentation 2nd Place: RoboWizz from Massachusetts
Project – Innovative Solution 1st Place: Scientific Sorcerers from Ohio Project – Innovative Solution 2nd Place: Honubots from Hawaii
Core Values – Inspiration 1st Place: E3 Strike from Tennessee Core Values – Inspiration 2nd Place: Salty Circuits from Illinois
Core Values – Teamwork 1st Place: RoboMoose from Texas Core Values – Teamwork 2nd Place: Mega Bots from New Jersey
Core Values – Gracious Professionalism 1st Place: Project Bucephalus from Australia Core Values – Gracious Professionalism 2nd Place: Rock-iT from India
Judge’s Award: Guardians of the LEGO Galaxy from Oregon Judge’s Award: LEGO Leaders from Nevada Judge’s Award: FIRST FUJISAN voyager from Japan
Inventor and FIRST Founder Dean Kamen launched the 2018 FIRST Robotics Competition season today with the Kickoff of a new robotics game called FIRST POWER UP in New Hampshire, hometown of FIRST Headquarters. More than 91,000 high-school students on 3,647 teams at 137 venues around the globe joined the 2018 Kickoff via Twitch Live Broadcast. FIRST POWER UP finds FIRST Robotics Competition teams trapped in an 8-bit video game.
Each three-team alliance has three ways to help defeat the boss:
tipping the scale or the alliance’s switch in their favor to earn points
exchanging power cubes for power ups (force, boost, and levitate) to gain a temporary advantage during the match
climbing the scale tower to face the boss.
The alliance with the highest score at the end of the match, which includes autonomous and teleoperated periods, defeats the boss and wins the game. OFFICIAL GAME ANIMATION:
At today’s Kickoff, teams were shown the FIRST POWER UP game field and challenge details for the first time, and received the Kickoff Kit from the Kit of Parts, which is made up of motors, batteries, control system components, construction materials, and a mix of additional automation components – with limited instructions.
Working with adult mentors, students have six weeks to design, build, program, and test their robots to meet the season’s engineering challenge. Once these young inventors build a robot, their teams will participate in one or more of the global 158 Regional and District events that measure the effectiveness of each robot, the power of collaboration, and the determination of students. California will be the host to 9 Regional FRC events in 2018: Mar 7-10 – SAN DIEGO REGIONAL presented by Qualcomm Mar 14-17 – LOS ANGELES REGIONAL Mar 15-18 – SAN FRANCISCO REGIONAL Mar 21-24 – ORANGE COUNTY REGIONAL Mar 21-24 – SACRAMENTO REGIONAL Mar 28-31 – SILICON VALLEY REGIONAL Mar 28-31 – VENTURA REGIONAL April 4-7 – AEROSPACE VALLEY REGIONAL April 5-8 – CENTRAL VALLEY REGIONAL
The 2018 FIRST Robotics Competition Kickoff event was an opportunity for teams from all over the world to come together as a community to share in the excitement of seeing the new game unveiled. Teams at local Kickoffs in Australia, Canada, China, Dominican Republic, Israel, Mexico, Turkey, and the United States watched the proceedings via live broadcast.
In California, thousands of students, mentors, sponsors and volunteers gathered at 11 Kickoff locations throughout the state. Now it’s GO TIME! We wish everyone the best of luck over the next 6 weeks as innovative minds and problem solving skills are put to the test!
THE TOP 20 FRC TEAMS IN CALIFORNIA
Post Week 4 – Rankings Voters Poll
The ‘Voters Poll’ is a voted on by a selected panel of team mentors from across the state of California. Each week, the panel submits their list of who they think are the top 15 teams in the state. A 1st place vote is worth 15 points, 2nd place vote is worth 14 points, 3rd place vote is worth 13 points, etc. Teams are then ranked based on who has the highest point total after all the votes have been submitted. OPR Poll
The ‘OPR Poll’ is based on who has the highest Offensive Power Rating (OPR) in the state of California. OPR is a way of looking at a team’s estimated contribution to their alliance’s score. This is not the same as average score since that assumes that each team is equally contributing to an alliances score. Instead, OPR takes into account all the alliances a team has played on. A team’s highest OPR score will be used in the poll. Standard Points Poll
The ‘Standard Points Poll” is based on the FRC Standard District Point Ranking System that was announced in the fall of 2013. This is the same system that is being used by all four ‘regions’ during the 2014 FRC season. The system ranks teams based on the four components of an event: Qualification, Alliance Selection, Elimination and Awards. An explanation of how teams earn points can be found here.
If a team plays at only 1 regional, their score will be doubled. If a team plays at 3 regionals, only their first two regionals will count toward their points total. All events will be normalized to 12 qualification matches. Teams that compete at the FIRST Championship will have their championship points added to their season total. All points earned at the Championship will be worth 3x. Combined Poll
The ‘Combined Poll’ is a aggregate poll that takes into account the three polls listed above. The ‘Voters Poll’, ‘OPR Poll’ and ‘Standard Points Poll’ are treated as voters in the ‘Combined Poll’. The results of the ‘Voters Poll’ will make up 50% of the points while the ‘OPR Poll’ and ‘Standard Points Poll’ will each make up 25%.
Mathematically it works like this:
Pv = 2 * (21 – Rv)
Po = (21 – Ro)
Ps = (21 – Rs)
Pc = Pv + Po + Ps
Pv / Po / Ps = The points a team receives for being in a poll. If a team is not ranked in that poll, they will received 0 points.
Rv / Ro / Rs = A team’s rank in a poll.
Pc = Total combined points. The team with the highest Pc will be ranked 1st in the ‘Combined Poll’. For example:
Team X is 10th in the ‘Voters Poll’, 2nd in the ‘OPR Poll’ and 15th in the ‘Standard Points Poll’. they will earn to total of 47 points for the ‘Combined Poll’ (22 from the ‘Voters Poll’, 19 from the ‘OPR Poll’ and 6 from the ‘Standard Points Poll’
Team Y is 1st in the ‘Voters Poll’, 10th in the ‘OPR Poll’ and 3rd in the ‘Standard Points Poll’. They would receive a total of 69 points for the ‘Combined Poll’ (40 from the ‘Voters Poll’, 11 from the ‘OPR Poll’ and 18 from the ‘Standard Points Poll’
Congratulations to ALL Teams, Mentors, Volunteers, Sponsors, Friends and Family members who participated in the 14th Annual Los Angeles FIRST Robotics Regional presented by The Roddenberry Foundation and helped to create an exciting and memorable weekend.
Definitely an amazing and exciting event! High energy matches, a very special visit from FIRST President Donald Bossi, wise words shared by SpaceX’s Tom Mueller, incredible sponsor involvement including a presentation by Heidi Roddenberry and great media attention. Rich DeMuro’s Tech Report on KTLA:
QUALIFIED FOR CHAMPIONSHIPS IN ST. LOUIS!!!
The following teams and individuals earned top honors at the Los Angeles Regional and earned their way to compete at the FIRST Championships in St. Louis in April. Regional Chairman’s Award Team 2576, Chilean Heart – Santiago, Chile
The Los Angeles Chairman’s Award represents the true spirit of FIRST. It honors the team that best serves as a model for other teams to emulate and that embodies the goals of FIRST. It remains FIRST’s most prestigious team award. The Chairman’s Award is presented to the team judged to have the most significant measurable impact of its partnerships among its participants, school, and community over a sustained period, not just a single build season or school year. The winner is able to demonstrate progress towards FIRST’s mission of transforming our culture. The recipient will be invited to the FIRST Championship where it will compete for the Chairman’s Award against the winners from all the other qualifying events.
Here’s what the Judges had to say –
“This team comes from a culture that does not celebrate science and technology. They embarked on a five year plan with a goal of establishing at least one new FRC team. In the process, they have created an environment where 90% of the team members go on to a four year university and 70% of them pursue STEM majors. Traversing an entire country and beyond, they have exceeded their team’s plan by creating three FRC teams-two in their country and one in Long Beach.”
Engineering Inspiration Team 3309, Friarbots – Anaheim, CA
The Engineering Inspiration Award celebrates outstanding success in advancing respect and appreciation for engineering within a team’s school and community. This team will advance to the Championships and receive a $5000 NASA grant toward registration.
Here’s what the judges had to say –
“This younger team has grown by leaps and bounds since their inception: spanning 3 schools, growing by a factor of 3, and currently comprised of 30% women. They have founded an alliance in their county which brings their brothers and sisters together in the spirit of cooperation and gracious professionalism. Their outreach is also a multiple of three, as they run a robotics summer camp, host middle school workshops, and run a peer mentoring program. As you can see, this team is all about threes, even stretching to their team number: 3 times 3 plus zero equals 9.”
Regional Winners Team 294, Beach Cities Robotics from Redondo Beach, CA; Team 1717, D’Penguineers from Goleta, CA; Team 5124, West Torrance Robotics from Torrance, CA
Rookie All-Star Award Team 4997, The Golden Machine from Long Beach, CA
This award celebrates a 1st year team demonstrating an early but strong partnership effort, implementing the mission of FIRST. Its winner understands what FIRST is really trying to accomplish and realizes that technical work is fun and challenging, made better by building a partnership among team, community and school. This is not an easy challenge for a rookie team but the judges want to recognize and reward one team that got it right.
Here’s what the judges had to say –
“This multi-school team took the time to diligently plan for their rookie season and beyond. Their activities have focused on informing key individuals in the education system, spreading the importance of engineering project based learning and providing training in areas of safety and skill sets to help raise robotics to a level on par with sports programs.
Although they received excellent guidance from their mentors, time demands raised expectations of team members to manage the team and they truly rose to the challenge.”
Dean’s List Finalist: Honoring FIRST Student Superstars FIRST Dean’s List Finalist #1 – JocelynePerdomo, Team 207 from Hawthorne, CA FIRST Dean’s List Finalist #2 – Ryan Gulland, Team 294 from Redondo Beach, CA
In an effort to recognize the leadership and dedication of FIRST’s most outstanding FRC students, the Kamen family sponsors an award for selected top students known as the FIRST Dean’s List.
This award celebrates a student’s outstanding leadership and effectiveness in advancing respect and appreciation for engineering and engineers, both within their school, as well as their community. FIRST Dean’s List Finalists will compete at the championship for the FIRST Dean’s List.
Woodie Flowers Finalist Award
Lucas Pacheco Mentor for Team 207
Volunteer of the Year Award
Stephen and Jill Petty
We can’t thank them enough for their ongoing commitment and hard work to ensure that the Los Angeles Regional continues to thrive. Additional Awards
Congratulations to the Teams and individuals that earned the remaining awards at the Los Angeles Regional! See the list here. Support
An immense THANK YOU to all the Sponsors who contributed to this very successful Regional with funding, mentors, volunteers and enthusiasm!
Regional Sponsors include The Roddenberry Foundation, Raytheon, Boston Scientific, Northrop Grumman, Google, Eaton, Walt Disney Imagineering, The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation, Kenneth T. and Eileen L. Norris Foundation, Gerald Oppenheimer Family Foundation, Mr. & Mrs. Stephen Petty.
We hope you too had a profound experience at the Los Angeles Regional. We’d love to hear your stories. Please consider sharing them with us here in the comments below or on our facebook page. Photo and video links welcome!
Congratulations to ALL Teams, Mentors, Volunteers, Sponsors, Friends and Family members who participated in the San Diego FTC Championship Tournament!
The following teams and individuals earned top honors for their hard work, teamwork and accomplishments. Inspire Award Presented to Stuffed Dragons, Team 6565 from San Diego
Inspire Award Finalists Second Place: Team 135, Fusion Third Place: Team 4112, Warriors
The Inspire Award is given to the Team that the Judges felt truly embodied the ‘challenge’ of the FTC program. This Team serves as an inspiration to what this program and the young minds involved, can accomplish. The Team that receives this Award has performed well in all Judging categories and was chosen by the Judges as a model FIRST Tech Challenge Team. The Judges used Match performance, observations made during interviews and in the Pit area, the Team’s Engineering Notebook, and performance on the Playing Field in determining the winner.
San Diego FTC Championship Tournament Winning Alliance Team 6565; Team 5555; Team 5279 San Diego FTC Championship Tournament Finalist Alliance Team 5828, Team 4278, Team 3848
Motivate Award Presented to West Torrance Robotics, Team 4512 from Torrance Motivate Award Finalists Team 6565, Stuffed Dragons Team 542, WHS Robotics
This Judged Award celebrates the Team that exemplifies the essence of the FIRST Tech Challenge Competition through Team spirit and enthusiasm. This Team shows their spirit through costumes and fun outfits, a Team cheer or outstanding spirit, or through their collective efforts to make FIRST known throughout their school or community.
Connect Award Presented to Rock n Roll Robots, Team 25 from Pasadena Connect Award Finalists Team 135, Fusion Team 6565, Stuffed Dragons
The Connect Award is presented to the Team that the Judges feel most connected with their local community and the engineering community. The best Team is more than the sum of its parts, and recognizes that their schools and communities play an essential part to their success. The recipient of this Award is recognized for helping the community understand FIRST, the FIRST Tech Challenge, and the Team itself. In addition, the Team that wins this Award is aggressively seeking engineers and exploring the opportunities available in the world of engineering, science, and technology.
Rockwell Collins Innovate Award Presented to Kings and Queens, Team 4625 from Monrovia Rockwell Collins Innovate Award Finalists Team 6565, Stuffed Dragons Team 4119, Brain Nuggets
The Rockwell Collins Innovate Award celebrates a Team that not only thinks outside the box, but also has the ingenuity and inventiveness to make their designs come to life. This Award is given to the Team that the Judges feel has the most Innovative and Creative Robot design solution to the FIRST Tech Challenge to any or all specific Field Elements or components. Elements of this Award include elegant design, robustness, and ‘out of the box’ thinking with regard to design. This Award may address the design of the whole Robot or some sub-assembly component attached to the Robot. The creative component needs to work consistently, but a Robot does not have to work all of the time during Matches to be considered for this Award. The Team’s Engineering Notebook showed the design of the component(s) and the Team’s Robot, and described succinctly how the Team arrived at that solution.
PTC Design Award Presented to The Warriors, Team 4112 from San Diego PTC Design Award Finalists Team 6350, RoboRevolt Team 5555, Option 16
The intent of the PTC Design Award is to expand the challenge, inspiring Teams to incorporate industrial design into their Robots. These elements can be shown in the simplicity of the design as it applies to the tasks, the look and feel of the Robot, and how the design allows us to think of Robots in new ways. The Design aspect must serve a function, but they should also differentiate the Robot in a unique fashion, not an easy task with a limited set of parts and Game challenge. Think Award Presented to Fusion, Team 135 from San Diego Think Award Finalists Team 6137, RoBowties Team 6373, Parabots
The Think Award is given to the Team that the Judges feel best understood the role of the Engineering Notebook in the design process. The Engineering Notebook is the key reference for Judges to help them identify the most deserving Team. This Team’s Engineering Notebook focused on the design and build stages of the Team’s Robot. Promote Award Presented to Metal Ducks, Team 5826, from Hemet Promote Award Finalists Team 25, Rock n Roll Robots Team 6373, Parabots
The Promote Award is given to the Team that is most successful in creating a compelling message for the public designed to change our culture and celebrate science, technology, engineering, and math. The FTC Public Service Announcement Video was evaluated by the Judges to determine the winner of this Award. Teams must present a thoughtful and high-quality video which appeals to the general public.
Control Award Presented to Brain Nuggest, Team 4119 from Long Beach
The Control Award celebrates a Team that uses sensors and software to enhance the Robot’s functionality in the Field. This award is given to the Team that demonstrates innovative thinking in the control system to solve Game Challenges such as Autonomous operation, enhancing mechanical systems with intelligent control, or using sensors to achieve better results on the Field.
Judges Award Presented to Kronos, Team 2885 from Escondido Judges Award Finalists Team 3650, Torrey Techies Team 5822, Bacon Bots
The Judges Award is given at the discretion of the judges to a team they have encountered whose unique efforts, performance or dynamics merit recognition, yet the team does not fit into any of the existing award categories.
We’d like to wish the VERY BEST OF LUCK to:
all the FTC teams competing in the Los Angeles FTC Championship Tourmanent this weekend
all the FTC teams competing in the NorCal FTC Championship Tournament this weekend
We’d love to hear your stories. Please consider sharing them with us here in the comments below or on our facebook page. Photo and video links welcome!
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