First In Michigan Week 1.

[FIMAlumni]

The 2016 FIRST In Michigan season starts off with four events. Teams competing in week 1 that finished in the top 50 in the district ranking system from 2015 are listed in the form Team#(2015 Rank), Team Name.

Kettering District 1:
70 (18), More Martians.
4384 (30), Benzene Bots.
5114 (49), Titanium Tigers.

Southfield District:
548 (2), Robostangs.
573 (6), Mech Warriors.
1025 (22), IMPIS.
3604 (36) Goon Squad.
2960 (50) automation nation.

Standish District:
107 (17), Team R.O.B.O.T.I.C.S.
1918 (20), NC GEARS.
1502 (33), Technical Difficulties.
3602 (34), RoboMos.
3618 (41), Petoskey Paladins.
862 (48), Lightning Robotics.

Waterford District:
1023 (1), Bedford Express.
2137 (3), TORC.
33 (4), Killer Bees.
67 (9), The HOT Team.
1189 (11), The Gearheads.
3098 (15), The Captains.
1718 (25), The Fighting Pi.
245 (35), Adambots.
5048 (39), Spartronics.
4003 (46), TriSonics.

Good Luck to all teams competing in week 1!

[Nuwanda]

Mind explaining the logic behind the color coding? My brain has slowed down due to severe sleep deprivation, and I find myself incapable of figuring it out.

[Anthony Galea]

Mind explaining the logic behind the color coding? My brain has slowed down due to severe sleep deprivation, and I find myself incapable of figuring it out.

Gold = 2015 State Champions
Silver = 2015 State Finalists
Bronze = 2015 State Semifinalists

[FIMAlumni]

Gold = 2015 State Champions
Silver = 2015 State Finalists
Bronze = 2015 State Semifinalists


Correct, I apologize for not clarifying that in the original post. It is quite impressive that in week one we have:

2/3 State Champions
2/3 State Finalists
4/6 State Semi-Finalists

Also impressive that 24/50 of the top teams are competing this week. Should be a great weekend of competition.

[c.shu]

Waterford is looking quite stacked. Looking forward to playing this weekend.

[FiM Informer]

Wanted to post a few thoughts before we get started with the season tomorrow. Unlike most years, we get to have seen a full competition play out before week 1 has even begun. Let's use that to our advantage.

Palmetto

What happened at Palmetto? Breaches happened about half the time, and captures were very rare (didn't occur at all until playoffs). The average team scored about 13 defense points per match. Let's look a bit more in-depth. Here's a chart of quals breaching % versus defense points per match:

http://i.imgur.com/c73f0RW.png

You can draw a lot of conclusions from that chart. First off, I find it impressive that even the lowest scoring teams were averaging most of a breach (kudos to the GDC on a very playable game!). The next thing I'd draw your attention to is the teams at or above 45 defense points per match. These teams were getting breaches in about 3/4 of their matches. Even really good teams can't guarantee breaches - 179 was excellent, but still breached in 6 of 8 matches.

Michigan is a game of district points, and the easiest and most consistent way to get points is through seeding. Many teams will ask themselves "how can I maximise my seed?" Well, here's how teams at Palmetto did:

http://i.imgur.com/Fbk83Kq.png

I've checked the correlation of points scored per match by method with ranking points accrued per match. They tell us something that seems obvious, but isn't always true: the most common scoring methods had the strongest correlations with ranking. Defenses were about half the points scored, and that had the strongest correlation with ranking. Auto scoring was more correlated with ranking than you'd expect from its point output, but having autonomous scoring says a lot about a team's preparedness. Neither scaling/challenging nor goal scoring proved an effective predictor of ranking.

However, these are past conclusions. Maybe goal-scoring is a poor method for ranking well, maybe there weren't effective goal-scorers at Palmetto. I would expect goal-scoring in particular to improve significantly (in volume and effectiveness) as the season goes on. Defense points will never correlate as well with ranking as it does this week. Scaling won't make a huge difference in rankings at any point this season, but it'll make the difference in many elimination matches once captures become more common (for now, it's something to do for practice).

Low Bar Bots

This has been a hot topic on Chief Delphi all season. How many teams are going low? Ugh, why so many? Let me say right now, I'm just as terrified as Karthik (maybe more). The proportion of robots going low is way off.

Let's make a comparison to 2012. At the highest level in 2012, an elimination alliance very nearly required two of its three members to be widebots to go far (there was only one 4334). Many teams didn't realize this, while others overlooked the importance of triple balancing. The result was lots of longbots and lots of good longbots not playing saturday afternoon.

Now let's take 2016. You mostly need one of your three robots to be low. And the low/tall dichotomy is pretty much spelled out in the rules. True, it's for all of qualifications, but it'll be hard for multiple robots to consistently use the low bar (not to mention that's a great way to not breach). So mayyybe 50% of teams should go low. But because it was obviously incentivized, the actual proportion is a lot more.

I highly expect every top team in Michigan to go low. 33 doesn't tend to go too far out of the box. 67 is struggling with the loss of Adam Freeman and I therefore would've guessed they'd go with a pretty conventional design. This has been all but confirmed in another thread (they're making one of those all-in-one arms, which isn't much of a surprise for anyone who saw them in 2012). 469 certainly goes out of the box at times, but usually as an afterthought (those cangrabbers last year, their entire upper structure from 2010).

The most prominent Michigan teams that have revealed their bots (2054 & 68) are both low. 2054 tends to get creative, and their 2016 robot certainly is, but they didn't buck the low trend. 573 is low as well. (https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CcmHz1fUkAQEAJB.jpg) 4003 is tall, so that's cool. If I had to bet on one great Michigan team that went tall, I'd guess 1918 or 1025. But realistically, the chances any particular great Michigan team went tall are pretty low.

Defense Selection

Alright, so the low bar is definitely damaged. How do I wreak havoc on my opponents' strategies? TBA comes in clutch yet again.

http://i.imgur.com/PrLVAbh.png

There's two good pieces of information here: which defense was picked more often, and which team's struggled with more. Let's go category by category.

A: The real portcullis is much nicer than the one teams expected (a guillotine). I suspect teams would've picked the CdF more often if it was available all the time/they weren't afraid it would break. It's harder and less of a burden to look past (although, again, the real portcullis is easier to see through than the team version). Both success numbers will increase as teams realize that having an A mechanism is pretty valuable and a good way to stand out from the crowd.

B: Not really unexpected. Both the moat and the ramparts are harder than they look at first glance. I'm sure many teams said "2.5 or 3 inches? That'll be super easy." But it's not! The moat might be harder to do, but I think teams take more time on the ramparts. Could rationalize choosing either.

C: With so many low bots, alliances can pick one defense to not do. This was that defense. The most effective way to do Category C is working together, which doesn't happen much in early weeks. Alliances that failed another defense and had to go for C had to work together under time pressure late in the match - that's rarely a good proposition. Instead, I'd suggest teams do category C right at the start of a match. It can be done in seconds, less coordination is required because you're choosing to do it right away, and you can take your time on the tougher tasks.

Also, teams picked the sallyport more. Because it hurts their viewing angles less. Great choice.

D: Turns out the rough terrain is really easy! Don't pick it!

What should my strategy be?

We know breaches happen about once per match and captures almost never. That will affect your strategy.

Well, let's ask who you are first. Look again at that Palmetto chart. You've got those top 6 teams in the top right, then you have a large group of above-average teams scoring 39+ defense points per match, then there's everybody below that.

If you're one of the top 6, a breach is mostly a given for you. If you don't breach, it was probably a fluke accident. Once you're certain you're in that group, you should stop worrying about it and go for bigger goals. Since captures probably aren't happening, go for the win. Maybe that means scoring fewer balls in the high goal (vs. more in the low goal) for more points, or maybe it means convincing your partners to play some legal defense.

Let's say you're in the second, "above average" group. You probably have mechanisms to do things other than go over defenses, and you want to practice them. Don't do it until you have a breach. Don't do it until you have a breach. If you play your cards right, you'll be an alliance captain. You must guarantee the breach to do that. Getting over the hard defenses will help you to stand out while also maximizing your RPs.

Finally, the bottom group. Your goal is to play on Saturday afternoon, and you really don't care where you seed. Find something you do relatively well, and do it a lot. Pick one or two categories you can do, and do them every time. Play defense if asked, because that's a role that will be selected for.

[FIMAlumni]

Low Bar Bots


I highly expect every top team in Michigan to go low. 33 doesn't tend to go too far out of the box. 67 is struggling with the loss of Adam Freeman and I therefore would've guessed they'd go with a pretty conventional design.


If the "leaked" picture from 33 that went up a few weeks ago is real, 33 is a low bot. Also the teaser (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4MZcZDjIzU) for 67 indicates that they will be a low bar bot as well.

[Wayne TenBrink]

If I had to bet on one great Michigan team that went tall, I'd guess 1918 or 1025. But realistically, the chances any particular great Michigan team went tall are pretty low.



Our robot is low, but our hopes are high! We can't wait to play this game. Looking forward to the Standish-Sterling event this weekend (hitting the road in a few minutes. Woohoo!)

[first3234]

does anyone know if the districts are streaming and were to find them

[nikeairmancurry]

Rumors are that Rush 27 is a tall bot. :ahh:

Webcasts for week 1:

Southfield: http://www.twitch.tv/firstinmichigan

Kettering: http://www.twitch.tv/firstinmichigan2

Waterford: http://www.twitch.tv/firstinmichigan3

[Richard Wallace]

Webcasts for week 1:Nothing yet at these. I'm watching GTC, they're starting Q10 now.

[EricLeifermann]

On a partially off topic note.

Anybody know whats wrong with 33? 3 matches and they have yet to move..

[Richard Wallace]

On a partially off topic note.

Anybody know whats wrong with 33? 3 matches and they have yet to move..
I know nothing. However, twitch chat includes some mention of CAN issues in their code. 33 is very good -- if the problem were something simple they'd have found and fixed it early.

They were dead on the field in their first three matches. Never moved at all.

[Andrew01377]

So can someone tell me whether or not the tower must be fully weakened before scaling the tower? Due to watching the Stream, we noticed that teams were climbing the tower before the tower was fully weakened? By our understanding we thought that the tower must of been fully weakened before scaling?? So unless there was something in the updates that we must of over looked (Or manual) we are at a bit of confusion?? :confused:

[Richard Wallace]

Andrew: Alliances can earn SCALE points regardless of TOWER strength, but to earn a CAPTURE the TOWER must be WEAKENED.

-----

Re: 33 at Waterford -- it is very good to see the robot working well now. It makes quick work of the defenses.

[Coach Seb]

We are a rookie team and played in an alliance with 33 and 3773 and it was such a cool experience... We played the second highest score match of the day and had a blast !!!!!

This Waterford event is awesome ! i knew we wee to have fun, but this is outstanding !

[Sirdickey]

We are a rookie team and played in an alliance with 33 and 3773 and it was such a cool experience... We played the second highest score match of the day and had a blast !!!!!

This Waterford event is awesome ! i knew we wee to have fun, but this is outstanding !

Hey there! We're the weird blue ones!
Waterford was one of the most totally awesome things ever. Everyone was super nice and helpful and we broke a bunch of stuff and fixed most of it. Can't wait to see ya'll tomorrow and good luck!

[Donut]

Popping in to say that the Michigan streams have been stellar this weekend. Southfield is really high quality video and the announcing on Waterford has been the best of the events I've been watching.

Also clutch match by Wings of Fire in qualification 74 at Waterford. Scoring a high goal boulder with 1 second left to win by 4, watch the replay when it comes up.

[ZamericaZ]

Correct me if there has been a higher score at another competition today but it looks like the highest score in the world is now 185 points, scored by the 1st alliance at waterford: 67, 33, & 4003 in quarterfinal 1-2

[Richard Wallace]

Correct me if there has been a higher score at another competition today but it looks like the highest score in the world is now 185 points, scored by the 1st alliance at waterford: 67, 33, & 4003 in quarterfinal 1-2There was a 185 at Northern Lights also, in the semis.

-------

A quick look at the TBA Insights (http://www.thebluealliance.com/event/2016onto2#event-insights) tabs for Week 1 events shows that Greater Toronto Central teams were favoring the low goal rather than the high. Results: 8 pts higher average score with a higher rate of breaches and captures, compared with the next best field (Waterford).

GTC: Low Goals 552, High Goals 125
High score 161 (QF 2-1), Average match score 78.24, Average winning score 90.35, Breach 117/166, Capture 15/166

Waterford: Low Goals 293, High Goals 299
High score 185 (QF 1-2), Average match score 70.57, Average winning score 82.45, Breach 110/186, Capture 10/186

[Sirdickey]

Correct me if there has been a higher score at another competition today but it looks like the highest score in the world is now 185 points, scored by the 1st alliance at waterford: 67, 33, & 4003 in quarterfinal 1-2

Watched that match live, goodness it was amazing! I can't believe the level of performance these teams have this early on I can only imagine what they can do nearing state championships. Truly an awe inspiring and incredibly educational experience.

[Mike Schreiber]

Thanks to 33 and 4003 for an awesome event and congrats to 33 on another District Chairman's award - well deserved. 1023 congrats on EI and an awesome robot. I was very sad to hear we wouldn't get to face you in the finals.

Also to the toaster who asked me for our model of the 3D printed Microsoft camera mount PM me. I apologize, but I think I lost your email address, unless my notes ended up locked in the toolbox which I'll find out sometime next week. I'll try to get in contact with someone on your team. If any one else is interested in it let me know. I'll probably thingiverse it.

I learned a lot this weekend about this game and had a blast.

1) Elimination audience selections of defense is SO MUCH fun, like unbelievably fun. Especially when you have 3 big teams. I thought it'd be dumb, but FIRST nailed this one. Screaming with a giant crowd of people was the highlight of the event. I'm a bit worried this gives big teams an advantage

2) Most alliances could do either A,B,and D defense plus low bar, so defense selection became less strategy and more what we could see through and what they might not be able to cross in auton. For Waterford, that meant always pick sally port and CdF and put the sally port to the side. No one had a CdF auton. The only reason to ever put out the portcullis was if no one on the other team could do it or all the CdFs are broken.

3) Visibility is bad. As expected.

4) At District Champs if you don't breach in every qualifying match you will not seed - at that level maybe it won't be that hard.

5) Breaching wasn't that tough and capturing will not be 8 balls at championships.

6) Low goal is way better if your shooter is less than perfect since a capture is the goal and a missed ball wastes a ton of time. Also not using brass gears on a shooter again. PM me if you want details.

7) 33 is really good. As expected.

8) It's not a matter of if something breaks but when. There's plenty of stuff to fix in bag time. We broke several things that we thought were built robust enough for this game.

9) Still no clue how defense will shake out later in the season.

10) Hanging got us the #1 seed and a 30 pt end of match swing is awesome. We made it a priority to get a working hang by Waterford even if it was a slow one because the event was so competitive, definitely paid off.

11) The game will be fun to watch and play as long as teams aren't broken.

[Anthony Galea]

4) At District Champs if you don't breach in every qualifying match you will not seed - at that level maybe it won't be that hard.


Can't stress this enough. We went 6-6 in qualifying at Southfield, which would normally put us around 15-25th place, but we ended up in 32nd because we almost never successfully breached (Thank you 2832 for still picking us even with our low rank).

Congratulations to 3604, 3548, and 1188 for winning the event, and 123, 4680, and 573 for being finalists. Also congratulations to 1025 for winning Chairman's, especially in such a strong competition Chairman's wise.

[JABot67]

Does anyone have links to videos of Michigan Week 1 events?

[Sirdickey]

Does anyone have links to videos of Michigan Week 1 events?

I'm having difficulty finding these as well. There is a twitch stream that they have, however there are no archives up and it only works live (oddly you have to be logged into twitch(?)). They ought to have archives/videos of the event soon right? I asked a couple of the volunteers to get back to me on that, but nothing so far. There are a couple other threads on the forum about this specific "issue", if you will. I'd like to show people some cool stuff we did on the field, but we didn't have the means/people to record :P

[Debbie]

1023 congrats on EI and an awesome robot. I was very sad to hear we wouldn't get to face you in the finals.


It was great to play with you, and not so great to play against you. Awesome bot and team, as always. Being the team that helped us get our first blue banner, you will always have a special place in our hearts!

We were looking forward to seeing what we could do against you as well, and a broken drivetrain was not anticipated. We will be overnighting some new parts, and hoping and praying they arrive before our noon departure on Wednesday to Pittsburgh! 2nd time we've had to bag our robot in pieces this year! :( Changes will hopefully be tougher, though snapping the part we did just shows how tough this challenge is on bots. I'd advise all to really examine the hidden damage they may have incurred to their gear boxes prior to going out to a second event. Who knows which hit or defense was the final straw for our bot, but never seen that kind of damage. When we pulled ours apart, we found multiple broken parts.

Huge thanks to our awesome alliance. Wish we would've had a chance to see what we could do with all three of us working at the same time, but the fact that we made it through semis with one bot not shooting in one match, one bot tipped in one match, and one bot with a broken drivetrain in one match shows we worked very well together. Enjoyed working with you. Thanks to 3655 for picking us, 5048 for being an awesome and amazing second pick, and thanks to 5860 for stepping up when we had to remove ourselves!

Corsairs, you put on an awesome event! Thanks for the hard work! Nader fam, you are the best! Thanks for all you do for FIRST in Michigan!

Bruce, our amazing electronics mentor, and Waterford DJ/AV guy. thanks for all you do to make the event fun for all! Your sound effects are great, and we can't imagine competing without you, EVEN when you play Yoda Stop it Now! :D

To all the Waterford teams - It was fun playing with you! Great to see old robot friends, and make new ones! :)

Pittsburgh, here we come!

[Wayne TenBrink]

This game is a blast to play. Brutal at times, but strategically deep and a lot of fun.

Standish-Sterling was a very young field. Kudos to the teams and volunteers who helped get everybody up to snuff and thru inspection. The median team number was 5226, and 27 of the 40 participants had never experienced bumpers before. Once the bugs got worked out, everything ran smoothly and the level of play was very good.

Thanks to all the planners and volunteers who made the event possible. Week 1 events are always a special challenge.

Thanks to 4377 and 5166 for joining us in the playoffs. I wish I could have been there to be part of it. It looks like there were some really tough matches, and I can't wait to see video.

On a more personal side note, it was good to be a TenBrink yesterday. 1918 won at Standish and 70 won at Kettering. However, neither my brother or I were around for playoffs. Our mother turned 95 yesterday and the whole family was back in Fremont to celebrate. She had a lot of nerve being born during robotics season. You would think her parents could have anticipated this back in 1921. Back in 2011, I missed the family gathering for her 90th because of robotics and I caught a lot of well-deserved grief from my 6 siblings. Robotics is fun, but it isn't the most important thing in life.

[FIMAlumni]

Congratulations to our winnings and Finalists from each event:

Kettering:
W:4384, 70, 5084
F:5460, 3656, 6081

Southfield:
W:3604, 3548, 1188
F:123, 4680, 573

Standish-Sterling:
W:1918, 4377, 5166
F:5448,6098,862

Waterford:
W: 67, 33, 4003
F: 3655, 1023, 5048, 5860

I was only able to watch Waterford and Southfield this weekend but I did notice a few things.

1) Both winning alliances utilized all three robots to capture and breach
2) Quick shooting from the batter (mostly low except 33 and 548) is very effective early on.
3) This game is BRUTAL on robots. Two back ups had to be called in. 1023 was unable to play in the finals, calling in 5860. Over in Southfield the fourth alliance lost 5901 and backup 5014 forcing them to play their last matches 3 vs 2.
4) This game is very fun to watch and I can't wait to see how FIM evolves in the coming weeks.

[Coach Seb]

Well... I have no word to express how thankful 5860 is at this point.

Waterford was our first event. As a rookie team, i cannot express enough how cool the experience was for our kids, mentors and parents that attended and the people in our small community that watched over the live stream.

We went through the entire range of emotions, from winning matches, losing with very small difference in score, and tying in our final qualifying match against powerhouses team that we look up to and dream of being like !!!! and on top of this, being called in for the final match... Our kids will remember this moment for their entire life, and for that thank you to all that cheer us up !!

Waterford for us was a very humble experience and i cannot express enough thank you to all the team that helped us, the volunteer at the event and the First in MI organizations.

Thank you to everyone !!!!

[cca5448]

Had a great time in Standish-Sterling event this past weekend.. There was some issues with the live streams and Internet was weak at the venue, however we had a great time anyways.

We had a rough start to the day, with our first match (Q4) being 1 bot short on both alliances. We flipped our bot on the ramparts just at the onset of the match. There was field faults and the scoring did not work, causing a rematch of Q4 and Q5. We replayed the Q4 just before lunch, still with only 2 bots, which went well, roughly 45 Red to our 65 Blue, however again, the field did not score the match resulting in another fault. FIRST opted to revisit the rematches at a later time.

On our 2nd match (Q13), a corrupted flush caused our poor bot to start the match with no robot code. This was shaping up to be a bad day, but our alliance partners (5224, 5447) pulled off the win anyways with 46-44. We ended Friday in 24th place, but with 1 less match than most teams. The FTA scheduled our Q4 rematch for 8:15AM Saturday, before opening ceremonies, which we won 77-37.

By mid day with some losses out of the way, things picked up after we joined 1918 and 5166, setting the event high score of 125-52 (until Q79), setting us on a streak of wins bumping us from 24 up to 5 at the end of qualifiers.

We selected rookie team #32 6098 BIRobot from Beaver Island with their low, fast defensive bot, and #38 862 Lighting Robotics from Canton with their bot.

In QF4-1, we picked up a tie, 97-97, which due to tiebreaker rules became a loss. We won QF4-2 110-106, and took the QF4-3 win 95-90.

In Semifinals, we took both wins, 119-104 and 103-64.

In finals, we just barely missed the win both times with 115-130, and 110-120.

Congrats to 1918, 5166, 4377 on the win.

1918: If it weren't for your darn scaler working properly at the end of the day, we'd have had you. Looking forward to seeing you at WMRI!

-Jim

[Wayne TenBrink]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cpy3eVct-Qo

This is how its done. Get yourselves ready...

[cca5448]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cpy3eVct-Qo

This is how its done. Get yourselves ready...

Dang, killer bees scaler is FAST!

[davidaustin]

Waterford was an amazing event. Thanks to all the volunteers, judges, and refs who made it run so smoothly, and thanks to all the other teams playing there for all the GP. I was totally impressed.

FIRST has given us a great game this year, and Waterford showed what it looks like played at a high level. Thanks so much to HOT and the Bees for asking us to join their alliance. It was a huge honor for us to be picked by teams we have looked up to and been inspired by for all of our five years. Working with them was an amazing experience for our students, and one that will help our team grow moving on from here. I can't say enough good things about those teams.

We've got some improvements planned before our next event at West Michigan. We can't wait to see old friends and make some new ones at our home event.

[jfitz0807]

This is a reply to Debbie's post from yesterday.

What kind of drive train did you have and what gearboxes did you use?

We have two Vex 3-cim, two-speed gearboxes each driving a Vex thunderhex shaft. We have sprockets on these shafts driving tank chain with four other sprockets.

Hope you get your replacement parts in time!

Good luck!

[tr6scott]

No one had a CdF auton.

I might have to challenge that, it would be more correct to say, that no one showed a CdF auton. :)

Congrats to Bees Chairmens, and Bedford EI!

Hot is still as strong as ever!

[Debbie]

This is a reply to Debbie's post from yesterday.

What kind of drive train did you have and what gearboxes did you use?


It was a West Coast Products Dual Speed Gearbox from VEX. We broke the Dog Gear and the shaft. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1739042292993609&set=pcb.1739042492993589&type=3&theater

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1739042289660276&set=pcb.1739042492993589&type=3&theater

Those should come up, but let me know if they don't. We ordered something different, and will be putting it on in PA! :)

[Jim Zondag]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cpy3eVct-Qo

This is how its done. Get yourselves ready...

Wayne, Nice Win at Standish, I finally got to see some video from Standish.
Yes, this is how it is done .... Playing with HOT is always a good time :)
And no one has shown a CdF Auton ...... yet.

[Richard Wallace]

And no one has shown a CdF Auton ...... yet.Watch us at St. Joe. Unless someone breaks the thing before we get a chance. ;)

We were ready at Kettering Scrimmage, but there was no CdF to be found.

[cca5448]

We have a CdF auton, but our design doesn't lend itself to this very well, so we opted to use other auton modes instead. It would be sweet to use this auton though. Our favorites are ramparts+high goal, moat+high goal, rock wall+high goal, and rough terrain+high goal, all of which are working now.