[JesseK]

Personally, if I knew the opposing alliance had massive minibot capabilities, I would stock up on tubes in the home zone for about the first 90 seconds -- just acquire, traverse, drop, and repeat. 1 robot's responsibility would be putting up the tubes in the last 30 seconds or so, and it'd be the robot that is BEST at it (or 2 robots would hang if only 1 of the 3 had minibot capabilities). It would basically boil down to whether or not the strategy could make up 35 points in 30 seconds. It takes about 6-12 tubes (from memory...) to make up 35 points depending on the robot's capability. Depending on the Alliance composition, the differential could be even less if Ubertubes were hung and 2 minibots deployed instead of 1. Since we're talking about tube-hanging versus minibots, I think it's safe to say that 2 ubertubes will be hung and 1 minibot will climb on the tube-centric Alliance. Thus, the point differential to make up will be even less -- somewhere between 23 and 27 points. This is doable within 5 tubes if they're all on the top in 1 logo + 1 extra where 2 are on ubertubes.

So minibot-only will probably suffice for early Regional Qualification matches since tube scores will probably be low, but I don't foresee it being a viable longer term primary strategy to win an overall FIRST Regional in the later weeks. It's always good to have in a clutch situation though.

/hijack Hmm. How many tubes would it take to make up the 10 points for last place in the minibot race? i.e. If a team knew they would probably get last place, and it takes 20 seconds to traverse, line up, and deploy, in what situations could the team make up 11 points on the rack if 2-3 tubes were already available in the scoring zone?