"Most Improved" Award 2015
 

My question is simple, Which robots do you feel have improved the most since their first regional? Feel free to include stats like ranking at first regional opposed to second regional, or qual avg. percentage increase from regional to regional.

Re: "Most Improved" Award 2015
 

Team 4188 went from being ranked 42 out of 42 at Georgia Southern to ranked 2nd at Peachtree and winning.

Thanks to 4188 for picking us and 343 for being great alliance partners.

Re: "Most Improved" Award 2015
 

4188
At GSRC Team 4188 was Rank 42 out of 42 (DEAD LAST) with an average qual score of 21.55.
At Peachtree Team 4188 was Rank 2 with an average qual score of 90.38 and an average playoff score of 145.00 and ended up WINNING the regional!
It was a great turn around to watch even though they beat our alliance in the finals.
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/2015/...team.html?rh=1

Re: "Most Improved" Award 2015
 

254. They went from making 2 stacks a match to 4, and are probably the best team right now.

I have to agree with the others about 195.

Re: "Most Improved" Award 2015
 

195 had some serious improvement after their first event. They currently have one of the best robots in New England, but you wouldn't know that from watching their first event.

In their first match of the season, their alliance scored 12 points.
In their most recent match, their alliance scored 256 points.

That's over a 2000% increase.

Their average playoff score also went from 28 to 228 between their first and last events.

They went from being able to score a few totes here and there to being able to put up 3 capped/noodled six stacks quite consistently.

Re: "Most Improved" Award 2015
 

My vote goes for 2502, Talon Robotics. At their first regional they sat in 36th place with a quals average below 40 and were picked in the third round.At the Ten Thousand Lakes Regional they were seated second with an average over 105 and ended up winning the Regional. Their improvement was astounding, they have totally earned their spot at champs.

EDIT: 2502's average at their first regional was 43.22

Re: "Most Improved" Award 2015
 

1523 MARS

They wont from not even being picked at their 1st event, to being the #1 overall alliance captain and making it to the finals. That is also only going from week 1 to week 3. So the time to which they changed, and the little influence they had when changing, means their growth is far greater than some who improved over later weeks.

Re: "Most Improved" Award 2015
 

2502 went from being ranked 36th at northern lights to being ranked 2nd and winning the 10,000 lakes regional(Where they usually ended a match with 2 capped and noodled 6 stacks).

2169 went from being ranked 30th at northern lights to being ranked 6th at a very competitive Wisconsin regional(Awesome landfill bot by Wisconsin). They were nearly finalists as they encountered one bad match in their semi-final matches that cut them off from advancing to the finals.

967 the Iron Lions went from being picked last at Wisconsin to ranking 4th at North star where they were finalists(They had a awesome chute bot by North star and deserved a wildcard entry to champs).

Probably a ton more I can think of.

EDIT: TCMJ1816 beat me to it for 2502.

Re: "Most Improved" Award 2015
 

Going to toot my own teams horn for a post, simply because of how proud I am of our improvement.

At our first event, Reading District, our best match consisted of putting up a single uncapped six stack, and a high score of 105 points, and our QA was 40.6 points. http://youtu.be/HOAAmuBDxqQ

At our second event, UNH, we added an arm to pick up the RCs, intake wheels to help control moving the ground tote, and increased the speed of our elevator and pusher by 50%. We increased our scoring ability to a capped six stack and an uncapped three stack. Our high score of the day was 140, and our QA was 69.7 points. http://youtu.be/Uuph9v8srww

At New England Championships, we fixed the intake wheels to spin correctly, and changed our controller from joysticks to Xbox controllers, which myself and our other driver found more comfortable. We were able to put up two capped six stacks, our high score was 169, and our QA was 130.8 points. http://youtu.be/noqyyMzKmLk

We definitely aren't the best robot in the world, and we probably haven't shown the most improvement (195 definitely has us beat for this) but I love how much our team put into the robot during the season to continue improving. Expect even more from 1058 in St. Louis!

Re: "Most Improved" Award 2015
 

4183 36 at CVR, won Arizona East

1296

Re: "Most Improved" Award 2015
 

I'd also like to give a shout out to 2502, it was awesome competing with them week 1 and then practicing with them leading up to their second regional and seeing them improving.

Re: "Most Improved" Award 2015
 

This list starts and ends with 195.

Re: "Most Improved" Award 2015
 

I'm a bit disappointed 2502 won't be at state. Imagine 3130 and 2502 in an alliance. Minnesota's best this year for sure!

After watching some videos of you guys(2175) I think you guys improved as well. I loved your capping method for your stacks. Champs and state won't be the same without you guys! We'll miss you for sure!

Re: "Most Improved" Award 2015
 

Gotta throw my vote in for 1126. They started the year at Pittsburgh with a QA of 42.33, barely able to make a stack, let alone score it. And forget RCs all together. Some of their scores included numbers such as 11, 12 and 0.

At FLR, they were easily one of the best robots on the field, with a QA of 116.64. Consistently putting up 15-18 totes every match, complete with RCs, and helping to set the regional high score in their very last match.

Re: "Most Improved" Award 2015
 

Teams 195 and 399 greatly improved from their first events. It was awesome seeing both teams keep making changes and fine tuning their robots at each event.

195
Event OPR Rank
1 ---- 07.1 26
2 ---- 56.5 3
3 ---- 63.1 1
4 ---- 88.0 2

399
Event OPR Rank
1 ---- 21.7 11
2 ---- 40.9 6
3 ---- 73.7 3

Re: "Most Improved" Award 2015
 

With out a doubt it has to be Truck Town Thunder 68.

At their first event in Kokomo they were simply awful, I mean bad, but then they won in Lancing and were a force to be reckoned with at MSC seeding 11th in a crazy deep field.

Just an amazing turnaround.


I might add that at Kokomo even when they were having big problems they were a lot a fun to be around and added a lot to the event.

Re: "Most Improved" Award 2015
 

Without hesitation, I'd give the award to 195.
Their season started somewhat disastrously at Waterbury, but now, I see them as undoubtedly the best team in New England.

Re: "Most Improved" Award 2015
 

As far as Indiana goes I have to nominate Cyber Blue 234. In their first event (Indy week 1), they struggled to make stacks consistently even though they ended up rank 2 (their noodle thrower has been great all season). By Indiana State Championships, they could make two 6 stacks + bin and noodle from the HP station, and also had a 20 point auto routine.

Re: "Most Improved" Award 2015
 

1625 went from a -5.3 OPR to a 52.1 OPR in just one event.

I wouldn't be the least bit shocked to see that trend continue into champs as well.

Re: "Most Improved" Award 2015
 

As Much as I'd like to say we improved, yea we started getting consistent 6 stacks with 2 a match but our lead screw broke and never gave us time to test out the new ramp that would rotate totes and allow faster loading. We also on dropped stacks when the lead screw broke, everyone always thought when placing we would but it wasn't possible with out backstop.

5254 I would have to say immensely improved. We worked with them Saturday at tech valley and after helping with a ramp they learned their grove in the eliminations and then also learned a strategy that worked for them. I was happy to see how much they improved with a simple fix.

Re: "Most Improved" Award 2015
 

I'd have to go with Bedford Express. They went from a 53.00 Qualification Average in their first event to a 187.75 at MSC (which they won).

Re: "Most Improved" Award 2015
 

1023 Bedford Express opr jumped from 27.31 at the FIM District Southfield Event to 109.4 at the FIM District Bedford Event, resulting in the highest opr gain of 82.09 globally according to our data http://team955.org/opr/?search=1023

Re: "Most Improved" Award 2015
 

Our first match our robot was fully functional, yet our alliance scored 0 points. Throughout that competition, our QA was 32. At MSC we had a QA of 146 and we were the 7th pick. We plan on doing much better at worlds.

548, another MSC winner, improved from 35 QA to MSC third seed and 172 QA.

Re: "Most Improved" Award 2015
 

I'd have to give it to FRC 955; they went from being just another meh robot in their first event to the second best robot in the PNW, mostly by adding a ramp. (Could make in a good game a capped 4 stack at Wilsonville, and were used entirely for capping (and did well at it) in their finals, while at the District Championships they made 2 capped 6 stacks, as well as another capped 4 in a good match).

Re: "Most Improved" Award 2015
 

Instead of focusing on their rank, im going off Qualification OPR, as i think that shows a bigger difference in how they did.
Im pulling 5 random teams that were in the PNW champs just to show the increase in points.

2471
Event 1 - 59.67
Event 2 - 62.17
DCMP - 124.58


4061
Event 1 - 35.92
Event 2 - 97.75
DCMP - 135.67

4980
Event 1 - 40.25
Event 2 - 57.83
DCMP - 137.67

360
Event 1 - 46.17
Event 2 - 78.58
DCMP - 112.58

955
Event 1 - 49.83
Event 2 - 111.58
DCMP - 137.25

most teams between their first event and the DCMP improved by about 60 points, that's pretty impressive.

Re: "Most Improved" Award 2015
 

My team did very poorly at Los Angeles at Rank 63 with an avg score of 25.22, but we came back strong at Las Vegas in 8th place with an qual avg of 78.17 and an OPR of 39.07.

A small tethered ramp is what mainly increased our performance, as well as practice. We were able to get 2 stacks of 3 with a can+noodle on top consistently.

Re: "Most Improved" Award 2015
 

Kind of what we'd expect, even if the teams didn't really improve at all.

Something about having to qualify to get to the champs.

Right?

Re: "Most Improved" Award 2015
 

Do you calculate OPRs differently than Ed Law does? According to his spreadsheet, 1023 had an OPR of 34.3 at MISouthfield.

Attached is a spreadsheet with the OPR data of all teams attending 2+ events, courtesy of the 2834 scouting database. Top 10 teams in some relevant categories shown below:
most recent OPR - first OPR:
max OPR - first OPR:
highest single event improvement:
Let me know if there are any errors.

Re: "Most Improved" Award 2015
 

Those look like Qualification Average numbers, not OPR numbers.

Re: "Most Improved" Award 2015
 

To be fair, that has a lot to do with the depth of the field at a district event compared to a district championships

Re: "Most Improved" Award 2015
 

Yes we do actually. The biggest difference is that we decided including Coop scores in the OPR calculation would be a misleading measure of a robots value in elims (since a robot that can get 40 points through coop in a certain amount of time is very likely not to be able to score 40 points in elims with that same amount of time through conventional stacking).

Our solution was to calculate sub-oprs and total them (without coop) to get a "special" OPR value which we felt was more useful (and also not readily available in other places). Now, it's definitely not perfect as it penalizes some teams who spend time on coop they could spend scoring conventionally, but this problem is only significant for teams that are exceptionally fast at stacking and scoring (like 2056). For run-of-the-mill teams, it keeps coop from inaccurately inflating their OPR. Of course, the difference in the math for what we do vs what Ed Law does makes our values slightly different inherently, but they both run on the same foundation of linear least squares estimation that OPR is generally associated with. Adding coop sub-opr to our "special" OPR gets roughly comparable numbers. We ended up liking our numbers a lot more over say thebluealliance though, so we ran with it.

If you're interested, head over to http://team955.org/opr. We also have a global rankings page based on our numbers here.

Re: "Most Improved" Award 2015
 

I am extremely proud of my team's improvements this year as well. For the last 8 years I don't think we have ever changed our robot throughout the season, and boy we should have. This year we made some significant improvements after each competition and it showed.

Starting off at the Pioneer Valley district event we were putting up one stack of four and another stack of three, occasionally capped. We were having trouble aligning to the chute and the totes would slide all over when stacking. Unfortunately our lift motor failed in the finals and we could only make stacks of two. Example match.

For Seneca we added aluminum tabs to make sure the top totes were aligned and meshed with the the bottom tote. We mocked them up using combination squares and replaced them with some angle. It worked great for totes, but the recycling containers would tip forward when grabbed. Two PVC four-bar guards were added to prevent our stacks from tipping. We ended up making two stacks of four, one or two capped. Example match.

At Upper Darby we brought a new top claw that would hold the RCs while stacking and redesigned the tote tabs to keep the can upright. Both worked very well and allowed us to consistently make two noodled and capped stacks of four and an uncapped stack of 2-4 totes. We saw the need to increase our output in the finals so we attempted stacks of five but the can would sometimes come out of the top claw. Example match.

Last weekend at MAR champs we made some modifications to the top claw that allowed us to easily make stacks of five totes. It worked well and we only dropped one stack/can in our first QF match. We also added two fiberglass rods in front of our claw to prevent the totes from sliding too far into the robot. They also helped align the totes surprisingly. Both of these improvements allowed us to make two noodled and capped stacks of five and one uncapped stack of 2-6 totes almost every match that we wanted to. Example match.

Now that our season is over, we plan on working on our three tote auto and moving the top claw up so we can make stacks of six. One of our goals for next year is to start using CAD so we can go through more design iterations on the computer instead of building.

Re: "Most Improved" Award 2015
 

177 should certainly be mentioned:

They went from ranking 2nd to last at their first district (Pioneer Valley) and not being selected to captaining the 7th alliance to the semifinals at their second district (Hartford).

Unfortunately, we won't see more improvement from the Bobcats, because their season appears to have ended, but it would've been incredible to see what such a good team could pull off given another event.

Re: "Most Improved" Award 2015
 

I would definitely say team 836 The Robobees should be mentioned.

In week one at Palmetto they were ranked 63 with a qualification average of 22.22.
At there second regional (Chesapeake) they completely rebuilt their robot (and joined team tether) and were ranked 9th with a qualification average 68.56 and a playoff score of 108.43 and ended up being regional finalists.
Good Job Robobees! :)

Re: "Most Improved" Award 2015
 

2175 is one, although I have that MN bias as always. I think they're one of the first teams to ramp tether.

2502 as well, as well as 3055. Both showed great improvement from one regional to another.

Re: "Most Improved" Award 2015
 

Here is NE, and specifically CT I'd have to say 195 and 999. Both teams went through a rebuild after Waterbury and came out with significantly more competitive machines. After working closely with these teams over the last few seasons I can only say that they are eager to perform well on the field and constantly learning and improving.

195 finally saw the benefits of playing with pneumatics.
999 got a taste of what continuous improvement can do for them.

Re: "Most Improved" Award 2015
 

Completely agree with the mention of team 836.

They went from a start at palmetto that even they knew they had to overturn and ended up being easily the third best robot at Chesapeake after a COMPLETE rebuild of their bot

Re: "Most Improved" Award 2015
 

I would like to show this to all rookie teams or teams that are struggling. Never give up! We came into Kokomo expecting to do very well, but we were terrible. We went back to the drawing board, redesigning our lift and intake. By MSC we could make 3 full stacks of 6 cans and noodles, a vast improvement from scoring no points at Kokomo. Thanks for the post! See ya at champs :)

Team 68 also always tries to have a positive attitude, as we are always having fun!

Re: "Most Improved" Award 2015
 

999 got a taste of what continuous improvement can do for them.[/quote]

Totally agree Justin. 999 went from nearly not having a season in 2014....to building a great robot that season that was on the winning alliance at the Southington District Event.

They then came back strong with another GREAT robot in 2015. They get better and better at every competition. I can't wait to see what they achieve at Championship!

Re: "Most Improved" Award 2015
 

195, easy.

Re: "Most Improved" Award 2015
 

I have to second this! As I looked at our events pre-season, I thought that we would for sure win Lansing with Truck town...and then I seen them preform and was scared....nothing near what I expected. They had a huge turn around and consistently got way better. They ended up being out first pick at Lansing and contributed a lot to us winning.
-Ronnie

Re: "Most Improved" Award 2015
 

3309's OPR improved by over 30 at each event they attended, from 31 to 64 to 96. Can't wait to see what they have in store for Championships.

Re: "Most Improved" Award 2015
 

Thanks for the mention. I am definitely proud of the kids.

We went from just a few totes in Week 1 Quals, to being able to put up almost 2 full stacks going in to CMP...

Re: "Most Improved" Award 2015
 

yeah you guys improved a heck of a lot, as did 3393... also your auto is super entertaining, cuz you guys do a 360 during it (It entertains me anyways)

Re: "Most Improved" Award 2015
 

I enjoyed it too. It's even more impressive when people realize it was written by a lone freshman who didn't know Java at the beginning of the season...

Thanks to the new ramp we won't need it anymore. I'm not sure if I should be relieved or disappointed. :p