Truss throw catching club
 

I suspect that the most rare ability demonstrated on the field this year was the ability to catch a truss shot (intentionally). The only thing rarer is to do so as part of a perfect cycle. Anyone else done it?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO1C_flphVE

The interesting thing is that catching a truss shot requires more teamwork than anything else in the game this year. It really should be worth more than just 10 points.

At the Chesapeake Regional, we took one practice match specifically to work on truss catching. With 1629 throwing, it took three missed attempts before the drive teams nailed it, and completed the last two of the five attempts. We were hoping for the opportunity to catch a throw from them in the qualification matches, and we were dismayed to find that the match schedule had us playing against them TWICE.

There's an interesting back story to the catch in the above video, as well. We got to be good friends with 1610 on a shared bus ride to Palmetto a couple years back. The weekend before the VA Regional, we traveled to 1610's home turf and spent a day doing joint drive team practice, using our respective practice bots. Among the things we practiced together were floor assists, and over-the-truss passing. We never got a really good opportunity to work together in a qualification match until this one, and it resulted in an over-the-truss catch, a perfect cycle, and setting the high score record for the regional. Our Friday night strategy session was held jointly with 1610, with everyone sharing scouting data and insights about the other robots, then each team separately developing their own pick list. As luck would have it, we ended up on separate alliances, and met as opponents in the finals. Because two teams on 1610's alliance had previously earned Championship slots, we knew we were going to St. Louis when they made it into the finals. The finals were about who got to take home the Blue Banner, and whether our 3rd alliance partner would go to Worlds with us. After seeing 1610 take the gold at our previous two regionals, it was finally us who came out on top at Chesapeake. Without patting ourselves on the back TOO hard, one of the things I'm proudest of this year is how the students on 1610 and 2363 have lived the philosophy of Gracious Professionalism, competing fiercely on the field while helping each other become better when off the field. It's these kinds of relationships which the teams of Virginia need to develop with one another in order to raise the level of gameplay in our state to match other areas of the country.

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

Woo, 4536 is now part of two clubs!

2501 was the only other robot at our regional to catch a ball (I think).

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

1678 (trus) and 399 (catch) ran two perfect cycles of 60 in the last finals match at Inland Empire in Week 1. The video has run repeatedly in highlight reels (with me standing up and blocking the camera...:o )

1678 also has the capability to catch (which we did several times at the Week 0 practice session) but haven't since IER.

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

Team 20 has caught truss shots before. I'll get up video of the FLR qual match where they get one of ours. They have used their catching ability for other roles in the eliminations rather than catch points.

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

2056 was doing some catching at their events. I remember 67 getting an accidental catch once from 469, but that wasn't purposefully done (I don't think) and I don't have match footage off-hand.

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

179 and 1251 twins can catch

1251 putting on a clinic with 4 catches

179 catching under defense

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

We caught balls from two different robots at Vegas this past weekend (I don't know where there is any video). We also may be the only members of the "truss and catch your own ball" club which you can see here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leJu...U-PXC3&index=5 ) at about 1:55! We were told later that we were only awarded style points for our catch :rolleyes:

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

2010 at Buckeye had 4 or 5 catches spread out through their matches. There was one match where they caught twice from us.

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

1648 caught a pass in one of our matches at Palmetto, though i can't remember off the top of my head which match it was. We attempted catches several other times, but failed in all of those other attempts.

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

@Citrus Dad, that had to have been our collectively worst auton period of the entire elim matches!

I personally think the "catch" is probably the most undervalued point action in the game. I think it would have made the build season more interesting if they would have given it a 20pt value, so that so many teams wouldn't have written it off their design as low probability / low reward point. I wonder if any regional experienced double digit catches total during it's entire weekend?

I was not at Utah, but was told 399 had 2 more catches that regional, and I know we caught another in a Las Vegas Qual round.

I loved our (1768 to 399) pass&catch as it was like a QB throwing to a receiver in full stride. nothing "Lob & run under" about it.

Here is the video 1678 posted publicly on youtube:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhY_p3qhSkY

Matt

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

2583 catches 3 balls in this match (only 2 are the correct color).

We throw to them using our flashlight passing aid.

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

1218, 4575, and 4373 had a perfect cycle at springside chestnut high event

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

2485, 987, and 3250 had a perfect cycle in the first quarter-final match of the San Diego regional.

Link:
http://youtu.be/HwjqJDIqhAY?t=55s

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

According to me, this club contains the teams that actually succeeded the point of the game : making aerial assists. Congrats to all the teams who succeeded on doing this, including us, who managed to catch the ball a couple times at the Montreal Robotics Festival. I don't have any footage on me right now, but as soon as I get some, posting it here will be the second thing I'll do with the footage (the first thing being watching it, of course!)

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

We had a catch (trussed by 5318) in quarter final 3-2 at CODE. I think it might have also been a 3 assist cycle (with 1245 in bounding). I'll come back and post a link to the match video once it's uploaded. One of my favorite moments that weekend =)