[Mike Norton]

What we learned. To play well you need to to have a great scouting crew. If you go into a match with a good plan you can beat some great robots.

1) shooters vs climbers. You need both. If your climber can stop the other team great shooter then come back and score 30 to 50 pts that will win 90% of the matches. You need great auto shooters. You can not give up the bonuse points to the other team and expect to win.

2) a great driver can insure great results. If you have a great robot and can't drive, then what good is it.

3)Why we did so well in the finals was because of great scouting. Our students knew what teams would work well with our robot. They picked teams that where not on the top seeding. But had watch team 175 and 172 get better and better as the seeding matches went along. 172 at the end was hitting all 3 disc in auto mode then kept shooting and holding their own against the best. 175 was the same way they starting to hit all of their disc in the auto mode. That 36 points to start the match off was great. I would watch out for team 175 at the CT. Regional by then they will have a fine turn robot that will be at the top of the seeding rounds.

4) do not waste or damage your robot when you know your score is high enough to win the match. I saw a lot of plans to play defense against robots that could not score much points. Know what you can score and know what the other team can put up and play to that. We saved our robot from any damage using this plan.

5) For all you 30 pts climbers make sure you have some tall kids to be able to take your robot off the top. This is a back breaker.

6) it was easy to put your robot in place to have the other team incur penaltys. This was a defense position.