Now that I have had a couple days to digest it all, I'd like to share my thoughts on the whole experience.
Our goal this year was to "dance on Einstein". Just making it to Einstein was a huge achievement for our team. I couldn't believe when we actually did it!
A lot of luck was involved, and it all started with our final qualifying match on Galileo. We were up against 118, and desperately wanted to squeak out a win so we could be an alliance captain. We had a strategy planned out involving one of the many great full court shooters from our division. We figured this was our only change against the potent combination of 1114 and 118. So it was pretty discouraging when we lost the match. But this ended up being the best thing that could have possibly happened to us! Nobody had even considered making an alliance with three cyclers, but when 1241 picked 1477 and us, we were pretty stoked. This was way better than any alliance we could have come up with.
What emerged was a simple strategy of cycling like crazy, shooting all of our disks, and using 1477's amazing versatility for autonomous and defense.
1241 was a great alliance captain, and kept all teams in synch. I was pretty happy that we just had to focus on doing what we had been doing all along.
We kept thinking during the competition season that our robot needed more to be competitive at a higher level. The floor pickup we put on in Waterloo was okay, but needed so much more work to get it right. And it threw off our driver's confidence since it hit the pyramid a couple times and he was worried about breaking it. I hope we as a team can learn the value of doing less but doing it incredibly well.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Adam Freeman
The hardest part is still ahead. Once you know what it's like, you never want to experience anything else ever again. Not winning just got 10X worse than it was before.
-Adam
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I sure hope not... Winning is a great feeling, but it's over in an instant. I hope we can be satisfied with our efforts if the robot we build does everything we wanted it to do. We work hard, we play hard, and the rest is up to chance.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Holtzman
On behalf of Team 2056, I want to express our congratulations on the huge win. It's been something that we have been chasing for years, and I can only imagine how sweet it feels. All three of you played exceptionally well, and should be commended for a phenomenal performance. There was nothing magical about it, no fancy strategy. You simply outplayed the best in the world. Simply fantastic.
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Thank you. We really do owe a big thanks to both 2056 and 1114 for dangling the carrot just beyond our reach every year. You inspire us to try harder and to someday reach your level of play. Our next big challenge is winning a regional in Ontario
Rob