Quote:
Originally Posted by popnbrown
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Congrats to 1625 for their great run through QFs and a very very close loss, having your alum as one of our mentor is fantastic and we're very proud to have your team as an influence.
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Team 3135 offers our thanks for being chosen to be part of the 1625 and 2949 alliance.
Though on the field, we did not really execute up to our full potential as an alliance, the three triple balances in four tries at the pits practice bridge, with the last one in 30 seconds, made it clear that we could have gone all the way with the excellent shooting of you guys as our two partners.
From the lack of 3-bot balances in the Midwest Regional, clearly the scores were lower than I had expected. Our bot was a specialty design, intended mainly for ensuring consistent successful 3-bot balances by hanging well off the side of the bridge, so that two typical
narrow bots could still drive right past us, up a pre-tilted (by us) bridge. We had perhaps the sturdiest bridge arm, and could frequently get up the bridge and balanced in a few seconds, as well as pre-tip the bridge while holding position half way down it.
When we realized we had been picked by a pair of
wide bots, we thought our 3-bot balance plans were doomed. However, by us being first in queue at the pits practice bridge, we were able to discover that because most of our bot's 115 lb.weight was so seriously shifted to the right-front quadrant, our 6-wheel tank with brake could still back up at the middle of the bridge as 1625 and 2949 pushed us, and then by creeping our middle wheels right up to the end of the bridge, using intermittent braking, we could still allow our alliance partners to fit and make it up with us. Needless to say, at that point we were feeling very optimistic.
Then in our first-of-three QF matches, at the end we were up by more than 10 points. With us on the bridge and balanced, somehow, seeing that our opponents had two bots balanced, our alliance got panicked into thinking we needed to get a 2nd bot up on our bridge to win, which resulted instead in us getting no bots balanced for a loss.
Our 2nd QF match was a shoot out that was nearly ending with us trailing by one point, and with each alliance already having only one bot balanced. Our sharp shooting partners felt their chances for a win were better by continuing to shoot right up to the end, rather than go for the 2nd bot on our bridge, but they just could not manage to hit any last few seconds shot to get the lead. So, we went down 38-37 in a hard fought effort.
Had our bot only brought a little more ball shooting ability to the alliance, instead of just bridge skill, we would have been a much tougher alliance to eliminate, but congrats also to our 7th seed opponents, who hung in there and did exactly what they needed to do to squeak right past us into the semifinals
Our team had to complete major mods in the pits, including narrowing out bot's width by 2" (for better side hang balance) mounting our shooter and brake, along with chain issues & replacing several bent axles. We only made one practice match and had no practice in the pit area until qualifying was over. So, we are really thrilled by having accomplished the 3 out of the 4 triple balances we tried with our partners on the pit bridge. This 3rd year was our most exciting and successful, and wee felt like the game design was outstanding.
All the best to those teams moving on to nationals or waiting for their regional.
-Dick Ledford