[ArJubx]

We (#1463) went to the DC afternoon session. We mainly went for the learning experience. This is our first year so it was quite helpful. Although we didn't manage to do much because of poor decisions caused by lack of experience, we managed to get a good idea of what we need to do to fix our issues.

DC had some arena controller issues, so there radio channel conflicts because not many teams brought thier own compitition simulating control box thingy (us included). Also most teams didn't have autonomous code yet (we didn't, I just did all that today after school). The few that did, did barely anything, #225 drove forward like 5 feet and stopped, another team just spun in circles.

Those balls at DC were really messed up, they were smaller and heavier than the regulation ones. So alot of ppl's shots went right between the PVCs because of the reduced size and added mass. We kept rolling right over them....our bot is about 2 inches off the ground....

When we were there, 2 teams managed to hang...1 team took over 4 mins to do it tho, but #225 did it quite fast (1 min or so for the whole process), so they are a team to watch out for. There were many other teams that tried to hang, but either broke or just couldn't do it. From reports of the mourning session only 1 team managed to hang then.

About capping those big double point balls. Most teams had issues getting them. 1 team who used a suction cup jammed the ball all the way down into the mobile goal, another team with a giant metal bowl like suction cup managed to pick it up but held on only for about 2 secs. A few other teams tried to get it, but failed.

While we were there, a team tried that catch all the balls as they fall strategy...only once did they manage to catch more than 2/3 balls.

Our bot is a ball gatherer. We were way too fast (First round I hit the side gate and knocked it off lol, in the process getting our bot stuck on the side lip thing), and had ball control issues (being fixed tommorrow). Second round....we rammed a ball sooooo hard it flew out and hit some ppl in the crowd, lol. We also had some control issues...high speed turning was backwards (right was left, left was right). Even with these issues, we managed to gather a few balls each time, and with our good shooter we managed 35-50 points a couple of rounds.

For those at DC that might not remember who we are...we are the bot that start standing and then proceed to fall over...