What we learned from week 1
 

We certainly learned a lot up here in NH, but what did others learn across the country? Here's what I learned...
1) A robot with an intake for frisbees on the ground is going to do well as there are frisbees all over the field to pick up.
2) Most teams can either shoot well and hang for 10 points or just play defense and hang for 30.
3) A triple hang for 30 points each would be the coolest thing in FIRST history.
4) There is a major lack of variety in shooters this year, but a wide variety of hangers
So what did you learn?

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

Watching on the web, I noticed that the majority of frisbees on the ground were right-side up.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

A robot that climbs and dumps for 50 points can be outscored a lot more easily than I anticipated.

Having more than two robots shooting in the same autonomous goal is a bad idea.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

This year really leveled the playing field for teams

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

Agreed. It's really easy to put up big points as a new team.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

There are multiple things a team can do to score a large amount of points-and things that require more than just a drivetrain(ie. balancing last year).


Automated live scoring isn't the blessing it was last year.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

Never to do week 1 again.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

1.) Scheduling gods exist when there are 65 teams at a regional.
2) Being a consistent shooter is something that's not being seen much, but a lot of teams can do it if they use their resources wisely.
3) Defense is not being played, but when it is, there is a severe impact on an alliance's offense when.
4) A 50 point dumper is not enough to offset an alliance with 2 good scorers that have 10 point hangs.

Some of the more controversial stuff:

4) Referees are NOT calling the 10 point hang properly. I have videos of this, but in our Quarterfinals match 1-2 Team 1772 was not hung up properly, but they got the points, which ended up being the deciding factor and sending our quarterfinals to a 3rd match.

5) G30 exists, referees. Referees are not calling G30, and it's been affecting outcomes of matches! Our Quarterfinals match 1-3, 1772 infracted G30 5 different times, yet it was not called once. We tied that match 70-70, but because the referees instead called us for our human player putting a foot outside of the white line, we ended up losing 70-71, despite numerous infractions of G30 by 1772.

I understand the referees can't see everything, but 5 blatant infractions of G30 shouldn't go unnoticed, and everytime a climb is suspicious, DO THE PAPER TEST!

The toughest thing I had to do this afternoon was to help keep the students calm and explain to them the situation and about us getting unlucky. Toughest thing I have had to say.

I'll post another thread about this issue with some videos to make sure that any referees on CD can be prepared.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

Simple, feeder-station only fixed angle shooters with passive hangers like 862 can be very effective.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

Did you ever send anybody to the question box?

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

We did. but before we could debate the climb and the foul points, the fms was finalized in both matches. Perhaps another lesson we learned was to speed walk to the question box as soon as the match is over.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

Did anyone else notice that the text on the event display is clear? Like, the team number, scores, and the timers are clear so that your see the feed through them?

IMO, it makes the numbers harder to read. Completely unnecessary change.

- Sunny G.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

We drove down to Palmetto to watch, and it seemed to me as though fouls were not being called nearly as often as they should have been. While I can't remember numbers, I recall one incident where a red robot repeatedly (at least 3 times) rammed into a blue robot touching it's pyramid. One minute later... 0 foul points.

The situation did seem to improve in the finals.

@Text change

I could swear I saw the regular, black numbering on the streams from other regionals. The only one I noticed that *did* have the clear numbering was Palmetto. I could be wrong however.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

I didn't really see this being a problem for any alliance in the webcasts, do you have an example of it being an issue?

What exactly happened? Seems like a bot is either off the ground or it's not.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

Pool noodles, pvc, and duck tape are among the materials that can be easily obtained and used to block full-court shooters.

Rookies with Zoology teachers as mentors can add a 10-point hanger during lunch on Saturday. Way to go, 4552!

Multiple robots can shoot autonomous into the same goal.

The carpet seams around the pyramid get torn up pretty easily.

Headgear from 1986, 3931, and 1801 can be simultaneously worn on the same head.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

I think you mean 862 ;) At least I don't remember winning Kettering.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

Seen this before. Someone screwed up the chroma key setting so the chroma key on the scoring overlay was black instead of green. So then when you're chroma keying the overlay, it keys out everything black on the screen...
Or having a simple fixed angle shooter and passive hanger for that matter.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

I was just about to edit that :)
It was such a great way to start off this season, this is the first district win in 862 history. We we're ecstatic. :D Can't wait for West Michigan!

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

1. Scoring in auton is big.
2. Not as many consistent shooters as i thought there would be.
3. Strong shooter>climber
4. There are a lot of Frisbee on the ground.
5. Penalties have been a serious factor in qualification. Specifically about contact with a robot in protected zone or while touching pyramid.
6. Hardly any effective long range shooters(at start of season a lot of people speculated on full court shooting).
7. Smart defense is the way to slow down best scorers. It was done effectively by a few teams from the webcasts that i watched.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

There are very few full court shooters (at least fewer than I was expecting)
Team Titanium is a lot better than I expected.
I didn't think they would do that well. Then they won Hub City.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

Care to elaborate on this one? Did it have an effect on gameplay/driving around the pyramid?

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

1. A consistent autonomous is a 100% must. With the high scores being put up, every single point matters to give you the lead.

2. Full Court Shooters must not be allowed to score. 610 demonstrated their ferocious ability at Granite State.

3. Long 30 point climbers are not viable. When a robot begins climbing they put themselves out for the rest of a match. Shooting a couple rounds of frisbees and then popping for a 1 second 10 point hang out scores 30 point climbers that take a minute.

4. High maneuverability and defensive tactics is king of eliminations. Defense can wreck highly offensive robots' score output but the highly maneuverable robots like 1986 can breeze past.

These are my 2 cents from watching some webcasts today. We get to put our robot to the test in week 2 to see how we stack up in this year's game.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

You and I must have been watching different Ultimate Ascents.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

A lead gained in autonomous can stay permanently through the match.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

So true. Mid-Game scoring can not be relied upon as much as it could in Rebound Rumble (meaning, I feel that defense is somehow more effective in this game). If you are going to pull ahead in a match it had better be early on in Auton, or at the end with high climbs.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

The most effective defenses I saw were mostly the cause of the offending robot. Too many times did I see teams try to push their way through a defender and waste lots of time doing that. I'm also seeing that the unprotected loading station seems to be the safest to reload frisbees.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

Fortune favors the prepared.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

Agreed.

I wondered about that too. I was right behind the judges and it sure looked like the front right wheel was down and he was checking the front left, but I wasn't the one crawling around on the floor, the ref was. One other interesting thing I noticed with 1772 was in the semis they were red, and their robot was an inch or more off the ground, but on the blue pyramid it was barely off the ground (like a paper width). So the robot could have been off the ground. Teams: allow for field variations -- they do exist.

While I agree that G30 wasn't called as much as I thought I saw, there were also a lot of close calls and I'd prefer the refs erred on the side of NOT giving the foul especially for the little ticky-tacky stuff. I also miss the replay on ties. We once lost a quarter final 0-2-3. It really screwed up the schedule; but it was like a final with the immediate match turn-around.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

Yes that is what I meant. I just edited the post.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

There were a lot of quirks specific to the Palmetto event, and this was one of them.

From my ivory tower (suspiciously similar to a college dorm room), it was pretty clear that Palmetto definitely had a lot of the rough edges that come with running a Week 1 event without the experience that FLR and BAE have. Even still, it's no picnic. The game is still in its infantile stage.

Let me be clear, holding a Week 1 event is not an enviable task, which is why even though the number of total FRC events has ballooned as of late, the Week 1 number is very hesitant to break 10.

Palmetto is historically a later event, and I assume that the event will slot back into a Week 4 slot when it goes back to Charleston(?). I think that would be good for this event.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

Regarding autonomous, is it more effective to just place in the same spot consistently and go to the correct angle, or to use vision targeting, or some combination?

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

A 7-disc autonomous is a killer this year, because it can be made much more reliable than a bridge autonomous could last year. 24 extra points right off the bat gets you a huge lead. The other alliance has to score 8 more discs than you just to catch up, and chances are your robot is also good at shooting tele-op discs if it can do a 7-disc auto.

I'd also note how huge of an impact 610's drive team had for them. They were spinning past defenders every trip, and had an awesome technique that used the defender's own pyramid to get free (they'd get them stuck up against the diagonal all the time, it was very fun to watch). First Nick Lawrence, now this driver, plus the always great driving from 1114 and 2056... I guess great drivers come from Ontario. :p

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

A 7 disc auto would give you 42 points, no? Even more emphasizing your point on the importance of gaining a lead in autonomous. Your opponent would need to score 14 frisbees in the top goal to catch up.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

I should have pointed out that I was assuming the other robot that yours "matches-up" against has a pre-loaded 3-disc autonomous, so it would be 42-18 before other robots factor in (giving you that 24 point lead). Your point is absolutely valid if the other robot scores zero.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

Any videos out of eliminations yet? I checked BA and could find nothing.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

Observation/learned - many teams still don't have reliable, or any in some instances, 10 point hangers.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

We have a low hanging piston for our shooter (our robot was designed to be low) and it ended up getting caught on part of the carpet that was torn up. It bent our rod 90 degrees without us even realizing until it came time to shoot.

Team 16 had issues catching the carpet with their robot too.. But that might have had something to do when our team collided with them in our last qualification match :yikes: (our frame got bent and they didn't seem to work the same again during eliminations).

But point being if you're a good robot you're going to take a beating this year and things with a close floor tolerance can poise an issue with the carpet. Also it'll be worthwhile to make a quick walk around your pyramid to make sure the carpet is taped down well prior to starting the match.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

Battle Bot style defense is a viable solution for some teams.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

Depends on where you do it.
HINT: Don't repeatedly do it when the team is firing away in their loading zone and you start accumulating over a hundred points in technical fouls.
Though the move 48 pulled on 1559 where they ran under the blue pyramid and shoved them all the way across the field before they could hang had to be the boldest defensive move I have ever seen. It could have backfire bigtime.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

When there are two robots shooting well into the high goal for auto (us and 2363, us and 245, etc.) The chains bounce up, leaving the back of the goal exposed. If you time it well, you'll be fine. If not, your shots will bounce out.

It also helps to have the robots shooting from different positions, not side by side.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

For us it had a huge impact. We have a ramp system from intake rollers in the front to our hopper in the back, and every tape line around the pyramid was a trouble spot for us. Also in eliminations at GSR, team 175 pulled about a foot of carpet up on the corner of a pyramid.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

Autonomous is critical. Its also fun to watch the barrage of discs going into the same goal - no need to coordinate timing to avoid mid-air collisions like last year!

Shooting from the pyramid seems a more robust strategy than from the feeder zone. You have options for feeding (floor, feeder stations at either corner) and shooting (left, right, center) and mobility (multiple paths to and from - harder to defend). Defense can slow you down, but can't shut you down. Full court shooting has only one place to go for shooting, takes time to set up, and can be blocked.

10 point hang is good.

I fear that all the time and effort we put into a climber may have been for naught. Even if it works, it takes a lot of time and adds a lot of risk for a modest net gain.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

From my vantage point (read bedroom), I noticed quite a lot at BAE

Climbers: 30 pointers are not greatly viable. Instantly turns the match into a 2v3, where you start with a 30 point lead (you hope). 10 point is stronger because you can work with frisbees or play defense, and get 30 additional points if everyone hangs.

Shooters: Long range is strong if you're good. Tower is strong if you do it well.

Defense: From what little I saw on Saturday, the "defense" was ramming into other robots at midfield. Defending long rangers with tall robots is ideal.

Hanging: Seems like a couple got away with ground touches, and I even saw one or two that looked to me like it was touching 3 zones while climbing.

Penalties: with the lack of audio on the BAE stream, I couldn't exactly keep strong track of penalties, but when I saw something, it was accounted for (by and large).

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

1519 has uploaded videos of 8 of the 9 quarter-finals at the Granite State Regional. Here's the playlist... http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLJ8AkRj4AlXS0TSTsI5BrWEbRxhDpuK3&f eature=view_all... I believe we have more yet to upload.

I'm sure more videos from this and other regionals will also appear soon...

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

I learned a lot this weekend and all of it just makes me sick to my stomach. Looks like this year will be a very good year for lessons learned for our team bible.

1) The GDC did an awesome job this year building a trap. Let's call the game Ultimate Ascent and introduce this awesome pyramid and impossible top target and then it turns out to be a waste of a season to defeat the obstacle. We and only a few others conquered the very difficult only to watch EVERYONE (hyperbole!) outscore our top end.

We have this awesome climber and dumper and I am seriously thinking about scrapping the whole thing and bolting a quick 3 day robot shooter, human fed device and quick ram the bar 10 pointer to the robot at our one and only regional.

2) Autonomous and frisbee throwing is perhaps the easiest I have ever seen it when it comes to scoring pieces. This is a year that experience actually worked against us. There has never been a scoring game with such consistent pieces, so one lesson learned is always build a game piece scorer immediately before even trying to determine your strategy.


Congratulations all teams of FRC for bringing some good scoring to the game and I guess it will only get better from here for you frisbee throwers.

I could go on but I am just gonna try and reconcile what I saw this weekend with how we saw the games going and determine what we are gonna do. Honestly we are so tired after such an exhausting build season, that I suspect we will just "run what we brung" and we will be the cool looking climber that does contribute consistently. I know that will earn us a spot on an alliance, but it really is disappointing to take the road less traveled and find everyone else at the destination when you get there.

The journey this year will hopefully be worth it since we will definitely have a lot of lessons learned. This year the students and I get to deal with conquering the impossible and that awesome feeling, and then we get to learn how to deal with disappointment when everyone and their mother outscores with "easier" robots.


(PS. I am not trivializing the "easier" robots before you get all in a hissy, I know all those were built in the same 6 week vacuum we were. But shooters have been done for years and there was a 3 day robot, so frisbee throwers were easier to get a base scorer.) :-)

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

What we learned. To play well you need to to have a great scouting crew. If you go into a match with a good plan you can beat some great robots.

1) shooters vs climbers. You need both. If your climber can stop the other team great shooter then come back and score 30 to 50 pts that will win 90% of the matches. You need great auto shooters. You can not give up the bonuse points to the other team and expect to win.

2) a great driver can insure great results. If you have a great robot and can't drive, then what good is it.

3)Why we did so well in the finals was because of great scouting. Our students knew what teams would work well with our robot. They picked teams that where not on the top seeding. But had watch team 175 and 172 get better and better as the seeding matches went along. 172 at the end was hitting all 3 disc in auto mode then kept shooting and holding their own against the best. 175 was the same way they starting to hit all of their disc in the auto mode. That 36 points to start the match off was great. I would watch out for team 175 at the CT. Regional by then they will have a fine turn robot that will be at the top of the seeding rounds.

4) do not waste or damage your robot when you know your score is high enough to win the match. I saw a lot of plans to play defense against robots that could not score much points. Know what you can score and know what the other team can put up and play to that. We saved our robot from any damage using this plan.

5) For all you 30 pts climbers make sure you have some tall kids to be able to take your robot off the top. This is a back breaker.

6) it was easy to put your robot in place to have the other team incur penaltys. This was a defense position.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

Watching the Palmetto webcast, many teams got stuck at the feeder stations by not taking the time to line up right and unfortunately ended up with a bunch of frisbees blocking their way to the wall.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

It only happened to this degree a couple of time in Lubbock, but there were many times that the field reset folks were out there with tape on smaller repairs.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

What great addition out team added to our robot that has been so useful is a supershifter. We could push anyone who got in out way and we could switch to high gear and outmaneuver any one as well as get anywhere fast.

I agree that scouting is extremely important. For our alliance we got a 5 disc auto scorer with a full court shooter at the 3 pt who also had a 10 pt climb. The to of us were the top 2 seeds. The question was who else to get. We also got a second full court shooter which was too tall to be blocked against. They could also block opponents with their height.
Our alliance didn't lose a single match and outscored most of our opponents

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

That seems like a field fault big enough to warrant a "foghorn" reset. I assume that wasn't the case?

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

Some of us on 2789 are still in awe/laughing about how crazy the idea was, how fast it was put up and taken down, and that it worked, lol

Needless to say, we learned A LOT from Bomb Squad at this regional!

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

With all due respect, there is no such thing in this game. If you're going to be a full-court shooter you're maxing at 60"; defenders can be 84". 84" > 60", and there's no way you're going to be shooting steeply enough to get over them *if* they're in the right place. Now, you may not have had anyone that set anything up to be able to block you, but I guarantee it could have been done.

Having said that, congratulations on your win. Looks like you guys put up some great scores.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

No. There were two of these that I saw; both were actually put back in place (mostly) by a robot running over them in the right direction.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

With all due respect, you're thinking inside the box. There are teams that may be able to get over 84" defenders by using other methods than the typical shooter.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

Defense is every bit as big as I expected it to be!

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

That is the single best camera angle that I've ever seen for an FRC video. It's better than the live camera operators at worlds... you can see EVERYTHING. It's just like being there, but with the added benefit of being able to rewind and rewatch parts that you missed.

Whoever mounted that camera... well done!

Oh, yeah... the robots did a pretty good job, too... but did I see human players throwing frisbees at the end of the match? I thought that got outlawed. :confused:

<goes off to re-read the rules and updates>

Jason

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

Unfortunately Jaxom, ill have to agree with Eric H. If you have the time to see, a way to beat the 84 inch tall blocker robots is to do exactly what 326 did, the super blah blah blah eagles. They have a rectangular robot with the shooter being parallel with the longer side. It is also near the back of their robot. This allows them to have the end height of their robot to be much higher than the standard shooter. This also makes it harder to block them because of the way their robot is built that you have to stay farther away from them to not incur penalties for touching them in their zone.

They were at Kettering, and while i don't think it turned out as well as they had wished is had for them, their robot is much more difficult to block them let's say 910 which is Foley Freeze.

I just wanted to input what i had seen at the Kettering District in accordance to what you said.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

The GDC is not responsible for your team's analysis of the game.

Jason

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

I disagree!
Please continue to think that that defense is effective, we want the high score back!

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

Only if 4023 agrees to keep hitting you in the loading zone again and again.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

That's me....I rarely see outside of the box. Do you have an example of something that keeps high accuracy combined with the appropriate geometry? Edit: I just realized that I didn't specify I've been talking about "park and shoot" full-courters. Forcing them to move & reaim won't STOP them from scoring but it will slow them down enough to make them no more effective than a fast under-the-pyramid shooter. Anyone that builds an automated track/aim/fire bot that can score while moving isn't easily blockable. It's also beyond the capabilities of all but a handful of teams. And it will be very exciting to watch the bot that proves me wrong.

I looked at the quarterfinals, and see what you mean. However...their shooter is still exiting at what, about 50"-55"? I couldn't tell for sure, but that's what it looked like their lineup for autonomous put them at when comparing to the 2nd pyramid bar. And since it's still towards the middle of the bot, I don't see how it's that much further back from more "typical" shooters. So for those of you that have seen 326 in person....how would they have done against this contraption we put on our first-match alliance partner 4102 on Friday, to block 2468? I'm asking, not arguing; like I said, I'm pretty much an in-the-box guy.

As an aside -- it looked like 326 has a big open groove in the middle. Is that intended for climbing? That's too bad they fell over in Q1; rotten way to lose.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

I think you're underestimating what a 50 point climber (climb + dump) can accomplish with a team who is a top notch shooter.

Yes these climbers and dumpers can be beaten with two solid shooters, but it all depends on the full alliance.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

[quote=dtengineering;1242790]That is the single best camera angle that I've ever seen for an FRC video. It's better than the live camera operators at worlds... you can see EVERYTHING. It's just like being there, but with the added benefit of being able to rewind and rewatch parts that you missed.

Whoever mounted that camera... well done

FRC 2337 uses a GoPro camera mounted next to the scorpion box on an umbrella pole. Clint Bolinger start doing this last year during the off season as a test bed. Nice work Clint as usual.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

I'd rather have two good shooters than a climber and a shooter. Climbers often lack autonomous and top out at around 50 points. That's easily outscored by a robot that does autonomous and hangs for 10. It only requires two loads of discs, a number that's easily achievable.

Also, climbers (from what I've seen) tend to be less reliable.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

Sorry, but the smiley face at the end of your post doesn't make it any less offensive to all the teams that worked their butt off (same as you) to build their effective frisbee shooters and 10 point climbers.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

WAY too much time was wasted lining up, even for some members of winning alliances. This might change in later weeks, but the teams that carried victory were the once that took no time to line up, and simply drove into the pyramid to line up for shooting, or into the alliance wall for loading.

Few teams can floor load well. 'HOT arms' dominated this weekend. Also, floor loading isn't necessary for victory (but it can speed up cycle times considerably.)

There is no excuse for not 10 point hanging. Not hanging lost many teams many matches this weekend.

Crazy high penalty points can all be avoided by smarter maneuverability. Avoid the enemy pyramid at all cost, either by ducking under it, or hugging the side of the wall. EDIT: And not defending a robot when they clearly can't or shouldn't be defended (loading zone!)

Most Linear shooters are capable of full court scoring. Be prepared to defend it even if you haven't seen it from a robot earlier in the tournament. While short robots are nice for avoiding penalties, there should never be an alliance of three short robots. Edit: If there is, tape something tall to one of them ;)

Most importantly: Never leave a robot off your pick list because they are 'too good'. Sometimes even the best of robots can slip past the scouts of earlier seeds, and even be available as third robots. Edit: I'm talking about you; 910!

EDIT: A top heavy robot is a fallen over robot. I won't feel bad for you when your robot falls over if you designed it to fall over, no offense intended.

Also the impact of 'Robot in 3 Days' is very clear even at week one. A huge thanks to the guys who thought of it/put in the effort to actually do it! You're changing the face of FIRST, and making every match that much more exciting.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

Especially if there's a "nuclear reactor" in your alliance partner's drivetrain. I did so enjoy 48's alliance with 1126 and 145. :)

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

I think we all learned from team 48 that if you're going to climb, you can't waste any time doing it.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

Having run with both 48 and 1126 when I coached 1038, I really enjoyed watching them compete and I have a link to 145, too. FLR elimination rounds were great fun. You guys showed us the tremendous value of defense in this game. Many thanks.

Look forward to seeing 48 at QCR and Crossroads later this season. All the best to 48, 1126 and 145. Not taking anything away from the Champions; it was a great finals.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

http://youtu.be/C8Ftc_M-n6I?t=29s That was not a joke.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

We proved that with two good shooter and a good climber you will do well. We knock off the 2nd rank team and the 3rd rank team to make it to the finals. Those last 30 to 50 points are very valuable. If everyone on your team can score 50 points that would be 150 points.

So every robot has it place. We made a climber but do not tell others because they made a shooter it was easier to do. I thought it was easy to build a climber.


Side note we did well do to our new PTO our students built this year. we only used 4 CIMs motors. Two on each PTO. When we switched over to climb we used all four CIMs. Plenty of power to climb fast. Our fastest time to the top was 25 seconds.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

1. A lot of teams are using mechanum.
2. Not climbing can hurt you (already said by NotaJoke).
3. It's going to be hard to focus a camera through the netting, and not being able to get close to the field to take pictures will prove to be difficult.
4. Our center of gravity + the speed of our drivetrain = a lot of wheelies.
5. Watch out for flying frisbees.
6. Robots WILL get stuck in the pyramid (it took volunteers almost 5 minutes to get a robot down once).
7. Big sheets of lexan make for great noisemakers in the stands.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

I agree those 30 to 50 points are valuable, but a captain and first pick shooter can each beat 50 points and a second pick shooter can beat 30 points.

Our alliance in Palmetto hit 166 points without a single climb above 10 points.


What I'm getting at is, climbing alone puts a very beatable ceiling on your score.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

Amen to that. 1126's suddenly improved drivetrain was quite the shocker, and so very, very well played. (Pardon me while I sob uncontrollably for a few minutes).

I do have to say, though, that 48's driver needs an award for the ballsiest defense I've ever seen in an FRC match ever--totally epic driving, that was!

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

Agreed, my post was more to tell them that the right alliance can still utilize a climbing dumper very effectively. It is by no means a locked win like some teams thought it would be.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

It is too early to tell what effect pure climber/dumpers will have on the game. I will say that if you are a pure climber/dumper you will be hoping to be picked as a 2nd rounder if you are not in the top 12 after quals.

Doesn't mean robots like this are bad robots just means that discs are easy to score and robot in 3 days showed everybody how easy it was 2 days into build season.

I will also say that climbing higher than 10 will be important come later weeks when discs are all gone/scored with 40 seconds left in the match. Teams that can score and climb for 30 fast will be the ones who sway the match.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

Yeah. I'm comfortable predicting scores that amount to just about every disk plus climbing points come Championships.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

Only if no one plays any defense. Not expecting that, even at Championships.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

I didn't mean for every game... :ahh:

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

From another post that I made:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gfzkxt3qdz8
Team 1519 Mechanical Mayhem. A Full court shooter

This strategy, combined with a floor pickup robot as they were in the Eliminations teamed with Team 885, The GREEN Team, may be a harbinger of what the eliminations at The Championship Event will look like.

It eliminates midfield traffic, both scorers are protected, and it leaves one robot to play defense.

While one team is climbing, another is scoring.
Similar to 2004, First Frenzy.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

This is the kind of game where you can realistically have 3 scorers no matter what method of scoring they use. You have 3 feeder stations, wide open goals, and a huge pyramid to climb on (except the inside can only really fit one robot). Championships is the kind of event where every robot has something they can do well, and nobody wants to play defense during qualifications, they want to show off how much they can score (whether or not that's a good idea is another discussion).

Just look at GSR this week. Everyone knew that 610 was by far the top shooter there, but they were hardly ever slowed down on their across the field. Pretty much the same with 1986 at Hub City. It changes in eliminations, but defense hardly ever happens during qualifications.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

Just from watching the FRC Spyders push notifications, a #8 Seed Alliance can take down #1 in the Palmetto Regional.

And an odd side note, in the Virginia FTC states, both divisions were won by the #3 Alliance. And the irony is the #3 Seeded Alliance won at Palmetto.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

#3 won FLR.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

I think that the 30 point climb will become more of a factor. However it is going to have to be a quick climb. (30 seconds or less) Full court shooters are going to be deadly during the quals, once the elims come around, they will be slowed down the short ones are easy to block, the tall ones only take someone that can extend to 84 inches. We found that once you disrupted a couple of their shots, they abandoned their post.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

Here is a useful tactic:
Human players can stack four frisbees on top of their slots in preparation to load their Robot.

You can see 610 doing it in this video at (0:50) & (1:20)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YMPCUb2gCc

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

Human players need to be careful not to step outside of the alliance station in their frisbee throwing frenzy.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

And the one match that 610 lost at GSR was the one where the best defense was played on them (By far). There was a lack of defense in them in parts of qualifications and even in eliminations, and their scores reflected that.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

What about robots with a 30-point climb and effective shooter? Any prime examples of that, or is that a rare occurrence in this year's game?

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

Did anybody else see 610 hit 2342 with a frisbee at 0:36?

That was hilarious

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

We(1559) got comfortable because we had almost zero attempts to block our climbing. Going forward, we'll just raise our climbing hook as soon as we get under the pyramid and then we can't be pushed out again.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

THey changed the rule that only COLORED discs may be thrown at the end. THere were human players making it into goals with their throws. :D None in the top of the pyramid I dont remember. Did anyone see any shots in the pyramid?

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

I hope the lesson is to properly evaluate all the scoring options.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

We had 2 or 3 in Hub City. Human players might have been scoring 1 of 20-25 into either the 2- or 3-point goals in the matches I saw.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

I believe 2848 was the first team at Hub City to shoot a frisbee in the pyramid goal and 4063 did it a match or 2 later. Also, one of the team from Mexico had a human player make one in the pyramid.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

Our shooter was also jammed for auton and the first half of that match. That's why we weren't running cycles.

4124 also had a great method of loading 4 discs quickly, they held 4 at once in a stack and quickly pushed the bottom one into the slot. It's hard to explain, I'll try and find some video of it later.

But running cycles is all about efficiency, how quickly you get back and setup to load, how quick your human player is at feeding, and being very quick to get aligned and get your shots off. I think in one match our great drive team was able to run 7 cycles with a 10 point hang.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

Any other teams human players have problems with the colored covers of the feeder slots falling off? Happened a few times at kettering.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

3003 did it from the floor with their robot on many occasions at FLR.

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

Make sure you get re-inspected after you make modifications...

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

Something I just learned 5 minutes ago from the Central Valley webcast: Teams who make a major change to their robot(like adding a tall screen for blocking shots during eliminations) must be reinspected before their next match. The whole alliance of 973, 1323 and 4135 were just DQ'd from semifinal 2-1, which they had won. Let this be a lesson to all alliance captains suggesting an alliance member should make a similar change.

EDIT: Ike beat me to it

Re: What we learned from week 1
 

This rule has always been in effect for any change, major or minor, at any time in the event. Nothing new.