[donnie99]

Some points that we did think of in the process of strategy and design:

1. Qualification matches are always important, which is why we are still able to stack, but showing consistency and usefulness in eliminations is also important. We lost to the alliance of the 1st Team 236, 2nd Team 230, and 34th Team 3464 (last) ranked teams in the finals. 3464 was on the wrong end of some unlucky situations in qualifications, but proved they were going to be good in eliminations, and were able to contribute a lot to their alliance! Showing that rank in this year's game does not always reflect ability.

2. The speed of the retracting arm is as fast as it can be, while still being effective. We ran into the problem of the arm moving too fast and knocking the RC's onto the other side of the field. It may not be the fastest, but it is pretty consistent.

3. At districts, there are a limited number of legendary teams like 118 or 148 (Batman and Robin robot) that can stack 6 high with a RC every single time without knocking them over. Every robot at the district experienced problems with balancing the stacks at one point, so a strategy of multiple smaller stacks works well. It forced the finals to a third match, giving the strategy some merit.

On a side note, seeing the range of picks this year from the different regionals, it seems as though any team could play in eliminations. Looking forward to see how the game evolves through the weeks!

EDIT* I started typing this before the other response, so a little different explanation here.