[Brandon Holley]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

In my experience, it's not the withholding allowance that lets teams get better over the course of the season... it's run time. With the exception of this year (which was a fluke), my team has always done significantly better at our second regional. We've never really utilized the withholding allowance.

When the first regional starts, our drivers have very little practice. Programming has only had a few hours with the robot. Simply put, we have issues that we haven't had time to fix yet.

When the second regional starts, we've had three 8+ hour days of hard work testing, refining, and driving the robot in the previous regional. We also have practical experience knowing how the game will be played. We come out much more prepared, and as a result perform much better.

I'll add to that a note of something I observed this season. There was a team in Duluth that ended up seeding very well. When they came down to Minneapolis, they brought in a brand new 30lb shooter and spent the first day swapping it out on their machine. They didn't do as well in Minneapolis. They then went to Champs last week, used their withholding to bring in another new shooter, and spent some time modifying their bot. The first two iterations were tall, while the third was short enough to fit under the pyramid. From what I've heard, they issues the entire weekend. Iterating with your withholding allowance isn't always beneficial.

I agree Jon. I should've been more detailed in my reply. I don't think withholding allowance is the only reason teams improve. Obviously practice, and simply 'getting the bugs out' goes a very long way. I do believe that the withholding allowance allows teams to continue elevating their ceiling, which can be a good or bad thing in specific cases.

Your anecdote on the Duluth team is also a very good example of how withholding can hurt. Ive seen many cases just like that over the year (including with my own team). I've also seen many cases of a team making upgrades using withholding and elevating to an entirely new level. A good example this year comes to mind with 3467. They were a consistent 30 point climber at BAE, but saw a limitation to their ceiling early on in the season. They spent the 5 weeks between BAE and Pine Tree building a shooter system and remounting their climber to it. At Pine Tree the team was capable of an extremely consistent 18 point auto, 12-14 teleop discs and a ~17-20 second 30 point climb. This put their ceiling VERY high compared to a typical cycler or a typical 30 point climber.


So to summarize- I think there are teams who use withholding to their extreme benefit while there are others who fall short of their intended targets. Either way, I think its an important part of the development cycle for a robot in a particular season.

-Brando