Unexpected Plays That Make the Crowd Go Wild!
 

A couple days ago, I posted a video of an unexpected play that really got the crowd excited, and I was thinking if other people had some videos, pictures, or stories of plays or unusual strategies that just wowed the crowd. My favorite thing we did was in 2012 with our independently done stack balance.

I would like you guys to post links or share stories of things that your team or alliance did at a regional that was so outrageously cool that the entire arena was filled with the noise of cheering audience members, and if you were there, I'd like for you to share the feeling of that unforgettable moment. Post stuff that was unexpected, strange, or plays that were so cool that it sends chills down your spine and makes you grin every time you think of it or see it. I really want to know what neat stuff others have done, and this can be from any season.

These are my favorite moments:

My recent post from Aerial Assist: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=130635

Rebound Rumble stack balance:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...=stack+balance

Blocking tall full court shots in Ultimate Ascent. We allied with King TeC in eliminations. This happens at 1:10
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlPS2u_y8WY#t=88

Re: Unexpected Plays That Make the Crowd Go Wild!
 

The best in our recent history was from 2013 at MSC. Quarter final 2-1, where starting at 1:05, we climb to the top followed by 1918 and then a hang at the end from 2145 for what, at the time, was the highest pyramid score in competition. I loved seeing the Detroit Public TV version but I can't seem to track it down on my phone.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=oGyetNAb5oc

Re: Unexpected Plays That Make the Crowd Go Wild!
 

Oh man was that fun to watch. I can only imagine the energy being in the crowd. It made me smile, and it's exactly what i'm looking to have shared. Great post!

Re: Unexpected Plays That Make the Crowd Go Wild!
 

This actually happened twice: We would truss the ball, and another robot on our alliance would catch the ball as they drove by completely unprepared to catch.

1st - was at the NE Groton District, where our #8 alliance was playing the #1 alliance of 195, 78, 3719, three great robots. We trussed it, and 178 by accident caught it and immediatly shot it into the 10pt goal. The crowd went crazy and as a driver I still remember the smile on my face. 178 came over to me and said they had no idea they had the capability to catch.

2nd - I think it was either NE District champs but if not, NE Southington District. 558 caught our truss ball by accident. The crowd went crazy and 558 later told me that their catching flaps/arms werent even opened.

Re: Unexpected Plays That Make the Crowd Go Wild!
 

A really cool play from our team was at the Boilermaker Regional this year. It was the second Semifinal match that put us into the finals over the #1 seed, and our robot caught a truss shot from 3147, which was crazy since our robot wasn't even supposed to catch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=INdwQkiYSO4

Even though the camera had muted sound, you can still hear the screams:)

Re: Unexpected Plays That Make the Crowd Go Wild!
 

Playing defense, we accidentally pushed 148 into a catch at Dallas
http://youtu.be/w9bN3IwRWMc?t=2m26s

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Showing the agility of our swerve. Our team calls it "parallel parking". Still think we should have gotten the penalty for possession of the other alliances ball.

Last 15 seconds of the match. http://youtu.be/1oVNrp2L1EQ
Not the best match in the world but i am proud of it.

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Accidental catch by 125 in our match with them at Beantown Blitz! It was a pretty awesome moment and match. http://youtu.be/FfpxGUFrfy8

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1714's shot bounces off the high and hits 5179 and bounces into the high goal.

http://youtu.be/hJ7wODfquuI?t=1m32s

Re: Unexpected Plays That Make the Crowd Go Wild!
 

This year whenever we first did our full court truss pass at an event, the reaction from the crowd was priceless. A mix of gasps, cheers, and cries of "How is that even legal?!?"

Sadly, there's no video from those practice matches, but here's what we did:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76lFi5nRXNc&t=0m39s

Re: Unexpected Plays That Make the Crowd Go Wild!
 

http://youtu.be/O13JbkeXFG0?t=2m3s

This is an interesting clip I recently found. Watch at 2:03 as 3528 (blue) runs across the field and scores a high goal on the run. Then off camera the ball bounces back into play through the high goal and bounces out of play. A bizarre sequence of events.

Re: Unexpected Plays That Make the Crowd Go Wild!
 

The Scene: 2007 Einstein Final 3
Newton Champs 190, 987 and 177 vs Archimedes Champs 233, 71 and 179.

Everyone is convinced Hammond is a sure lock to get their 5th championship title, having never lost on Einstein before. They've got the ramps, 233 has the tube scoring, 179 brings the defense.

Tubes are scattered all over the rack. Nobody has long rows and it's going to come down to the endgame ramps. The match is winding down and it's close, but Archimedes has the advantage on the tubes. 71 pulls back, clears out the zone and drops their ramps. It's a clean drop this time, unlike in Final Match 2 where one ramp failed to go down. That mishap cost them the sure win and forced the rubber match, but this time everything deploys properly.

It's all about who can get up cleanly and net the 30 point endgame bonus. 233 and 179 are practiced and sure-handed, if the ramps are down they get up. It seems all but certain that Archimedes will take it.

And then The High Rollers come screaming across the field... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gznDtrAv7sA#t=108

Re: Unexpected Plays That Make the Crowd Go Wild!
 

A couple of plays came to mind for me.

In 2012 we were on an alliance with with BOB and Star Trec. We were a cycler they were both 30 point climbers. At the end of the match they were climbing and we ended up shooting between them as they both made their 30 point climb. Then we did our 10 point hang.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUr0XPCCeAA

In 2010 our team managed to do the double hang in competition with Enginerds. (Before my time, but the crowd went absolutely nuts)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obXxvgInsI0

There was also a match at MSC that I cannot remember, but our alliance member was a tall bot and he tipped. He was leaning against the side wall early in the match. Our driver made his cycle then swung around knocked our ally upright and then continued on. He just did it so cleanly it was great.

Re: Unexpected Plays That Make the Crowd Go Wild!
 

One of the best moments to me was back in Aerial Assist at our home regional, the Hawaii Regional. We were the only team there capable of doing a climb on the pyramid, and we went for it over and over again, but could never get a good catch on the corners to climb. However, one match, we were able to catch the bottom corner well and climbed. We stopped the climb as soon as we were in 20 point range, just because I didn't want to risk it. As soon as we got past that point, we were REALLY sketchy that high. But we stopped it there, and the audience went NUTS as we were going up, even more when the buzzer sounded and we were still in the air. Matches stopped for nearly 5 minutes as EVERYONE wanted to get a picture of it XD It was incredible. Unfortunately, there is no match footage, but someone did a compilation of the competition, and put it in there. Feel free to watch!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpJcGKJW0ug

The only comment on there is mine, with links to one of our climb attempts, as well as a short clip of our 20-pt climb.

Re: Unexpected Plays That Make the Crowd Go Wild!
 

Showing the world how Aerial Assist is played Week 1. Finals Match 2 at IE, 399 catches the ball NFL Wide Reciever-style, not once, but twice! You can actually see the crowd go wild!

http://youtu.be/dhY_p3qhSkY

Re: Unexpected Plays That Make the Crowd Go Wild!
 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hl055aP691Y Us and 1189, The Gearheads, had an accidental catch around 2:15 at Bedford.

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Re: Unexpected Plays That Make the Crowd Go Wild!
 

Had we won the third match in semifinals, we would be in this match against you guys. We would have gotten our butts kicked!

Re: Unexpected Plays That Make the Crowd Go Wild!
 

I don't even know what the rules were for that game and my jaw dropped!

Re: Unexpected Plays That Make the Crowd Go Wild!
 

If that happened during the more recent years, instead of cheering there would be a load of penalties:)

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Re: Unexpected Plays That Make the Crowd Go Wild!
 

Robots got 50 points from hanging from the bar. 237's design was unique that year. The only other robot that had a similar design was 868. They would sheath the bar keeping robots from being able to latch onto the bar. They became of particular importance on Einstein as 67's robot was amazing without ever having to climb onto the levels. Unfortunately because 868 covered the bar they couldn't latch on and thus 67's alliance was eventually defeated.

Re: Unexpected Plays That Make the Crowd Go Wild!
 

190's flaps (visible at the end of the video as they come up onto the bar) served a similar purpose. Ditto for 330's Lexan shield (a late addition, after we lost a regional due to someone hanging off of our robot--plate of Lexan mounted to the base of the arm).

I don't think the rest of the bar-blockers (there were a few more that tried that stunt) had any similar provision--they might've, but tended to rely on getting sideways to block someone from hooking on. I could be wrong about that.

Re: Unexpected Plays That Make the Crowd Go Wild!
 

http://youtu.be/cJ3A6okhL20?t=3m57s

868's special feature was they were able to roll on the bar to block other robots from latching on.

(2005 was my rookie year on 868, so 2004's performance really drove home our philosophy - pick one thing in the game and do it better than anyone else.)

Re: Unexpected Plays That Make the Crowd Go Wild!
 

This at 2:15. 2012 Rebound Rumble just beyond half court shot scored in double ball -- both high and low baskets -- I was court side and wasn't really sure if I saw what I saw until I looked at the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2D3Fc_1qdc

Best viewed in Hi-Def on larger screen.

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Buzzer balance with a simultaneous human player shot to win the 3rd quarter final match at the 2012 Utah regional:
http://youtu.be/Rk5YOeSMKLQ

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Honestly, one of the best "In your face, defense" plays I've seen in a long time. Team 254, 2014 Einstein finals 1, autonomous. The first time it has been done in competition, they avoided 1114 defense and got all three auto balls in the high goal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdJutaggCMk

Re: Unexpected Plays That Make the Crowd Go Wild!
 

I actually was on the team that pushed the ball into you guys, we had asked about why there wasn't a penalty and they said that it was because it wasn't purposeful that the ball went into your robot, and that it was accidental

Re: Unexpected Plays That Make the Crowd Go Wild!
 

Way back when, before the days of plentiful powerful motors, high-speed pickups were nearly unheard of. 95's robot in 2002, Feynman, was very rare in that he had a full-width ball intake and was capable of collecting game pieces at full speed (of almost 10ft/s, which was REALLY fast back then). He was capable of collecting ~20 soccer balls in just a few seconds, and did so as the first move in almost every match he played in. It was an unexpected play because very few, if any, other robots could do it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jL6VtO5VSd8

The next year, 95 had a 4-wheel serve robot, KC. But 4-wheel swerve is not what was surprising about her. KC had two pneumatic lifts that jacked her up onto the top platform of the bridge. These had been setup such that they would automatically deploy as the robot was disabled. The picture below is from one of the few matches were KC functioned perfectly. (You know how everyone says "don't try swerve unless you've prototyped it in the offseason"? I feel that 95 practically invented that saying in 2003.) Anyway, in this match it was obvious that without the bonus points from KC being on the top platform our alliance was going to lose, and the commentator made sure everyone knew it, he said something like: "oh well, 95 can't get on the platform... it looks like their alliance is going to lose this one, they really need those bonus points!" And as time expired there was a small flinch from KC as her lifts deployed right at the buzzer... a few moments of relative quiet passed and then she calmly popped up a few inches after the robots were all disabled, and the crowd went wild. We won the match!

This picture is the moment that KC's lifts deployed. The look of recognition of what is happening is spreading across the faces of the announcer, the field crew, and even Dean!

Re: Unexpected Plays That Make the Crowd Go Wild!
 

Match 41 of the Galileo Division this year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TFjOl4B6tg#t=133

At 2:15, 4967, That One Team, Trussed it over, the ball bounced off of 176, went out of play then back into play. We chased it down, but were met by some good defense by 176. They let off at the last second for us to score a last second low goal with all three assists.

Re: Unexpected Plays That Make the Crowd Go Wild!
 

My "crowd goes wild" memory is from Archimedes 2004.

Rookie team 1241, Theory 6, had a unique strategy. Their robot opened up a large netted funnel to catch the deluge of game balls falling onto the field from over the alliance station. It would then drive to the corner and deliver all the balls to their human player for scoring in the goals. In practice matches, this was amazing to watch. They were definitely a team to pay attention to.

I think it was the Circuit Stompers who placed a large "doubling ball" atop 1241's hopper during their first qualification match, just before the purple game balls came pouring down. That moment was even more amazing to see.

Re: Unexpected Plays That Make the Crowd Go Wild!
 

I remember that moment when 67 did it during a replay at Great Lakes too. Up until then 1241 looked nigh unstoppable.

Re: Unexpected Plays That Make the Crowd Go Wild!
 

We made a shot from the bridge at the Bayou, 2012 I think? The crowd went nuts!

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Our catch in Lubbock last year provoked quite a reaction from the crowd. Unfortunately, this was the only time it happened.

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One of my all-time favorite matches was Quarterfinal 4-1 at IRI 2012. We (1676) were on the #3 (red) alliance, but since we were the fourth robot on the alliance, we were sitting out. As the 30 second bell rang, both alliances were tied up at 100 points each, and all 3 robots from each side headed to their bridges to triple balance, which both alliances successfully accomplished. As this was happening, a human player on our alliance (I think it was 469's human player) threw a full-court 2-point shot, putting us in the lead. However, then a human player on the opposing alliance threw a full-court 3-point shot, putting us down by 1 point. Our alliance's human player then threw ANOTHER 2-point shot in the final seconds, putting us up by 1 point, and winning us the match 104-103. Definitely on the top of my most memorable heart-pounding moments. You can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqJJnTFFEmgt=250

Re: Unexpected Plays That Make the Crowd Go Wild!
 

One of my all-time favorite matches I've participated in.

-Brando

Re: Unexpected Plays That Make the Crowd Go Wild!
 

Also from 2012 for us...NYC quarterfinal 3, match 1. We had an underwhelming qualification performance and found ourselves on the #7 alliance and decided to take a shot at a triple balance strategy. The alliance (1635, 125 and 522) was made up of 2 long bots and a super short wide bot (522).

We attempted to practice a balance on the practice field before hand but were unable to get all of our robots to the field on time. After looking at the geometry of 1635 and 522 closely, we determined we could shove 522 up the angled part of 1635s frame using 522s pneumatic flap to help lift them over 1635s bumpers.

This was a total roll of the dice, completely untested. We had no idea if it would work, but we went for it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p_LdLvHYYc&t=1m28s


We completed the maneuver 6 times and won the NYC regional.


-Brando