[cglrcng]

Originally Posted by Jared Russell

The best way to get to Einstein is to analyze the game, figure out which three robots would make up the ideal Einstein alliance, and then design, build, iterate, and polish the one that best matches your teams' capabilities.

Never a truer & short, less than 2 line, single sentence statement for such a huge undertaking annually.

Amazing that most people can list 5~8 huge things, taking paragraphs to iterate, that determine what it takes to reach "The Big E" at the FIRST FRC Championships....Yet a leader on 1 of the (IF not THE), most successful teams (Elite as most describe FIRST FRC Team 254, listed the absolute right order, and all that is really necessary...The rest are just the tools you use to reach it in reality.

Our team often qualifies to go to The Championships (and yes, it has been a long time since the last time, but Team 60 has played on that wonderful "Big E Field" in the limelight - long before my time w/ the team), and rarely actually even attends the Championships anymore ~Just 1 time even attending in the last 4 years actually. (Though the plan every year, is to do so, IF we can be in our own minds competitive when there).

Unless that route outlined above by Jared is followed by our team (that can easily only be determined by US and the field of others midseason), IF our robot will be competitive, and that is our ultimate deciding factor...Not whether we can afford it, not how behind us currently the community or our multiple schools are, certainly not by the fabrication machines we have access to or the hrs. or people required to build robots, but, by how well we as a team each year.... Have "ALL Read the RULES," (sorry Jared to steal the rest from what you so eloquently posted prior)....."analyzed the game, figured out which three robots would make up the ideal Einstein alliance, and then designed, built, iterated, and polished the one that best matches our team capabilities."

Last year was the first year in a while we both had a competition robot finished early enough & a decent place to actually practice with it, then we finished building the practice bot after the other 1 was bagged.

Each yr. we have a handful of truly dedicated students building, and each yr. we lose a great many of those dedicated students to colleges nationwide. And we nearly start over again w/ a few veterans. That is a really good thing!

Each year lately, just 1 or more of those elements has been missing from our smaller but long time around community based rural two digit team.

Yes, sometimes building to WIN a Regional, can sometimes make one over build also (or go an overly simplistic route also, and not take enough risks by not attempting things we have seen or felt fail before), and not concentrate on doing just 1 thing extremely well (better than thousands of other bots), and cause one to not be a 2nd., or 3rd. pick. On that I also agree.

Striving to be third best, and in a supporting role, isn't in the cards for many great teams though when designing. Those that do take that chance also succeed at playing there too! (They just don't often receive that Elite Tag!) But, nowhere on that Pretty Blue World Champion or World Finalist Banner does the word "Elite" appear either. How many of those in your collection is important though.

This game (Recycle rush) may just stand all those thoughts right on their heads this year, I can certainly see it in my crystal ball.

It will be interesting, as so many have parsed this game to pcs.....I think tote stack building will be faster & faster as the season weeks progress. Some will be amazed that by week 3, some Alliances will actually run out of game pcs.. I know that isn't anywhere in thoughts (by the majority opinion I've seen so far), in the wisdom here on CD though. Some early previews shows it will be true though. There are at least 16 different specialty bot types so far, not just a few being built this year.

Just a prediction.