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Multiple Regional Winners and a little jab
Congratulations to the teams winning 2 regionals in 2002.... 343, 60 and 469 ( I don't think I have missed any, I'm sure to hear about it if I have). That is a terrific accomplishment which testifies to your great robots, great strategy and great teams.
I am a little confused though....where are your ball grabbers? Havn't you figured out that going for balls is the only good way to play this game?:rolleyes: James Jones Engineer/Coach Team 180 SPAM |
Well if you go by the number one seed then you would have to add 157. they were #1 seed at PA and won it and they were #1 seed at CT but bad luck they didn't win.
Great ball handler. and goal mover. It might be to bad that they won't be at the nationals. Go 180 and show your power. Show to everybody that power will win the nationals. |
A little Jab back...
It appears that out of all of your multiple regional winners, only ONE of them ever seeded in the top 8 (team 60 8th seed, and they were picked by the 1 seed). Seems to me without a 'little help from there friends', they may have been on the outside looking in! Two teams this year were #1 seeds twice. 157 and 67. I think that this is also a great accomplishment! Congrats to 67, you guys will also be a force in the nationals I am sure! |
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jab taken
Mark,
Understand your point entirely. I had a reason for pointing this out. Should get the time to post longer...later. James Engineer/Coach Team 180 SPAM |
I stand corrected. 16 did indeed seed #1 twice. Congrats to them as well, and good luck in the Nationals!
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Why not do both?
Another jab back...
Some of the ball teams can out push most of the goal grabbers and can hold their own against all but the most powerful (60, 254, 469). Teams like 45, 67, and 111 come to mind. (I'm sure more teams should be added to both lists, but I'm only including those I have seen first hand) And as I'm sure you will include in your longer post James, the ball grabbers are usually the ones who seed well and rely on the dominant goal grabbers to help them in the elims. Without the power of the dedicated goal movers we'd be in trouble. Mike |
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This game is actually two games. Outstanding goal teams will not generally seed well since thier best strategery involves annihilation ( by score ) of the other alliance and therefore do not get a lot of qualifying points. This leads to low seeding.
Ball handlers on the other hand seem to seed better since they can, for the most part, pick and choose how many points to score for themselves and the other alliance. The best strtegery for an excellent ball team is to seed high and scout the goal machines and pick well! Good Luck at Nationals!! |
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118 65.25 Two Goal grabber with Mini-bot 57 63.75 Two Goal grabber with Mini-bot 357 61.13 Two Goal grabber My theory on the whole thing? Matches with at least one ball robot in them have higher average scores. That doesn't mean that the ball robot will win every match, but the high scores are higher, and that cancels out a few more losses. Goal robots, which are not guaranteed to have a ball robot in every match with them, have lower high scores, but score roughly the same number of points every time. They are also more likely to have the round locked up early. This makes them a target for the old zero-the-score-out maneuver, which would also tend to bring their average down. In the long run, I'd say that the scores will line up by quality of robot, and not by genus or category, but in the short, 6 to 10 match competitions that we have, a lot can happen to skew the scores one way or another. |
chosing the finals bots
I'm not pretending to say something people don't already know. It's obvious from the regional results that the ball grabbers are generally the high seeds and they are the ones putting together the alliances that hope to make it to the finals. One thing I have noticed though, and it may just be a perception based on my rather uninformed attempts to grasp what's going on over a web cast. It appears to me that in SOME cases the ball grabbers (and please, I don't have any specific team or teams in mind) are very slow to adapt their game to the finals. Yes, I know that many finals have been decided by balls and I know one goal full of balls is worth more than two empty goals etc. But I have also seen alot full goals trapped on the wrong side of the field, ball bots pinned down and a lot of full hoppers at the end of the match because while one partner was filling up with balls the other alliance was locking all three goals together in a tangled mass.
Part of that is just the game and teams doing the best they could with the resources they had. It's just when I sense the emotion that surrounds this subject I wonder if some teams don't see the finals as chance to vindicate their own team's particular approach to the game (balls vs goals etc.) We agree that ball bots will almost always seed higher than goal bots. But do we agree than a strong pair of goal bots will more consistantly beat all but the most exceptional ball bots (the ones you mentioned among them)? That's why I pointed out what type of bots the double winners were. I have faith that most teams will make their decisions based on what they think is in the best interest of the alliance (we've experienced a top seed team doing just that). Honestly speaking though, it may be that the best interest of the alliance is for the top seed team to sit out. That's got to hurt to have these highly complex, very impressively engineered robots playing only 1 round in 2 or 3 in eliminations. I've seen teams do it. I'll ask this to all the ball bots, is your team prepared to do it? Just something to think about. I hope I don't come across too negative on ball bots. I'm not really, we could work very well with one and would love to get the chance (wait...I sense a shameless plug coming on...whew…it passed). I am negative about teams who think there is only one way to play the game and it's their way or the highway. They owe their alliance partners more than that. James Jones Engineer/Coach Team 180 |
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The first match we had them they could not even move the second time they hit one goal and ran back to the end zone. This team happen to be paired up with good robots so they became 7 seed. in the finals they did not put thier robot out first. they put the robots they thought would help them get the win. So some teams out there do think of the big picture. But the team that pick up balls and try to grab goal are given up something. I do not believe they can compete against a pure goal grabber. teams that think they can grab three goals and play against a goal grabber has to rethink there plan. I can't wait till we play again to show what power is all about. Team 180 good luck I believe if teams watch you they will pick you. Show people that power does win matches. |
Team 157 has competed in 3 regionals. Our robot is equipped to grab a goal drive around the field and score balls. Our grabber is very good. We latch onto a goal in seconds. Once we have the goal, it is virtually impossible to get it from us (in the finals in NE *we* released the goal). Our ball picking mechanism is very impressive. When we get a ball, we score it every tiime. Rarely do we miss. If you've seen us, you know what I am talking about.
All that being said, when we designed our machine, we had discussions regarding what direction we should take with this years robot. It was my opinion that we become the BEST two goal grabber in the field. My reasoning was, that in the *finals* he who owns the goals will win, period! Our students however, voted to design a machine that would grab a goal *and* pick up balls. That's what we did, and as our tradition, we did a very good job. However, once we reached the elims, we knew we had to change our game plan. We have chosen two goal grabbers, *and* we have sat out of matches to allow our alliance partners to play. We don't consider this a blow to our ego, we consider our alliance as a team, and we have always done what is best for our team. What we would typically do, would be sit the first match and play the second and if needed the third. We felt that we atleast deserved the right to either win or lose the match on the field (being that we were the alliance captains). We would allow our strongest 2 goal team play in all of the matches. Our success rate was better than average, but not as great as we would wish. We won one regional and lost in the semi-finals in the other two. Could we have done better with a different game plan? Possibly. But, we picked the teams that we felt complimented ours. We are proud of all of our alliance partners and are very happy with the choices we made. |
The jury is still out...
I think that the jury is still out on ball handlers vs. two goal handlers.
I know that many regionals were one by two goal handlers but I also know that there are not that many teams that can handle enough balls to make the difference against goal handlers. In my view, great two goal handlers and great ball handlers are roughly similar in terms of rarity. I think there is also a rough similarity in the advantages each one brings to the alliance. One difference I see is that the ball handlers tend to have a better chance to be in control of who they get as partners so perhaps they will have a better chance of putting together an alliance that is stronger on the whole. It will be interesting to how it pans out in FL. Joe J. |
Personally, a two goal grabber with a reliable ball getter seems to be the best alliance, for the finals. 20 (goals) + 20balls=40
even if the other team got 2robots (20 points) and 1 goal, that is only 30. Our robot guarentees the 10 balls from player station, and can handle 2 goals well, we find ourselves easy to work with any other robot, no matter what their functions are! Good Luck in FL! |
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