What won in 2006?
 

We are doing training sessions for new members, and in that, we want to teach them about strategy. The way we're doing that, is by going through a few years of games, having them brainstorm strategies, present them, 'decide' on them, and then play a practice game with people as robots, then, finally, reveal what won that year.

I want to do 2006, because it is such a strategy intensive year, but, considering I wasn't around (around FIRST, that is), I need some help. Would someone around here be so kind as to enlighten me on that front? Thanks in advance.

Re: What won in 2006?
 

Archived docs and competition results are available on FIRST website By clicking on "game and season info"

You can also find it on http://www.thebluealliance.com/ along with match videos.

Re: What won in 2006?
 

While I wasn't there as well, I do know a good enough amount about the game played that year, and have re-watched enough matches, to know what won.

If you don't know exactly what the game was, points in Aim High were scored by either pushing balls into either of the two side goals on the ground, or by shooting balls into the center goal in the air. That year, the game was split into offensive and defensive rounds, with alliances alternating between who was on offense and defense. In an offensive period, teams were free to make shots. In defensive period, teams were required to keep one of their alliance partners in their side of the field, while the other two robots attempted to stop the offensive alliance from scoring.

Autonomous was a big part of that year. Strong teams/alliances could score 30+ points in that period, creating a huge advantage for the rest of the game. That period had it's own strategy, since robots were lined up on each side of the field, some to go up to their own goal and score, and some to interfere with their opponents. Having a good camera and shooter in this round was good, but you also had to be able to counter defense. I don't know how a lot of teams did that, but I know some teams had pauses in their autonomous period to allow would-be defenders to drive right past them, then continue to the goal and unload. Because the center goal could be located with the camera, having a good camera and programmer was a huge asset for that period, and used to great effect by some of the stronger teams!

Teams that won that year excelled at making shots at that center goal. That involved being able to sink those shots quickly, consistently, and in large amounts. Because offensive rounds only lasted 30s, teams had to be able to make the most of it, requiring a large storage for balls, and a quick, consistent shooting mechanism to score points. That also involved be able to acquire balls quickly, which many teams did with rollers (like you may have seen in 2009).

Teams had to have the ability to play offense AND defense, though. Since there were periods where you couldn't score, you didn't want to just be sitting on your hands for 30s. Some teams used this period to refill their supply of balls, while others would drive in front of their opponents, in an attempt to stop them from scoring. Robots with extreme pushing power made a huge impact in the game.

I'm afraid I don't know enough about the "end-game" to be able to tell you what strategy won for that round. I do know that the "end game" consisted of driving up onto a fairly steep ramp to score bonus points. Since the last period of play was open for anyone to score, it was a team's preference of if they wanted to climb the ramp, or shoot and score more balls. If you watch some of the matches, you may be able to see if it was a necessary part of the game at the higher level, but I do know most alliances had at least one team on the ramp at the end of the game.

Oh, and one more thing: Don't fall over.

I hope this is what you were looking for, and that it helps. If not, feel free to ask.
-Leeland

Re: What won in 2006?
 

2006 was not one of my favorite games. The winner of the first part of the round ended up with a huge advantage. Often this advantage would make scoring near to impossible if the strategy played out. That is in the defensive mode, if you picked up a lot of scoring balls, the team on offense had nothing to score. When your turn came, you were holding a lot of scoring objects and were able to win the day.
We had a combination of storage (at least 12 balls), an exceptional aiming system, could score ten balls in less than ten seconds, and had a method of locking the robot in place so that it couldn't be bumped while shooting. If an alliance could not win auto then it started the match in offensive mode usually without any balls. (the alliance would have scored most of what it had at the start of the match.) With that, robots then had to spend much of their offensive round picking up balls so they could shoot and score. While on defense, the alliance could be picking up balls and could start their offensive round with a full load. The last period was a free for all and scoring occurred in a manner more normal to other games. Part of the scoring strategy then had to be for the robot to hold as many of the ten balls as were allowed for the start of the match.

Re: What won in 2006?
 

2006 was great because there were multiple ways to win the game. If you were great at one aspect of the game, you were an asset.

The key was to stay within your team's resources and to build a robot that excelled at some part of the game. If I had to pick just one to be great at, it would be the autonomous mode.

Re: What won in 2006?
 

A summary of what won: Definitely high storage capacity and a quick fire mechanism. A key part was having the part where the ball exited the robot as close to the top as possible. Otherwise you were easily blocked. A strong drivetrain would allow you to push teams that were trying to line up for a shot which gave defense an average impact that year. I believe the ramp used during end-game was the steepest I've seen in FIRST in my time, but that might have been due to our robot tipping 95% of the matches trying to get up. Definitely sturdy was important for teams planning on climbing. One design I saw a few times that seemed to do relatively well was having a helical ball storage with a shaft in the middle that would spin and push the balls up the ramp. At the top was a pitching machine type of device. Using the sensor was definitely key to this game. If you couldn't use it to aim, you probably wasted a few balls getting lined up. This became a bigger deal with the aforementioned defense trying to push you around while you lined up.

Jason

Re: What won in 2006?
 

My favorite robot from that year was team 703. It was such a neat machine. Very clean, relatively simple.

Re: What won in 2006?
 

And sometimes airborne. :yikes: Opponents had to watch their controls in autonomous, they hit the wall so hard.

Re: What won in 2006?
 

I think the optimum alliance was comprised of an amazing Defensive robot, a human loaded ramp camping robot, and a floor loading perimeter shooter. I may be biased though as that was the IRI winning alliance.

Re: What won in 2006?
 

And the Champs winning alliance..

Re: What won in 2006?
 

One thing I liked about 2006 was that fairly simple, well driven robots could compete very well. At Buckeye that year the Martians (494) and the Tiger Techs (963) had the two best performing robots through qualifying. The Martians had an amazing shooter with automatic goal tracking, able to get all or almost all the balls in to the high goal in autonomous even while being pushed and able to shoot from almost anywhere on their half of the field, with a good ball gathering system and funky spiral system to lift balls to the shooter. The Tiger Techs could only score in the low goal, had a good low scoring autonomous that just ran straight along the wall and dumped balls, a good good ball gatherer with a huge basket and a two speed transmission. The Tiger Techs also had a really good driver. They qualified first in spite of not being able to score high and having a couple of rounds in which they played down an ally. The Tiger Techs robot is something we could have built in two or three weeks (if we had been smart enough to conceive of the strategy) while the Martians robot was probably beyond our capabilities at the time.

Re: What won in 2006?
 

Define these three archeotypes :P

Re: What won in 2006?
 

Well defensive robot is obviously one that's great at disrupting opposing shooters to miss as many as possible.

Human loaded robot is necessary to redeem all the points the other team scores, as each ball is a 3 point difference you need to make up.

Ramp camping is more of a location based attribute that brings variety to the shooting arsenal, making your alliance harder to defend.
1 defensive robot will have a hard time covering someone on the ramp shooting and a perimeter robot.

Floor loading is important to score points essentially for "free" as you have paid no toll for them, these give you a +3 point advantage over the other guys.

Perimeter shooting as stated above just makes your alliance harder to defend.

Re: What won in 2006?
 

Watch the Cheesy Poofs during the Aim High Silicon Valley Regional, and notice that they appear to want to lose the autonomous part of the match. That was a wise & clever strategy.

Re: What won in 2006?
 

I recall a strategy that hasn't been mentioned yet. Some robots would go up onto the ramp and shoot from there. It was a simple robot that stored alot of balls and parked just in front of the goal. It made it next to impossible to miss once they were up there. I can't recall any team numbers that had this particular robot, but I just remember being surprised when I first saw them. Of all the hair-brained schemes I had, that one never passed my mind.

Jason

Re: What won in 2006?
 

A lot of the good teams were capable of doing this (and also shooting from the floor). It was less a specific strategy, and more a method of scoring points.

Re: What won in 2006?
 

You know what really won Aim High? Targeting the goal.

Imagine how many top-tier robots of the time wouldn't have been good at all if there wasn't the ability to target that goal. It might have been the one FIRST game where you almost HAD to use the camera system on your shooter. And the robots that were the best could not only snag that target with a camera faster than other robots, but also could keep that camera eye fixed on the farget as they wizzed around on their side of the field and avoided defenders.

Having the ability to hold many of the poof balls and shooting them well was yes a winning combo for a robot, but without the ability to target you were dead reconing your shots.

Re: What won in 2006?
 

1.) Good autonomous shooting. Winning auto was worth a 10 pt bonusand it left the auto losing alliance on offense right away having to collect balls to shoot wasting time while the auto winners could reload while defending.

2.) DEFENSE- control of the ramp and middle of the field while sweeping up balls. The goal was to minimize scoring during the alliaince's individual offense periods.

3.) Ramp bonus at the end. Any 3 robots on your ramp was a 25 point bonus which was substantial. If you were good in the middle of the game you had one of your opponents pinned on the ramp which was legal that year.

Re: What won in 2006?
 

I may be a bit biased, but 2006 was my favorite year of FIRST as a student.

The value of autonomous can not be understated, but you didn't have to score in the high goal. Running across the field and throwing your opponents off target and stopping them from scoring was just as effective as scoring yourself. Auto-mode was sometimes won by the "guaranteed" dumper robots who scored in the low goals.

This game, as well as 2004 for those of you who remember, made diversification in design the best way to put together an alliance.

Out here on the East Coast at the CT Regional, defensive play won most of the matches. With a lot of designs having high CGs, pushing your opponents up the ramps while they were attempting to shoot often resulted in robots flipped over. Also designs that maximized a robots height allowed you to park in front of shooting robots to block them.

2006 was the year that pushed me to look into always designing for a way to ensure that you will be able to score. For Aim High, these designs include dumping in the corner goals or parking up on the ramp to shoot, which became known as “Ramp Camping”.

Re: What won in 2006?
 

I'll repeat; take a look how the Poofs made use of the autonomous time. I didn't talk to them about it; but I believe their successful strategy included purposefully losing the Autonomous period. That creates a good argument against saying that winning the autonomous bonus was important, and instead supports a counter-intuitive assertion that winning autonomous could be a problem instead of a benefit.

N>3 manually-assisted shots that go in at the beginning of the 1st teleop period, instead of M>3 attempted shots during autonomous that go awry erases the autonomous bonus; and puts you in good shape for getting accurately reloaded by human players before the 3rd teleop scoring period.

Blake

Re: What won in 2006?
 

I don't think I've seen any vids of 254 during that regional, but perhaps they knew their auto wasn't accurate enough to win the auto periode, so they saved their balls for teleoperated when they were more accurate. If this is the case, while it is a wise call by 254, it does not support the arguement that autonomous is not that important. I'm sure they would rather have an accurate auto and win autonomous than an inaccurate one and save thier shots for teleoperated.

Re: What won in 2006?
 

This is a very good point, however its definitely in the minority.

Many many teams won entire regionals based purely on the fact they were able to drain 10/10 in automode every time out.

2006 was definitely the best year for the camera. I thought that 2010 had a good chance of duplicating that, but from the looks of it it wasn't nearly as important as 2006. Teams like 25, 111, 233, 217, 11 all took advantage of the camera to such a large degree that they were often incredibly difficult to stop. Other teams such as 254/968 utilized specific scoring strategies that often yielded incredible results.

I think everyone who was around for the infamous "A-bomb" strategy will testify to how awesome a game it was. For those who were unfamiliar with this, teams 25, 968 and 195 were aligned together in Newton. The teams had devised a strategy that greatly highlighted the individual team strengths. Team 195 was a "dumper bot" that year. They were a fridge-like robot that would scour the field collecting balls. Team 968 was one of the fastest rapid fire shooters in FIRST, and often utilized "ramp camping" to ensure as many balls as possible made it into the goal. Well after 968 had climbed the ramp and emptied their first clip into the goal, they would climb off of the ramp. They would meet up with team 195 around midfield, and 195 would dump their entire hopper into ground feeder of team 968, essentially refilling them in an instant. Team 968 would then climb back up the ramp and unload an entire hopper into the goal. The alliance ended up losing on Einstein, however it was not for lack of creativity.

To me this is still one of the coolest plays I've seen happen in FIRST. Being close with many of drivers on those teams made it very memorable for me. I think this speaks to the diversity of Aim High and how awesome a game it was.

-Brando

Re: What won in 2006?
 

This strategy was employed against us on Einstein by the 25/968/195 allaince in the 2nd and 3rd matches after we beat them big in the first match. (The explaination here is me paraphrasing a member of 25 i talked to about this)The reason this was done was because our alliance was hitting 17-20 balls in auto all through elims. The opposing alliance knew they would lose to that and our defense in auto. They were more accurate in human control and didn't want to unload and lose balls that didn't score. Thus they would be in good position to score 20+ balls right as the first period started and their human players could reload 25 and get in more runs because all our balls were in their goal. In the end this strategy had nothing to do with the outcome of the matches. In match 2 we were ahead until 968 pushed us over backwards when we tried to pin them on the ramp (A perfectly legal play that year) making a 3 on 2 our alliance couldn't overcome. In match 3 1126's shooter broke in auton and we didn't have the needed firepower anymore.

The only reason to play this way is if you weren'y accurate in auton so you wanted to be loaded and ready for human control and not have to reload before you start playing offense.

Re: What won in 2006?
 

Peter - There most certainly was a reason to consider avoiding winning autonomous during Aim High, regardless of your ability to drill the high goal autonomously.

Winnning Auton, put you on defense, then offense, then offense again during Teleop.

Losing Auton, put you on offense, then "defense", then offense again during Teleop.

Which of those two looks like the better rhythm for scoring, refilling a large hopper and then scoring again?

The trade-off was giving up 10 points in order to get to use the second of the two rhythms.

Your mileage may vary.

Blake

Re: What won in 2006?
 

I remember seeing 233's robot and thinking it was almost the "perfect" bot that year. Reasons being:

1. It could pick up balls off the floor
2. It shot balls out the top
3. It could shoot balls any direction (and camera assisted)
4. It was force-fed and didn't jam.

The weak part was that you couldn't load it from the top.


Having experienced that season, and knowing what I know now, I'd focus my design around four (achievable) things:
1. Be crazy fast and maneuverable.
2. Pick up balls on a minimum of 2 sides.
3. Have an open top (be able to toss balls in)
4. Dump.

Re: What won in 2006?
 

They need to bring back a version of this game in the future. It was by far the best game ever!

Re: What won in 2006?
 

We won the Nasa/VCU regional that year. We had a good shooter and storage,good auto and a heavy robot that was hard to push, our finals
partners were 1598 and 343. It was built so robust that a couple years
later one of the students drove it off the stage at school and there was
very little damage and it kept running (its since been partly rebuilt to keep it
running for demos) It could also be run by only one student which made it simpler.

We had a auto that could be changed for each match just by turning a switch so the opposing alliance had a hard time countering it. Sometimes we went right out and started shooting...other times it could go forward a little then stop and wait for a opposing alliance robot to come by (with the intention of hitting us) and then move to shooting range and shoot in auto.

On the down side if some one hit us we couldn't shoot at the target
and had to move. Also we lined up in auto using dead reconning since we didn't have time during build to add the camera. Almost all times it worked, but once in a while it didn't. We had to add sights so it was easier for the
students to line it up. If someone got in front of us while shooting they could
block us. Luckly we had a fast shooter.

If I would have added anything it would have been mechanum wheels as it would have made us more manuverable.
While we did great at Nasa/VCU we did'nt do so well at Atlanta and learned the lesson that the winning robots in Atlanta
are in a very different class and we try to aim to built with that in mind.

Re: What won in 2006?
 

I have a question for those back in 2006. Were their any robots that focused on collecting balls and shooting at the same time? Basically a robot that has a rotating and pivoting shooter mechanism with a camera mounted on the shooter. This way the co pilot can aim and shoot with the shooter while at the same time the driver is busy collecting balls.

Thanks

Re: What won in 2006?
 

987's offering that year is similar to what you describe. There's a few videos on blue alliance. Funny enough, we were teamed up with you guys at CMP in 2006, but I think it was before your time.

Edit- Actually it was in 2008 that we teamed up; I am confusing my years.

Re: What won in 2006?
 

My favourite play of the year was when 217 did this in the Einstein finals -- having never previously revealed their ability to do so during the whole season. IIRC, one of our opponents pushed them up the ramp thinking it would trap them, but they instead turned around and fired a bunch of balls right into the goal. It made a huge difference, considering the final match was won by 4 points.

Definitely my favourite game hands down, but as a then-member of 296 I'm biased. :)

Re: What won in 2006?
 

I have a hard time remembering that far back, but as I recall it, during SVR we either had no autonomous or an auton that pretty much sucked. I'd have to go back and look at those videos but I don't recall there being any strategy to lose autonomous.

We definitely did not have a very reliable autonomous until championships.

Re: What won in 2006?
 

I like how they fired balls from the corner of the ramp. That was really, really cool. Since they were surrounded on 2 sides by walls, they had nowhere to be pushed.

Re: What won in 2006?
 

I think the closest a team came to doing this was 111. Maybe some of the guys from WildStang can chime in as I am definitely just recalling this from a foggy memory.

If you think about the logistics of doing what you proposed, it ends up being quite a challenge.

-Brando

Re: What won in 2006?
 

LOL - Well, from what I see in the videos, it appeared that the result was a fortuitous sequence of events that worked beautifully (until the robot was beaten nearly to death by defenders).

The machine filled the goal like a grease gun seconds after auton was over (30 pts); returned to the driver station to be filled with the HP's initial balls and any balls the opposition had managed to score; then poured those into the goal during the combo scoring period(30-40 pts). Every shot counted, balls available to opponents were minimized, and opponents had no time to answer the points scored with the 2nd batch of 10+ scored balls.

The machine also appeared to have two "money shots". Two spots on the floor from which it was perfectly aligned to shoot 10 for 10. In contrast (that year was our rookie team), we poured endless hours into a 2 DOF turret that was "just a bit" less accurate than 10 for 10. ;) The team had convinced itself that defenders blocking shots would be a big problem. However, in those videos I saw clear evidence that we would have been far better off with a simple shooter and a better drive train. Some matches it took your (Poofs) driver(s) a little patience to get to the spots, but once the robot was in one, they pulled the trigger and for that batch of balls it was all over but the shouting.

Blake

Re: What won in 2006?
 

Blake, are these videos online?

Re: What won in 2006?
 

They once were easy to find.

Right now the The Blue Alliance has scores but no video.

The NASA Robotics Alliance is teasing me with a podcast at this location http://www.podcast.tv/video-episodes...l-4582699.html
that does seem to want to play on my computer.

Clever searching by someone might turn up a useful source.

I did find one video on the Menlo -Atherton team's site. It is of the final match of the 2006 SVR. In that match, a Poofs/alliance choice to stop an opponent during auton (instead of setting up for an immediate Teleop score), aggressive defense (and a bumper that fell off of a robot in an unfortunate location) combined to create an unusually low-scoring match for the 254 bot. In that match the Poofs & their allies chose to go for winning auton.

However, the opposing alliance still lost the match and the alliance with the Poofs won the regional. Several factors were in play. One was that when you are on defense you usually aren't scoring anything.

That video is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWyoNY6CkHQ

Can anyone find any other 2006, Team 254, SVR (or other location) videos?

Blake

Re: What won in 2006?
 

In 2006, there was a muzzle velocity limit for shooting the balls (though they had a difficult time measuring it). If you did the analysis, there was a very specific launch angle that could score from the end of the ramp, to almost mid-field with the same velocity and shooting angle. This was a big enabler that year.

Re: What won in 2006?
 

We definitely did specifically tune the robot so that we had a few sweet spots to shoot from. As I recall it, one was obviously from on top the ramp, one was from the base of the ramp, another from the corners on either side of the ramp, and another about 10-12' out from the ramp. We did this by articulating the hood over our shooter between two positions.

Re: What won in 2006?
 

And the higher the exit point of the shooter, the greater the area of the field over which that angle could score.

Re: What won in 2006?
 

Found some (plenty) here http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...6592046251675#

One example is match 57 at 18:30 in that video.

You can find the 2006 SVR match schedule (to help you navigate through the multi-hour video) here: http://dev.thebluealliance.net/tbatv/event/2006sj

Just to stop fawning over the Poofs for a minute, the Poofs usually field a very good team in VRC and FRC (and probably in most competitions they enter); but I certainly don't think they sit around sipping ambrosia on Mt Olympus. Instead in this thread, I think they are a good example of winning by doing something other than just scoring points as soon as the rules allow.

You don't win if you don't score more points than the other alliance; but most well-designed STEM robotics games include more dimensions than just rushing to score. In particular, the path from the opening bell of an FRC match to a win isn't always a straight one. 2006 Aim High was game in which it wasn't *always* smart to shoot balls as soon as possible. Sometimes waiting for the right moment made more sense.

It doesn't take Olympian gods to think through subjects like this. All a team (like the original poster's) needs to do is to take a few minutes to stop and assess the games from more than one angle before settling on a strategy. The OP's plan to practice doing this sort of thing is a pretty good one.

Blake

Re: What won in 2006?
 

I want to say the angle was 28 to 31 degrees if you were shooting from very close to the upper size limit which we were. I think it was 28 if you ignored wind resistance, and then more like 31 after experimental testing and wind resistance was added in. (Trajectory physics is really neat to see applied).

This is a really good design exercise where shooting from a high point made it difficult to block, larger sweet spot for fixed angle, and several other positives.
Often though this made for a higher CG which was a big negative for going up that very steep ramp come bonus time. As this thread was looking for lessons, doing some sort of comparative analysis (Weight objective Table, House of Quality, Pro/Con table...) on the Low vs. High shooter would be very good. Team 67 form 2006 would be a good example of trying to find the unicorn solution. They had a neat design that in theory would have had an extremely low CG with a very high shooter, it just didn't work out that way in practice.
************************************************
Another important element from 2006 was how to handle a large group of balls. Many teams tried the large hopper with a feeder hole that resulted in ball jams. Trying to make a jam-proof system is much more difficult than it would initially seem. Many teams skipped the jamming problem al together and kept the balls serialized in a column. This allowed them to deliver balls extremely fast and accurrately.

Re: What won in 2006?
 

We definitely experimented with this early on. The goal wasn't to collect and shoot, but rather escape from a defender and shoot. We mounted a laser pointer to our turret and drove around while the turret tracked the goal using the camera. We found that the system wasn't fast enough to make the shots on the run at driving speed. We thought about adding in some predictive logic, but the turret wasn't fast enough. In the end without extra logic and keeping it relatively simple, it tracked great at longer distances and while sitting still. It worked pretty well when moving slowly and while getting pushed.

In auto we wouldn't shoot unless we were locked on to the light. In driver control, we had an LED stalk that indicated when the turret was locked on. This gave the driver full control.

In terms of trajectory, like many teams we had a hood that rotated to change the angle of the shot. We found that when close to the goal the angle had to be large and it decreased as we moved back. Then at some point the angle had to go up again to make the shots while the ball was coming down. We created a lookup table with the perfect angle at various distances and did a linear interpolation between the points. Using the camera, the robot calculated the distance using trig and adjusted the angle based on the lookup table. It worked pretty well for the most part.

Re: What won in 2006?
 

Thanks for the help all!

The end result of the session was 'the team' choosing to focus on the side goals, rather than the main one. Everybody felt that it would be too easy to defend the main one, and too hard to reliably score on it. And somehow, they managed to analyze it such that they could score 18 points in each side goal for every six in the top. Beats me.

Don't worry, I set them straight :P

We watched a video of Einstein that year, and it really does go to show that you have absolutely no idea how the game will end up being played until competition. It was a great lesson for new members; something you can't communicate just by saying 'it doesn't work out the way you think it does sometimes'

Again, thanks.

Re: What won in 2006?
 

I don't really think giving up on the idea of strategic analysis is a lesson you want to teach your team.

Re: What won in 2006?
 

A quick low goal scorer with a large capacity could be a great asset. If all it does is play D and collect balls all match and then dumps them into the side goals in the last couple seconds (15s?) it could swing the game. Every ball you take out of play from the floor is a ball your opponents don't have. If I recall 322 did pretty much this exact strategy. I seem to recall them winning a regional.


Edit: Also don't underestimate how irritating 1 ball in the low goal can be... I think Aren will agree with this statement.

Re: What won in 2006?
 

1 screw in 1 piece of tread, grrrr

Re: What won in 2006?
 

Who mentioned giving up on it? I thought the lesson was that you shouldn't count your chickens before they hatch. Yes, you should analyze the situation. But once you have, it is important to not assume your decision is final. Continue to think about things. Don't take your null hypothesis for granted. That was the lesson to learn. In other words, think things through but be willing to roll with the punches if you didn't figure properly.

Jason

Re: What won in 2006?
 

You got me with that one Aren. I don't recall that from the Galileo finals. Story?

Re: What won in 2006?
 

In the first finals match when 177 so gracefully deposited us into the corner goal it ripped a piece of tread halfway off a wheel, which then caused that side of the drivetrain to be inoperable. This pretty much took us out of match 1 completely.

It also had the side effect of me trying to get us out of the corner not knowing what was wrong, so essentially stalling some CIMs for quite a while, leaving them on fire for match two and horribly unresponsive. That's when we found you can toast a CIM.

so yeah, I kinda have the internal grudge against that piece of tread for costing us Einstein

Re: What won in 2006?
 

If the volunteers at Lockheed Martin are able push out another iteration of the multi-player, 5th Gear, FRC, match simulator this coming season, give it a try.

It's not perfect; but quite a few folks have found it useful for getting a sense of how matches will play out, before they finish their robot.

In past seasons that simulator has gone public in middle to late January.

Blake
PS: Creating a 5th Gear Aim High simulation would be a good thing to do. It was my favorite game. However, the 500+ hours that go into each release makes creating releases for past games a daunting hill to climb.

Re: What won in 2006?
 

If there was any game I would literally pay to play a good simulator of, I think Aim High might just be it.