Looking for Videos, Pics, strategy etc. from 2004 First Frenzy game
 

Hi. I am looking for videos, pictures and strategy info related to 2004 game. Why? Our team is a 3rd year team this year, however, great majority of our team is made up of first year members. In order to give our students some exposure to what happens during kick off day and the following week, we decided to try to have mock strategy session before the 2010 game is announced.

I wanted to find a game from few years back, something that no team member / mentor has been exposed to, as well as something that lends itself to variety of possible strategies, multiple game objectives, variety of robot types and multiple scoring possibilities. After reading the game rules as well as reading through posts about favorite / most memorable seasons I am leaning strongly towards using 2004 game for our practice strategy session. I have found the game rules, field and scoring info as well as the kick off animation video. We are planning on reviewing the kick off animation and game rules with students and than working with the team (possibly splitting the team into few sub groups) on evaluating game objectives, scoring strategy, robot functions, maybe basic robot design ideas.

At the end of this mock season opener we would like to watch the tapes from elimination matches / finals so that we could get an idea of how well our strategy could have worked out. Unfortunately, I did not find any videos on the blue alliance site. I found few videos on youtube from SVR, but if anyone has any additional videos, links, strategy memories, lessons learned, pictures of good robots etc. it would be a great help.

Also any other tips to prepare young team for good strategy session would be appreciated. If nothing else, I would like to give the new students some basic game analysis, goal setting, idea brainstorming experience, so on the opening day they are on more of a level field with the few veteran members and can take full part in strategy / design objective decision making process.

Thanks and good luck to all.

Re: Looking for Videos, Pics, strategy etc. from 2004 First Frenzy game
 

Another thing you might consider doing is looking at your own robots or you can take a random team's robot and analyze their design choices. You can learn a lot by reverse engineering/thinking their strategies, "good" or "bad" robot.

Another exercise might be to introduce a game (even a recent one) and ask "how do you think this robot did?" and brainstorm up a list of why they did or didn't do so well. You can follow their matches on The Blue Alliance, and then suggest different ways to improve their robot/strategy.

Re: Looking for Videos, Pics, strategy etc. from 2004 First Frenzy game
 

I have always wanted to play the 2004 game, personally. I wasn't around to see it, this is just what I've gathered around here.

Cool solutions and robots:
93's 2004 robot is one of my favorite robots ever, a very creative solution to the ball loading problem. Ensuring as few potential points get into the opponents' hands as possible, I always think of this robot when trying to think of every possible way to obtain and score game pieces. The Cheesy / Bionic Poofs / Bulldogs had a flexible robot that year. Could do everything pretty well. No good pictures of 71's robot on CD Media but they were the World Champions that year. 45's robot featured a roller claw arm and an intake roller for all the balls and was pretty neat.

Videos:
Einstein Semi Final 1-2
971 / 254 / 852 SVR Elimination Matches
45 versus 93

Re: Looking for Videos, Pics, strategy etc. from 2004 First Frenzy game
 

Before the Blue Alliance, there was SOAP (SigmaCat Opponent Analysis Program). SOAP hosted .wmv captures of the field for each event the Sigmacats attended (this including the Championship). It seems the SOAP is long gone, but perhaps the Sigmacats still have these files floating around on a hard drive?

On Soap's website, there are no 2004 videos (link). However, there used to be, and it would be awesome if these could make there way back on the internet.

I downloaded a fair number of these, and may have a couple floating around on my computer at home. I'll check next week and get the few I have back on the internet if I can find them. :rolleyes:

The Rhode Warriors also have some pretty Rhode Warrior centric videos from 2004 (and other years too!)

If I had to pick a robot from 2004 it was team 69, H.Y.P.E.R. They only had a suction cup for the doubler ball, really big wheels, and a mechanism to hang, but in two regionals they never lost a match, per Andy Grady's count. Their alliances dropped two matches (back in those days we cycled our robots in and out during the eliminations) when they weren't on the field, and they tied a time or two, but they never lost. Too bad they didn't go to ATL...

[EDIT]Match 12 of the RhodeWarriors at BAE in 2004 shows a glimpse of the H.Y.P.E.R. machine. While not its most stellar performance, it shows how the 50 points for the bar could easily sway a match[/EDIT]

Re: Looking for Videos, Pics, strategy etc. from 2004 First Frenzy game
 

http://robotics.nasa.gov/archive/webcasts.php

Specifically: http://robotics.nasa.gov/first/2004/regionals.htm

I know for sure the Sacramento Regional and VCU works, when it say download the files or download the finals. You will have to check the rest yourself.

Hope this helps.

-Ken L

Re: Looking for Videos, Pics, strategy etc. from 2004 First Frenzy game
 

Make sure you watch the videos (not sure what match numbers, will look up later) of one of the greatest upsets in FIRST history in that Rhode Warriors archive, where the heavily favored alliance of 60, 33, and 1241 were defeated by the #8 alliance (pre-serpentine era) featuring 121 in the quarters.

One thing to keep in mind when discussing any game is how the strategies change with the levels of play. Certain strategies are very effective in qualification matches, but less effective against higher-quality teams in elimination matches. And then once you reach the Championship elims, the whole stakes change again. So, I'd try and pick as wide a selection of video as possible (obviously limited by what's available) to try and get an idea of how the game played out at various levels of competition.

Another thing to focus on in 2004 is the critical importance of human players. You could have a great robot, but if your HP couldn't score, it left you at a massive disadvantage. And otherwise mediocre teams were held aloft by elite human players. So if you see a robot in the eliminations and wonder, "how the heck did they get picked!?!" consider watching the human players to see.

One final tidbit, you can also try and find video of the 2005 Vex pilot. It was essentially the same as the 2004 FRC game, with the bar only valued at 20 points and no autonomous mode.

Re: Looking for Videos, Pics, strategy etc. from 2004 First Frenzy game
 

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=30257
Really shows off how auto strategy and design neet to work together. It also cracks me up every time I see it.

Re: Looking for Videos, Pics, strategy etc. from 2004 First Frenzy game
 

Archimedes QFs. 60 and company were #1.

That particular selection was interesting, because there were 4 unbeaten teams. As I recall, #1 (60) picked 33, #2 picked 71 (or was 71, I forget), and #3 (571) picked #4 (330). Incidentally, this was the last year before the serpentine draft.

As for strategy, about half a dozen teams nationwide figured out that if you could get on the bar first, you could deny your opponents for the entire match. Two of them also figured out how to negate any doubler attempts. A different team went on to Einstein. Of course, this strategy led to an obvious disadvantage: a 2v1 on the floor.

Re: Looking for Videos, Pics, strategy etc. from 2004 First Frenzy game
 

I meant which matches they were in the Rhode Warriors archives. And while 2004 was the last year of 2v2, but the serpentine did not start until 2006. 2005 was 3v3, but still had a straight draft.

Re: Looking for Videos, Pics, strategy etc. from 2004 First Frenzy game
 

My bad. It's going to be matches 8 and 9 in their archives; looking at matches 10-12, they went up against 71 in their semifinal matches. 71 won the whole thing that year. The difference appears to be 237, one of the bar-blocking robots that year, running with your choice of 121 or 386 playing defense on the small-ball robot (1241 or 33), leaving 60 undefended most of the match.

Re: Looking for Videos, Pics, strategy etc. from 2004 First Frenzy game
 

You are killing me with this video... I had nightmares about that for weeks. And That was a bad penalty call for having the goal placed ontop of us from the opposing alliance. I do have the video from the national high score of that year. It did include 1126 and 67, just need time to get it up on youtube and all.

Re: Looking for Videos, Pics, strategy etc. from 2004 First Frenzy game
 

That hurt me as well. I have all the 2004 videos of our alliance (67, 340, and 1126) from both competitions on my laptop. Let me know if you need any. Thanks to HOT for putting them up on their old website!

To answer the thread question, searching through 2004 photos is probably your best best. I do not have any strategy forms from 340 from that year anymore. I do have pictures and videos if you are interested.

Re: Looking for Videos, Pics, strategy etc. from 2004 First Frenzy game
 

Find that video (my laptop is out of commission from now on) and get it in this thread!

Re: Looking for Videos, Pics, strategy etc. from 2004 First Frenzy game
 

Shimmy robot ftw! I think everyone loved our design that year because of it's simplicity, and very effective strategy the majority of the time! ::safety::

Re: Looking for Videos, Pics, strategy etc. from 2004 First Frenzy game
 

It was one of the smartest designs of 04. Our alliance learned that the hard way :rolleyes: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/17418

A really cool thing for your team members to do would be try out JVN's Weighted Objectives Table (highlighted in his white papers on here). Since you have many examples for solutions already, help your members figure out what is the best solution for 04's game and then figure out how your team specifically would be able to adapt that design using your available resources.

Have fun. :)