What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

Alright its the Saturday night after the week 2 competitions and I know that all of the teams that competed are super tired right now, but what did we learn from week 2 in comparison with week 1?

Cool things that I saw;
1. An Alliance L1, L2 and L3 hang all at the same time
2. Consistent full court shooters
3. L3 hangin' and lots of it!

So what did we see in week 2 and what do we expect to see in the weeks to come?

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

Upsets. Lots of upsets. I saw a six, seven, and eight seeds win this week, and numerous 1 seeds fell early.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

Autonomous, autonomous, autonomous. 125/4451/233 had it in Finals 1, and they won that match. Something got messed up in there, because their Finals 2 shots weren't nearly as on target and prevented them from sealing the deal.

(On the bright side, 2/3rds of that alliance was already in Championship; 4451 as Palmetto-and-now-Orlando Rookie All-Star, 233 as part of the Einstein 12.)

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

That a 118/148, 987/254, 610/1986 and 2056/1114 Eisenstein field would be epic.

I also saw alliance strategy play huge in the elimination rounds. The pick play that 233 did for 4451 was something that teams should look at going forward. Technical Fouls were not called as much as week 1 I believe. Alliance selection is very important this year as many lower seeds can pick their way into a championship unlike years previous. A 4 top goal run and 30 point climb can be accomplished in under 30 seconds(1114 :eek: ). Floor pickup in auton. is better than having a semi-reliable full court shooter in most matches. Being able to go under the opponents pyramid in teleop is a key advantage at being able to outmaneuver great defensive play. A middle goal auton can be used very effectively. If your team doesn't scout this year then you will more than likely lose, even if you have the best robot at the regional(not that that's anything new but this year it is even more important).

Hold on, its only week 2! There are still a few bots that we havent seen yet (71 and 111 come to mind)

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

I'm not disputing that by champs a 118/148 alliance would be awesome, but I'd like to point out that in both of the finals matches in Lone Star, they were playing against an alliance that was a bot down.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

Yes it would have been great to watch if spectrum and the discobots hadn't broke down in the finals. 3847 played great full court defense on 148 and 57 and 2587 could keep up in shooting points with 118/148 very well. I was hoping that 148 would do their apparent 30 point climb and dump, but that didn't occur. Lone star probably would have went to a third final match had both alliances been running full throttle.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

We learned that a group of three robots all under the top 8 seeds can take down the two top seeded offensive powerhouses at a regional if they have some really good teamwork, strategy, and luck.
Sadly, we were on the receiving end of that equation. :(
We also learned that having a defensive bot to accompany those two offensive juggernauts is key in winning matches against feeder station bots.

Lastly, a great feeder station bot, ground pickup bot, and a defensive shooter/climber/hanger seems right now to be an ideal alliance makeup (i.e. 1114-2056)

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

I learned the same thing I did last week all over again, autonomous points win matches

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

We learned that scouting can be and is very important. Period. (Still trying to figure out how the #7 seed alliance of 231, 192 and 1429 happened at Lone Star :confused: )

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

This reminds me of our surprise that we were last pick in NYC even though our team had the highest auton points in regional. It was interesting and I do agree with the fact that scouting needs to be done more effectively this year than previously.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

I'm wondering too. I'm assuming poor scouting by 4328 and others. 4328 in particular had the chance to pick 1429 or 192 to pair up with their own shooting abilities, but picked 1801 instead, which is primarily a (good) defensive bot. The whole Lone Star regional confused me, honestly. 57 was literally a single missed disc away from going undefeated in quals, seeding 1st, and totally screwing up all the alliance pairing strategies.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

The teams that win in Weeks 3 forward are the teams that watched glaring scouting mistakes being made at Week 1 and 2 events. At first you can discount the notion, saying teams may have a secret strategy, but then you see 7 and 8 seed upsets that aren't actually upsets...

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

Every match in Championships is going to be a really close call. After qualifications in San Diego, most match points deviated from one another only by 20 points.

Oh, and a Regional can be decided by pool noodles.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

What do you mean?

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

From a full court shooter which got stopped by them, a modification at lunch turns a small defense bot into a tall defense bot to stop a low full court shooter(me). Then into an 84" tall robot to stop a taller full court shooter. That's all it takes, given that the full court shooter is alone.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

He means that bumpers ruining a hang can change the outcome of a match.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

Full court shooters are vulnerable to defense (see 1138 and 2339 at SD) and the double defense strategy beats teams with no ground pickup.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

1. Like a broken record... Autonomous, autonomous, autonomous, autonomous.

2. By week 4-6, every full court shooter is going to be ineffective. It is too easy to block them. One trick pony.

3. Refs are not aware of the absence of a starting configuration height rule. Our match start was delayed because we attached tall plastic straws to our 2nd alliance partner. The head ref argued with us for a good 5 minutes before someone would do a rule check. If you plan on attaching pool noodles last second, be ready to explain why it is legal.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

We learned that no matter the outcome when you don't give up you will always win.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

That the FIRST community will always step up in times of need (Robodawgs trailer getting stolen, along with 1592 and 801 robots being tore up in a accident).

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

Didn't learn much that I didn't already see in Week 1. In no particular order:

Climbing for 30 is not a ticket to victory.

Full court shooting is like fender shooting in 2012 - its great until a defender comes along. To be effective, you need to set up quick, be accurate, and be prepared to leave and shoot from the pyramid when needed.

Variable elevation shooters are the biggest cause of missed shots/reduced cycles for so many teams. First, because teams just miss. Second, because it slows the whole cycle down (position robot, adjust shooter, shoot, adjust, shoot, adjust, shoot, shoot).

Time at the feeder station is just as import as time spent anywhere else. Practice lining up, practice feeding discs. Practice, practice, practice.

Floor pickup is a good thing, even if you don't use it all the time. Every alliance should have one.

Reduce cycle time.

Autonomous.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

This was a huge variable for a lot of teams. Time at the feeder station often exceeded the time to run down the field, set up, and shoot for many teams.

With median OPR last week being at 13, every cycle at the feeder station and making the shots is worth about 1x the median OPR. Thus, every extra cycle puts you way above the rest of the competition.
************************************
I saw a handful of teams this weekend capable of putting up 70+ points per match, but a consistent 50+ seemed to get you ranked higher than a 30-70 range machine.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

Many of the best of the best still can't climb to the top. Perhaps they won't ever need to.

Curses can be broken (GO 1718!) Maybe this is the year of broken curses ;)

Even the best teams have off tournaments. Don't count them out of the next one because of it, though!

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

All cameras from teams can be turned off if FTA thinks cameras cause field issues. Even teams with vision tracking had to turn their cameras off at NYC.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

That's really distressing. It's akin to telling teams halfway through a regional that CAN is now illegal. Or using PID control or something. The affected teams need to raise a fuss about that so it gets addressed by FIRST HQ.
You mean manually adjusted variable angle shooters. Speaking as a variable angle shooter that was pretty darned accurate shooting from the back or the front of the pyramid.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

Don't count out those full court shooters just yet. Yesterday at Waterford we saw one alliance with two short full court shooters, both very good teams. Had they both been dialed in, good luck defending both of them. There was also an alliance with a tall full court shooter, when they were protected by their partner, there was not way of stopping them. The lack of protection allowed for a very powerful alliance to pull out the win.

Watch out for 1718

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

Weather can't stop some people(We had bunch of snow at WPI, some teams were late or couldn't make it... :( ... )
Underdogs can win, and the actual rankings don't always work like you would want them to.. With half of hour matches we were one of two robots on the field and ended up in 30th, yet we had one of the top robots for autonomus.
Luck and a prayer can do very well in competition.
Defense is really helpfull, and robots need strategys for going around defense.
Spirit is amazing for your drive team or you team in general.
Some climbing isn't counted from simple things like a zip tie, or your robot goes slowly down.
Your human players can do alot with throwing the colored discs at the end..
Scouting helps a lot!! As well as cordinating with the other teams on your alliance

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

This was a disappointing show in my mind I personally thought it was more of a trolling device. I called them RTD (Royal Trolling Devices) because they were created to shut down 2169 King Tec the first match one of these RTD's were found shutting them down the crowd cheered for every blocked shot. I dont know why it just seems ungracious to me, but at the same time you are helping your alliance so it is kind of hard to say how FIRST worthy these duct tape contraptions are.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

2169 should have been expecting this. This isn't an engineering fair and demonstration, it's FRC. Defense is part of the game. You can't expect a good FRC team to just sit there and get clobbered by a full-court shooter; they're going to engineer a solution to the problem. As long as those teams weren't breaking any rules, I don't see how their actions are possibly ungracious.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

^ This

Stay and play full-court shooting can easily be taken down, but if you have a robot that can set up quickly, fire of a few accurate shots, and get the heck out of there and pyramid shoot when under defense, then go back to full-court when there's no defense, you've got yourself a strategically successful machine that can't be stopped.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

At the same time, don't count the full court shooter out just because there's a pool noodle in the way. A team at Waterford had their blocking mechanism broken by flying frisbees.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

All alliance have a chance. Great finals in WPI

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

Do you have a video? For what not to do for a "net".

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

Defense can shut teams down, and is only going to get more rough.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

This may be the year of the drivetrain. teams with powerful drivetrains that can both push bots around and zip across the field will be able to avoid most defense or win most pushing matches.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

pool noodles can stop a full court shooter.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

Or even if you are "stopped", you have succeeded in tying up one opponent defense-bot for the entire match, leaving your other scoring bot wide open or forcing your opponent to devote two bots to defense. The problem with most full-court shooters is that it takes so long to get them dialed in and they still miss so many shots. You can afford to just leave them alone for a while.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

2845 "The Warlords" were very accurate in San Diego. It took a little time to get set up but in some matches I saw them on target with their very first shot. Some bounce out too simply due to the power behind the shots. They forced us to devote a defender to blocking them.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

Can someone provide more information on this situation (or direct me to it if it's already been posted)?

Was there something specific about the New York venue that contributed to this issue?

Is there a chance teams will show up at another regional this year or Champs and not be allowed to run a camera?

Seems unprecedented that such a well supported sensor for FIRST would suddenly be disallowed carte blanche.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

In Oregon it was apparent that full-court shooters really complemented strong pyramid shooters because they require 2 defensive robots to really hinder their scoring. 955 was one of the best pyramid shooters at the regional, and when they teamed up with 2471 (who was making loads of full-court shots), the opposing alliances would've needed 1 robot just to block the full-court, and another to do anything about the pyramid shooter.

It's similar to how people have talked about dedicated 30-point climbers as making matches 3-on-2. Strategies like 30-point climbing and full-court shooting really change the complexion of the match.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

I think after playing our first competion in week 2 but scouting week one that being flexible and relatively good at scoring from alternate positions will be important. Full court shooting when even 50% accurate cannot be left unchallenged unless there are no other effective shooters on the alliance of the full court team and two good shooters on the other alliance but the full court team can be shut down fairly easy with a defender with an 84 inch appendange. this ties up a robot to block but is preferable to unanswerewd points for the other alliance. if the full court shooter is effective at other positins it will keep the other allianc e guessing and be that much harder to defend.

We are not a full court shooter bur our experince was you have to keep the other alliance guessing. In early matches we went to midcourt and sucked up the extra discs in that area with our floor pick up. When that was defended more we went into the opposite side to get the discs there and used our speed to quickly get back to our position under the pyramid to shoot and go look for other discs and so on.

When a partner was shooting from our normal position we would shoot from outside the pyramid or work in beside them if there was room to shoot but do whatever you are doing fast and keep the other alliance guessing.

We have a pretty strong drive train so sometimes we would block a opponent from their feed station on our way to collect discs. It slowed us down but it also aggrevated the other team and put them off their strategy.

Adapt and over come.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

That you can have a mecanum drive that is super fast and pushy i.e. 2052 knightkrawler at lake superior.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

I was at GTRE and arrived at my hotel around the time the RoboDawgs trailer was stolen. I felt horrible. Then I went to setup at the venue, and the FIRST Robotics Canada people were already thinking of ways to get them things - parts from IFI Canada, shirts from the regional t-shirt sale (since their suitcases were in the stolen trailer), laptops... It was an amazing thing to see everyone coming together.

I read on twitter than when 801 made it to the field the whole venue stood up and cheered for them, and I nearly cried with joy.

The FIRST community can truly be a beautiful thing.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

Aim high!

We planned to score 62 points every match. 12 in autonomous, 30 hang, 20 dump on top.

We never actually achieved this goal.

But we aimed high and stuck it out, doing what we could each match and ended up placing 7th in the competitive Orlando regional, and competed for the 4th alliance in eliminations.

We learned a lot and sure are ready for the South Florida Regional!

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

Right, and they did adapt to it. Our finals alliance had 3061 on counter - defense, and we managed to keep several 84 inch robots from interfering with King Tec's shooting.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

What happened was NYC was having extreme communication issues all throughout Thursday, and FTA pegged it as many teams not having the updated of the driver station that was recommended, not mandatory. So late Thursday they had an inspector go around and just make sure everyone then had that update installed before they were allowed to go on for qualifications. They did that.

Then on Friday, the field seemed alright. Here and there were some communication issues which they quickly solved. Great job FTA.

Then once Eliminations came on Saturday afternoon, for the first qualification match everything was buggy. Throughout the match both the red and blue alliance kept gaining and losing comm unexpectedly. That match had to get replayed. After the replay FTA went to the 24 teams participating in eliminations and turned off everyone's cameras and their dashboards. Leaving many teams who've had been practicing for almost 3 days straight now with their cameras and dashboards, now without them in eliminations. I know from the alliance my team was in - 1635 was unable to shoot without their camera, and 375 could shoot from the pyramid, but was unable to accomplish their full court shots without the camera. I also have a friend from 3419, which won an award on Friday night for their vision tracking program, now unable to use it at all in their elimination matches. I'm sure these weren't the only teams effected in eliminations, as I've seen some other NYC competitors on here upset with that change.

All FTA told us was that some team with a camera was using too much bandwith, but they could not peg exactly which team it was and they decided to just shut down the cameras and dashboards for all participating teams. I understand FTA for coming to this, since during one match in eliminations we had a 30 minute delay due to field issues, but I feel if the cameras were still allowed - it would've changed the outcome of NYC because many many of those robots out on the field had cameras that helped them greatly.

I hope this doesn't effect any other regionals or Champs at all.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

In the second finals match, 2826 was firing full court shots faster than 2169 could. We managed to block 10 of their shots with our disk hopper - it was never intended for this and there was a risk of damage to it, but you do what you need to when necessary.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

1138 Eagle Engineering(also one the 254/987 alliance) had pool noodles on their robot for blocking and blocked team 2485, the Warlords, from using their awesome full court 3 point shooter, which is one of the reason that the Warlords lost

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

Yeah, that was awesomely done - you saved us the match.
I think that this is a harbringer of a very successful alliance pattern at world-
a full court shooter, a blocker/collector/pyramid shooter, and a counter- blocker.
For the most success, all robots should have 18 point autos, and the blocker/collector should probably have a 5-disc (though I don't think anyone had one of those at northern lights). All robots should also be able to score if thier role is not needed (for example, running out of frisbees wasnt a massive problem for us, so you guys could run feeder-station cycles shooting from close in instead of collecting and putting those in. Or, like how against the rookie alliance (rock solid and that group), when there was no 84 inch blocker, 3061 was able to score points.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

This statement concerns me. One of the outcomes of the Einstein investigation was to impose bandwidth limits on every team to prevent the system from overloading and cutting off comms to other teams. My understanding is that if a team was using too much bandwidth (from camera or otherwise), they are the only team affected. It sounds like entire alliances were having issues from one team using a camera and possibly using more than their allotted bandwidth. Was this the case? If so, it indicates to me that the bandwidth limits were not working as designed.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

I Find That Very True And The Strategy We Went For During Our Match up in Our Regionals

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

Yes, one team was affecting everyone on the field with more than their allotted bandwidth.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

I don't know what happened with the cameras at NYC, but we had similar issues at Horsham last week. The FTA advised several teams (including us) to play without our dashboard, explaining that it was our choice but we were likely to experience continued lag (lost packets) if we did not. We turned it off for the match and later down-res'd, lowered FPS and fixed our code--afterwards we and our alliance partners experienced no problems, even with us running vision processing and an second camera and others running 1-2 of their own.

However, this does, to my untrained brain, contradict another FTA statement from Horsham: that when we and another team turned off our dashboard for the match in question, everyone's trip times got better. At least, I that's what I thought he said. It seems counter though, so unless someone else has knowledge of a similar situation, I'll assume I misinterpreted him.* Nonetheless, they did not start the match until after this discussion, and it took quite some time to determine it. (They also found another router that needed to be turned off before this dashboard investigation began. Both elements took some time, not that I fault anyone at all for it.)

*EDIT: I guess so then. Is it possible that the bandwidth limits only identify the team that is exceeding them, rather than stopping them all together? Then again, I don't know why we would have had the choice to leave ours on if it was affecting others (and we certainly wouldn't have had we known, not that we didn't anyway). And apparently NYC didn't know who was causing it. Ok, so scratch that idea.

What I learned from Week (1-)2: apparently there's still more education needed to sort out FMS bandwidth issues.


In other news - I learned to make sure I remind drive teams to look for discs fallen and stuck on your robot (count towards your 4), and also that G30 only applies when you contact your loading zone carpet--not when you break the plane. I also learned that pyramids come apart up to 1/4" in normal match play, and that you absolutely, positively have to wait for the green lights before entering the field. Oh, and that if no one warns them, the lighting crews may want to do some really crazy (cool) light tricks on the vision targets, in autonomous, in the finals. :yikes:

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

I learned that, no matter how many times they win a regional, the thoughts of "maybe they won't win this year" won't come true for 2056.

15 regionals attended since their creation. 15 wins in that span.

You guys are so amazing to follow year after year.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

As far as scores go, this sums up what I've learned. Basically, what I found most suprising is having an amazingly high pyramid score of 60 points, which less than 0.3% of alliances achieved, and no disc points makes your alliance only slightly above average. It will be interesting to see how powerhouse climbers and shooters rank against each other later in the season.

Also, we've collectively hit 10,000 foul points already.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

Wow, that's a very nice chart.

I'm not seeing how to read this directly - what are, say, 50th, 75th, and 90th percentiles in terms of overall scores?

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

Thanks.

The 75th and 90th percentiles are 70 points and 95 points, which are written on the right. I didn't include the median, but it was 46 points.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

Oh okay, thanks.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

Very interesting chart.

The highest scored was actually 211, not 204, scored by the alliance of 2056, 1114, and 1325 in SF 1-2.

The score published right away was lower, but after the manual count it was updated to 211.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

You shouldn't rely on climb and dump teams, we picked one as the #1 seed at Superior and they never even climbed. A good strategy can score you lots of points even with bad robots. defense really comes to play in finals.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

I know, but FRC Spy sometimes has out of date scores in cases like that.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

Not trying to discredit your data collection or anything, its just me being nitpicky (only because I'm the one who had to count the frisbees). :rolleyes:

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

My former team learned the hard way about the importance of sticking to scouting data rather than gut feelings. The scout leads collected data throughout the tournament at Lake Superior and came up with a strong list of candidates to pick from. Certain members of the team, however, decided that they would rather pick another robot based on more showy abilities, which the data suggested were not as consistent as other potential picks. Ignoring the scouting and strategy advised by the lead scouts, they decided to pick robots which the scouts did not advise. I would love to say that it worked out for them, but that was not the case. Their #1 alliance ended up being outscored and upset by the 8th seed alliance.

The important lesson I hope was learned is to trust your teammates who put a lot of effort and research into their tasks. (Broadening this lesson), it is easy to become sure that your judgment or design is the best way for the team to proceed, but to become so attached to your design or ideas of who to select in eliminations that you ignore the research and data that is presented is a dangerous situation to find yourself in.


Disclaimer: I heard only one side of this story, and I do not mean to offend anyone or call anyone out. I just want to point out a learning experience that can be frustrating but essential. We all become attached to our ideas, and it is important to disassociate yourself from that idea to logically evaluate the situation, and to listen with an open mind to those who have researched the topic.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

This game is messing with a lot of things. This might be the first time in along time that I feel that FRC might have balanced a game in a good way(not 2009). The good teams are still good but they aren't leaps and bounds ahead of the lower seeds. Nothing is decided till the matches are played. I'm not sure if this will stay true but it seems like we'll have some good upsets at championships as well.

Scouting is amazingly important. A lot of very good teams get left out of eliminations because the alliance captains didn't have good enough data. At lone star alone I know of at least 4-5 teams that weren't playing on Saturday afternoon that should have been. This happens every year but it seems worse this year. If you're very smart you can put together a really good bottom end alliance. #7 from Lone Star (231, 192, 1429), I still can't believe those three got together after 231 declined 57, all of them were first round picks.

The elimination matches at Lone Star played more similarly to the qualification matches than I thought. I think this is because we saw more qualification defense than in years past at LSR.

There are many different ways to win in this game and I still don't know if we know which way will find success in St. Louis. At some regionals the pyramid discs were in play often (Orlando) and in others only one was scored the whole event (by a 148 human player at LSR).

Also 2056 and 1114 are really good.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

Can you please explain?

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

I do believe you're missing a digit there. :p

Our human player also scored a pyramid goal, but your point still stands.



Once again, autonomous is key. It wins matches, and costs others (us in semi-finals). It is also important that the entire alliance has some sort of autonomous shooting. Our eliminations alliance had all three robots shooting three frisbees into the three-point goal, and we had the capacity to score nearly many points in the first 15 seconds as the first seed alliance, even with 118's 7-frisbee autonomous.

Driver practice is important, as is strategically shutting down the lanes opposing robots use to feed. Picking up frisbees off the ground will only get more important from here on out, as it will save many trips across the field.

Climbing to the third level is important, but can easily be bested if it takes over 30 seconds, and there is a good shooter on the other team. 10-point climb is quick, and much less dangerous (ask 148).

Interestingly, we never went up against a full-court shooter, so we never felt the need to have a tall-defensive bot that sacrificed the ability to go through pyramids. That being said, 3847 is extremely impressive because it retains the best of both worlds. I still credit our loss in semis to their defense.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

While I'm inclined to agree, I think this is a gross generalization.

I'd take a consistent climb and dump team over an inconsistent shooter any day (e.g 4451). The key is consistency and making sure that they know that it's up to them to get their 50 points.

- Sunny g.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

For those who weren't at Lake Superior: 2220 (#1 seed) picked 2177 as their first alliance partner. 2177 was a stellar team that was able to consistently climb to the top of the pyramid and score 3-4 frisbees by the end of qualifications.

Unfortunately, the #8 seed proved a very challenging defense to overcome. 2177 couldn't get to the feeding station to load up on colored frisbees, and in my opinion spent a little too much time trying to get those frisbees (kudos for coming up with a strategy and sticking to it though).

So what I learned in week 2 is that it isn't too difficult to block the feeding station. In general, defense is playing a far larger role in this game than I thought it would. No offensive strategy is without an opposing defensive strategy.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

Yep. This is something the Canadian teams have been saying for years.

They've knocked it out of the park again. Its amazing how year in and year out the pair can build such elegant machines that play the given game with such finesse.

The 4343/1241/216 alliance was strong enough to win at many regionals, but not up against 2056/1114/1325. Their losing scores were significantly higher than the winning scores at several regionals this weekend.

1114 and 2056 have raised the bar so high for Canadian teams. Canada is overrepresented in Einstein appearances by a large margin. Something like 5% of teams at CMP are Canadian, but in the last several years, there have been at least 2 of the Einstein 12 be Canadian.

2012: 400 teams at CMP, 20 Canadians (5%), 3/12 Einstein Canadians (25%)
2011: 352 teams at CMP, 17 Canadians (4.8%), 2/12 Einstein Canadians (16.7%)
2010: 344 teams at CMP, 13 Canadians (3.8%), 2/12 Einstein Canadians (16.7%)
2009: 348 teams at CMP, 12 Canadians (3.4%), 0/12 Einstein Canadians (0%)
2008: 340 teams at CMP, 10 Canadians (2.9%), 1/12 Einstein Canadians (8.3%)

5yr avg: 4.03% of CMP teams are Canadian, 13.3% of Einstein teams are Canadian.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

These were completely negated in the elimination rounds at Waterford. It took teams less than 10 minutes to rivet 60" tall 'shields' onto their third picks. That removed an entire aspect of the game.

I expect the practice to continue and expand. Being a full-court shooter in eliminations is going to become increasingly difficult, or impossible.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

We saw the same thing in San Diego.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

I think they just have to be more than one dimensional, if they are not a second round pick.

Our biggest issue was that once we were forced out of the loading zone, we were not that effective.

BUT...a full court shooter does require almost 100% commitment of a defender, if they can line up and shoot really quickly. You know the damage that can be done if they are left alone.

Give me a robot capable of quick full court shots, accurate from the pyramid, and a 50pt hang and I'll take it.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

Wouldn't we all Adam, wouldn't we all.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

The mythical unicorn bot

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

There were no Canadian teams on Einstein in 2009. 188 came the closest as Curie finalists, but they lost to 217 + 68 + 247.

On topic, the one thing I learned at week 2 is that defenders are best equipped when they can squeeze under the pyramid (I'm looking at you, 4476). Minus, of course, the presence of a full-court shooter.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

I agree...a full court specialist will struggle, but a multidimensional full court shooter can be very successful - especially if they can line up quick a fire off a couple shots before a defender gets there.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

I can think of a 48 point strategy that is indefensible.

I'm wondering why some teams think it's easier to be a 50 point climber/dumper instead of a 48 point auton/climb. Why cross the field when you can stay protected under the pyramid the whole match (as long as team 48 isn't at your regional)?

Who knows, maybe those two extra points are worth it...

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

Only if it also had floor pickup and a 7 disc auton.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

I thought I saw 254's robot "Overkill" doing that in San Diego once, but I didn't get a chance to watch many matches....and those that I did see, are kind of a blur now.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

I can think of an indefensible 72 point strategy. ;) Don't think we'll be skipping the teleop phase to carry it out though.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

We're getting closer. Just didn't have time to get it all working at Waterford.

We struggled with the quick accuracy part. And of course the climber was not fully installed.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

We had the quick and accurate part from the pyramid, we had the quick from the feeder station, need to perfect the accurate from the feeder station though. Should be good to go for our next comp.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

O I just assumed floor pickup was part of the equation. Why not go for it all.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

I remember designing that robot. It was twice as heavy as allowed, twice as big, and used about 20 motors.

Of course, Robonauts pulled it off.... but they're the robonauts. (Can they put the colored discs in yet?)

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

I'm sure your opponents would prefer it if you did :rolleyes:

Good luck at KC this weekend!

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

Sounds like you being down in georgia is going to make competition a bit more interesting now. We designed around this exact scenario.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

No full court shooting for us.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

Us either. Seems like the optimum shooter for full field isn't necessarily the optimum set-up for quick and consistent pyramid shots.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

Tried to long too do it. Just wasn't possible. That's most of the reason why we were not ready for competition at Waterford.

Unicorn bot would also have to be 60" tall and capable of shrinking to under 30" to go under the pyramid as well.

Way to hard to do...

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

My mistake. Misread this page, which includes 188 in the fake qualification matches played on Einstein: http://www2.usfirst.org/2009comp/eve...chresults.html

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

Unless I'm mistaken, the 30 point climb has been pulled from 118.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

I saw that they didn't climb during Lone Star, does anyone know why?

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

Word is they had a significant weight problem...maybe someone should ask them?

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

118 did climb at Lone Star during eliminations, for 10 points. One of the semi-final (I think) matches had all three of us off the ground when the buzzer sounded.

Too bad I can't dig up a picture. I wish my memory was better, but the past 10 days have been pretty busy for 2789.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

This was an excellent learning experience for everyone. It was great to see teams innovate on the fly and come up with creative solutions with what limited time and materials they had. This is exactly what FIRST is all about. Don't ever give up, keep on innovating, root for the underdog because you never know what new ideas they will try.

For us as a team, this was a gift. We knew that it would eventually happen though we did not know what form it would take. This allowed us to try different counter strategies and it made for some exciting matches. Sincerely, from team 2169, thank you to all of the teams that forced us to get better. We hope to proudly represent Minnesota at the World Championships.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

Sorry maybe I should have clarified, I saw them hang for 10, but not for 30.

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

Our 30 point climb did not yet meet our design requirements for speed. It takes us 30-45 seconds to line up to the pyramid and get to the top. After seeing how the game was played week 1, and knowing we could add a simple 10 point buzzer hang, those 45 seconds were not worth the 20 extra points (not to mention the risk of a fall). We were right on the limit for weight, so removing the climbing system allowed us to put weight into some other systems and make the rest of the robot better.

We plan to continue working on the climb in an effort to get it quick enough that it's worthwhile for future competitions. It wasn't an easy decision to remove an entire system like this, although after last year we're starting to get used to it. ;)

Re: What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?
 

This!

Besides, since they (2169, 525, 3061) :

• were *crowned* tournament champions
• went undefeated in elims *and*
• scored in the triple digits in all elim matches (high score 147)

I guess they were not overly upset by improvised blockers.