Quote:
Originally Posted by marshall
I don't know that I have a specific example in mind honestly. What I can do though is explain why this is on my mind lately.
North Carolina is moving to a district model for 2016. No surprise there really. However, if you've been watching 900, you'll know that we're a fan of the niche play the last few years. It makes it fun and different for us.
District play doesn't lend itself to niche roles though and if we hope to get back to St Louis (and we do) then we may have to 'abandon' our unique interpretations of the rules in favor of building a robot that is a little more mainstream.
Nothing wrong with that but I'm not under any delusions that we could keep up with the teams who have been building robust and awesome mainstream robots for many years. We're good but we ain't that good. Having a more mainstream robot instead of a niche play is less valuable at Championships if we seek to go further... and we do. I suspect that the niche robots are more valuable as alliance partners during selections at Championships than they are at a district event. Of course, I could be completely wrong.
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I'd argue that niche play is more likely to make championships in the district model than in a regional model.
Take 27 and 2848 for examples. If they weren't pre-qualified teams, 27 would have made championships (by merit of their MSC finalist appearance), and 2848 would not have, as they only made finals at their second event, where 1817 received a wildcard, and they would not have.
Both were solely cappers, and both ended up in championship eliminations.
Role players are likely to consistently make eliminations at their events, and thus accrue district points, as well as robot awards. And with the stuff I know 900 is capable of(building sold machines with sick controls), you should have no problem qualifying for championships via district points with your machines.