[ToddF]

Consider these classes of robots:
A) A box on wheels that does nothing but herd balls on the ground. Easily achievable by every team.
B) Robot A, with a "basket" on top which can catch a ball that lands in the basket, and then release that ball onto the floor to be herded. Not much more difficult than A.
C) Robot A, with the added ability of picking a ball from the floor and shooting it into the high goal. By virtue of this ability, robot C can also shoot the ball over the truss. Quite possibly much more difficult than robots A and B.
D) Robot C, which can also catch a ball. Likely extremely difficult.

The extremes:
An alliance of three A robots scores 37 in auto, and 31 points per cycle in teleop.
An alliance of three D robots scores 75 in auto and 60 points per cycle in teleop.

The middle:
An alliance of 2xA, C robots scores 57 in auto and 40 points per cycle in teleop.
An alliance of A, B, C robots scores 57 in auto and 60 points per cycle in teleop.

My take: 2014 is the year of the underdog.

In recent games, an alliance of three great scorers was virtually unstoppable, because multiple game pieces allowed simultaneous scoring. With one ball in play after auto, this advantage is significantly reduced. The only way an alliance of three D robots beats the A, B, C alliance is if their auto shot accuracy is PERFECT. If one D robot of the three misses its shot, the auto score for that alliance becomes 55, and all the extra effort that went into those three D robots is nullified.

It seems that scoring an autonomous goal by pushing the ball into the low goal should have quite high probability of success, and high goal auto shots will be significantly less reliable.

I could easily see three A robots, beating the pants off three D robots. The A robots could use "assembly-line" passing to run up the assist scores, and high probability low goal scoring to reduce cycle time. To keep pace, the D robots need high accuracy shooting into the high goal. If not, chasing rebounds and re-shooting will kill their cycle times.

The top level teams will try to build D robots, with varying levels of success. Depending on a team's resources, they should focus on a C level robot with extremely accurate shooting, or the more easily achievable B level robot. B robots with reliable low goal auto modes will be the unsung heros of regional competition. They are easily achievable, and allow an alliance with just one accurate shooter to be extremely competitive.

This year everything hinges on the accuracy of your high goal shooters. If they are nearly perfect, they win. Anything less, and the tenacious A and B robots will beat them.

If you are a team of limited resources, build yourself a drivetrain as quickly as possible, so your software team can get your low goal auto mode working perfectly. Then give it a basket to be a B robot. Make that easily swappable for an accurate shooter, and only make the swap if that shooter is darn near PERFECT.

This year will be the year of "A good robot built QUICKLY beats a great robot built slowly."

One final thought on the accuracy of high goal shooters. There are NO safe shooting zones. Last year you were safe to shoot when touching the pyramid. The year before, you were safe when shooting from the key. This year, good luck getting a clean shot off. Think you can maintain a high scoring to shot ratio when anyone can ram you while you're shooting?