Re: Einstein?
 

Yeah, I understand that now, I was talking about what we were first told.

Re: Einstein?
 

This rule allows for possibly the top 3 seeded teams in a division to play TOGETHER as an alliance on einstein:

EXAMPLE:
Lets say 254 finishes 1st in archi
233 finishes 2nd
and 386 finishes 3rd

254 picks 233...386 picks XXX
they are on opposite sides of the bracket

254/233 beat 386/XXX in the finals of archi

We go to einstein........

254/233's teammate 'breaks down'...they go to their replacement, captain of the finalists alliance...good old 386

The new archimedes alliance on einstein ??...number 1 seed 254, number 2 seed 233, and number 3 seed 386

I just dont think that is right...if its legal...sorry to 254/233's partner...but chances are if you go down...theyre prob not thinking twice about their new partner.

Re: Einstein?
 

When a robot that is very good at scoring faces a robot that is very good at preventing scoring, they both score the same number of points. Zero. Strategy (and a little luck) is everything.

Re: Einstein?
 

Erroneous.
Speaking in terms of tubes: The defensive robot has the scoring potential of 0. The robot being defended has potential to score. One cannot say that both robots will not score a point simply because one is defending the other.
Strategy is good, luck is a huge other. I suggest all to go watch The Blue Alliances archive of the final match video. The tube placement by EDIT 987 /EDIT was a great strategic move I am not demeaning that in any way, but I don't think the tube had any effect on 179 not climbing 71's ramps.

Re: Einstein?
 

It was 987 that pushed that tube on. And no, it probably didn't have a physical effect on 179's ramp climbing ability, but it apparently had a psychological effect.

We can go on forever debating this, however, I invite you to look at the facts: this has been an option for at least the past two years. We know of a number of people that have through of this strategy, and yet it has never been used. If it becomes a problem, I would assume FIRST would fix it. But as I see it, there is no problem, and no reason to change it.

Just as an aside, has a replacement ever been used on Einstein?

Re: Einstein?
 

It wasn't a strategy the last two years. This is the first year the rule existed.

Re: Einstein?
 

Ah my bad. I assumed that since there was talk about 25, 986 and 195 swapping out, that it existed. There goes my argument.

In past years, what was the rule on replacement teams on Einstein?

Re: Einstein?
 

Highest unpicked seed from the division.

Re: Einstein?
 

This is not true. The rule certainly existed last year. 177 was on Einstein with 201 and 1126. When 1126 ran into shooter problems, we considered replacing them with the captain of the highest seeded alliance from Galileo, 1625. Winnovation was as good as SPARX. In fact, had we substituted Winnovation (an extremely good scorer) for ourselves (an extremely poor scorer, but strong defensive robot), Einstein 2006 may have gone down very differently. But honestly, who wants to substitute themselves out of the championship? It would have given us a better shot of winning, but we wouldn't have been the winners.

The rule existed last year as well.

Re: Einstein?
 

Wrong, Greg.
The original three-team alliance shall only have one opportunity to draw from the teams on standby. If a second robot from the
alliance becomes inoperable, then the alliance must play the following matches with only two (or even one) teams. It is in the best
interests of all teams to construct their robots to be as robust as possible to prevent this situation.


8.4.4.2 Einstein Playoffs
IF the above alliance wins their division and moves on to the Einstein Playoffs, at that point the alliance can move
Team C back into play in place of Team D, making Team D the backup again.
In this case, if this alliance wins the Einstein Playoffs, the Grand Champions would be teams A, B, C, and D.
If Team C is not able to be repaired and teams A, B, and D play and win the Einstein Playoffs, the Grand Champions
would be teams A, B, C, and D.
If Team C is not able to get repaired and if one of team A, B or D gets damaged in the Einstein Playoffs, thus creating a
need for a third robot, then the alliance may bring up Team E (the highest remaining seeded team from their division,
which did not participate in the Divisional Playoffs) to replace the damaged robot.
In this case, if the alliance with Team E wins the Einstein Playoffs, the Grand Champions will be teams A, B, C, D, and
E.
In any case, once a replacement robot is used in the Einstein Playoffs, none of the teams who sat out a match can come back
into play.

Re: Einstein?
 

I would argue that the defending robot has a scoring potential of 30, for getting up 12" on the other team's ramps. If you can keep a normally high scoring team's scores much lower than normal due to defense, it amplifies the significance of the ramps.

Perhaps it has to do with how you think about the game - in New England (this is a very broad generalization) we have much lower scoring matches, not because our robots and drivers aren't as good, but because we value defense much more than other areas.

I heard someone on the MARTA train on the way to the airport at 6 AM talking about how disappointed they were in the finals this year, since the scores were so low. They inferred this had to do with bad alliances on the field, I infer it is just playing the game differently. I hate when people say you aren't playing the game the way the GDC designed it to be played. I think the GDC should worry about designing a game, and not about forcing teams to play it the way they want. I much prefer the way this year's finals were to 2005's where it was just a scoring fest to see who could score the most tetra's the fastest, and never getting in anyone's way. The strategy and defense aspect evens the playing field for teams who can't afford the money, space, and time for a full field and practice robots, who will obviously do better in all-out scoring, even if their robot isn't necessarily a better designed robot.

Re: Einstein?
 

However, note that the offensive bot also has that potential of 30, so they offset. Therefore, the offensive bot still has greater offensive potential.

Again, I'm not trying to say your win wasn't deserved, I thought it was. I called you guys to win it from the get-go. You played the game how it needed to be played to win it, and I would have done the same.

Note: I am tightly affiliated with 177.

Re: Einstein?
 

I agree - however, the tube scores grow exponentially, whereas the ramp scores are fixed, and therefore keeping the number of tubes scored down greatly increases the effect of the ramps.

It all is kind of irrelevant in a general view and varies greatly on who you are playing, how good (if they exits) their ramps are, etc.

I keep saying to myself how close our wins were, and how if we had done one thing differently we would have lost. But then I have to remember, "close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades".

Re: Einstein?
 

Regardless of the ramp score, I was talking strictly in tubes with the prior realization of any team being able to climb a ramp(hopefuly), thus off-setting as Corey stated. As for the people on the Marta, the GDC makes the game... its gets played, done. I personally believe that a different style alliance not shown on Einstein would have been able to trump any alliance shown there. This alliance is definitly able to be formed also, it isn't a conglomeration of 3 top qualifiers.
Your alliance did a great job however. Congratulations on the win.

Re: Einstein?
 

accually you are not allowed to do this,
when the ppofs decided before the first quarterfinal match that they did not want us on their alliance they tried substituting us but the refs would not let them because our robot worked perfectly. As it turns out that same thing has happened before and now to substitute a robot out it needs to be broken.