[Brandon Holley]

I would never think taking balls from one side of the field and launching them to the other would spark such a healthy conversation about our robot, but apparently I was wrong!

Joe- While I can see your point, and also heard you and others emphasize it in Indiana, I think you are oversimplifying our strategy just a bit. I don't want to go in and start breaking down tape second by second, but just being on that side of the field does a lot. Any balls that would normally find their way into the protected lane, are now in a no fly zone for the other alliance. Ditto for any balls below the key, near the fender. We would often just cruise through that area to be a nuisance. I also disagree that most teams could inbound at 95%, but unless someone took scouting data for that, we'll have to agree to disagree.

Travis- In our qualification match against you guys, I was genuinely surprised to see you playing D on us. We were not expecting a solid scoring robot like yourselves, to not focus completely on scoring. Kudos on a match well played.


Dan explained a bit why we chose the strategy we did in Indiana, but I'll just elaborate a bit more. We went into IRI with a brand new set of drivers, and a well tuned robot. We made several tweaks, and knew we'd have a lot of options for strategy when we got to IRI. We feed a lot because knew it was our best chance at contributing to the WINNING IRI alliance. While we are capable of scoring 10+ balls/match in optimal conditions, we simply are not as fast as many of the other bots that were in Indiana. We knew that the winning alliance in Indiana would feature 2 primo scoring machines and 1 support style robot. Knowing we would most likely not be able to put up the numbers to be one of the 2 scoring machines on the winning alliance, we focused on the support style of play. Extreme backspin on the shooter, smart play, effective balancing and consistent hybrid all helped make a solid feeding machine.



As for who is the best feeder? It is not us. 16 owns that honor by a wide margin. Extremely well driven, extremely agile. Better pickup, ability to become "wide" on the ramp. The Bomb Squad was the best feeder bot this year, hands down.

-Brando