Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

Does that take any of the shine off his Superb Owl ring?

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

To connect this analogy back to FRC, I mean to say that nobody is going to aim to be the "game manager" that stumbles onto an alliance with two historically good partners. Rather, teams are going to strive to be the "game manager" that can lead an alliance (much like 1678).

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

A Trent Dilfer analogy for FRC that could work would be teams 1241 or 180 (294 in 2010 might also work, but I wasn't around at that point), teams with historically average performances at championships managing to work well the their partners in order to win on Einstein.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

Good teams make the best of scouting. Take 1741 from Indiana as an example. Their robot wasn't really that good of a robot. They could consistently make 1 stack of 5 per match. To say the least, they weren't that good with totes. One strategy they used was a really good strategy and that's why they ended up being one of the best team in Indiana. They had this giant claw that was super fast at capping stacks, and it was a very stable and robust design. They would do very "odd" things during alliance selection. They would pick people down in the 20 range as their first pick sometimes. They would take "bad" teams for their alliance. These bad teams weren't really all that bad. During quals, they could make 1-5 stack with a can. Then in elims, 1741 would say "I got the cans. Stack some totes." Those bad teams could put up 2-5 stack when they didn't need to worry about cans. So 1741 would draft really fast stackers and they'd focus on totes, and 1741 would focus on cans. It almost worked really well in week 1, and I was really surprised that they didn't go farther than they did at District Championships. So like many "Elite" teams say, Focus on making a few things really good. A few good things is better than doing everything just ok.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

As a team that focused on solely one thing this year, I can say with confidence that this is completely dependent on the game. This year was possibly the single worst year for a specialized robot (at least that I have seen). Most previous years, however, there has been a way to gain success from finding a niche and fulfilling it well.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

This year should have been great, but then every team decided to make stacks by themselves:p IMO the best alliance possible would have a super tote stacker with a separate can topping robot (such as 148's two robots), but there were so few opportunities for this since most teams found that they can just build the whole stack underneath the cans.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

This year we realized that we would have a hard time doing both tasks (cans and totes) so we decided to only focus on totes and forget about cans. We were able to get 3 4-stacks and a 2-stack in a match (we chose 4-stacks over 5 or 6 because they were easier to cap). This meant if we had alliance partners who could not or would not cap our stacks we were not very helpful to our alliance. But when we partnered with 1089 and 365 in elims who focused on capping our stacks rather than making their own stacks we scored pretty high. This strategy got us to semifinals in 2 district competitions. We were ~10 points away from beating out the #1 alliance at MARCMP which would have advanced us to semifinals and earned us a spot in St. Louis. So although specialization did not get us into Einstein, we are proof that if done correctly (which we could have done better) it can work very well.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

I have some experience with this. At North Brunswick, we had the pleasure of working with 11 and 193 in playoffs.

11 could churn out 3-4 stacks of four totes from the chute door each match. 193 could cap each of these stacks with two totes from the chute door and a can, making 42 point stacks. We fetched a can or two from the Step, and contributed a couple short stacks from the landfill each match.

We made it to the finals, losing to 303, 2590, and 3340 in the finals. While 303 and 2590 were fast all-in-one stickers, our better finals score was a mere eight points shy of their worse finals score.

I think the moral here is that doing everything well is ideal but an alliance that exploits its strengths can be nearly as powerful, if not more.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

At Championships in 2010, 294 was a big reason why they Won that year. I'm not sure I would use such an analogy for a team that played stellar on Einstein.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

I have got to say the use of the term "elite" for me is like dragging fingernails on a chalk board. It really gets to me. Those teams that are referred to by this term, I am sure, don't think of themselves in that sense. It does not take a lot of money, a lot of students or a lot of engineers to get to Einstein. It does take a robot that is designed to play the game and that won't fall apart during a critical match. It takes a drive team that can see the field and react as needed and can work with their partners. An alliance must act as a single team, not three separate teams.
So here are a few ideas:
Identify bad behaviors that prevent you from achieving your goal. We lost to Hammond/Beatty once because an electrical crimp fell apart during the final match. We solder everything so that will never happen again and train our electrical students to test everything they make.
Don't depend on "out of the box" designs that are too complicated to operate every time without fail. This goes double for designs that are not repairable in minutes with standard tools in the toolbox you bring to the field.
There is no substitute for practice. Triple that if you are using a complex design like crab steering or an odd pickup device. Einstein is often won by shaving fractions of second off a task.
If your design depends on sensors for software interaction, be sure to have a manual mode or some way to bypass a defective sensor. Then intentionally break it and practice the manual mode.
Don't let your drive team consume large amounts of Mountain Dew, coffee or energy drinks. Don't expect them to try to operate on little or no sleep.
Be open to the suggestions of the little freshmen in the corner who is afraid to speak up but has the best idea of all.
Play "what if" games with everything. "What if" the wheel falls off, "what if" the speed controller goes dead, "what if" our arm gets bent, "what if" our radio gets hit or "what if" the main breaker has a ball dropped on it.
Here are a few wisdoms that might help as well...
A pedestrian in New York was once asked "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?" The response was "Practice, Practice, Practice".
"Never give up, never surrender!"
"It ain't over till the fat lady sings." Referring to a Wagner opera that lasts several hours.
Don't stop playing until you can't play any longer or you have run out of scoring devices. This goes along with "It ain't over till it's over."
A charged battery beats a dead battery any day.
“I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.“ – Thomas Jefferson
“Opportunity is missed by most because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.“ – Thomas Edison

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

I'm not sure if this really was the worst year for specialized robots. Conveyor belt robots like 1987 works awesome with pure cappers and specialized can grabbers could make or break on Einstein. That being said, the specializations this year were much harder than in any previous years but if pulled off right could have a huge impact in competition. We decided with about 2-3 weeks before champs to switch to being a container specialist and actually had some really great results. I think if we had decided sooner to be a can specialist or if we didn't break in our second quarterfinal, our division results would have been different but even with what we had, we did incredibly well as a support robot. Just depends on what you decide to specialize in and the execution. Some specializations also work better in the regional level vs championship level and vice versa.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

I'd actually go with 180's partner, 16, as the perfect Trent Dilfer analogy. Trent Dilfer's main role was to not screw up, convert a few third downs, and allow the stars on the team (defense, running game and Jermaine Lewis's special team returns) to provide the maximum impact on the game. If Dilfer didn't convert third downs or had multiple turnovers, the running game doesn't get their opportunities and the defense is put in poor field position and is forced on the field significantly more. In 2012, I'm not sure 16 scored any baskets outside of autonomous mode for their alliance, but was critical in stealing balls from the opposite side of the field to ensure 180 and 25 had enough easy scoring opportunities.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

16 made that alliance. 16 was one of the 10 best robots on Galileo, and they were the 21st robot into the elimination rounds. The fact that they were around is slightly more ridiculous than 973 in 2011 and slightly less than 1671 this year. My team back then (2337) was selected one pick earlier, and frankly I don't think 180-25-2337 even makes Einstein, let alone has a chance to win.

The "Trent Dilfer"s of FRC are mostly going to be 3rd partners, but not ridiculously good ones. Winning alliances that are basically Divisional All-Star teams (i.e. the 3rd team is too good to be a 3rd team) aren't examples of what we're talking about here. These include the winning alliances in: 2009, 2011, 2012, and 2015. 148 in 2008 is a much better example. They played the defence they needed to play, they scored some points, and they stayed out of the way.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

Very apt. We most definitely aim to be a game manager because we simply don't have the resources to be a true star. And other teams have great game managers, like 118's drive coach this year.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

I don't mean to say that teams that specialized were doomed to be unsuccessful, simply that teams that were able to stack and cap independently reached much greater success in the "Quest for Einstein." My team was finalist and semifinalist at our regionals. Many teams that specialized were unable to gain much ground at worlds though, especially as the teams that could work interdependently made it difficult for these teams to rank highly. However, a perfect example of specialized teams working together extremely well was 1983's alliance at Chezy Champs. Specialized robots this year in order to succeed to their maximum capacity needed to work with robots that were specialized towards other gamepieces e.g. 2 tote robots and a can robot.

Past years specialized robots were much more easily able to contribute to an alliance of teams that weren't specialized. Perfect examples would be 2013 1519 as a full court shooter, or 2012 with 4334. These robots were able to find a niche that would fit with most alliances that year, however this year there was much less of a niche as teams that could score alone were unable to be assisted in an efficient manner by specialized teams. Almost every previous year the winner, finalist, or semifinalist alliance had a specialized robot with them.

TL;DR - It wasn't impossible for specialized teams to gain success this year, just much more difficult than in most past years.