During our brainstorm meetings in the beginning of the year, our team determined that hanging would be the most important robot ability (I'm not saying that is the most important, just that we determined it would be our number 1 priority). In addition, hanging is a 1 or 0 situation. Herding has a grey zone. So if you can build a good system and test and see that it works, hanging would be better cause it's a guaranteed 50 pts.

We started out with the idea of being a jack-of-all-trades. We had herding flaps, a 2x multiplier handler, and a hanger. We decided it was far more important to hang and just rip the 2x ball of the goal instead of also recapping it. This is not the best strategy for all teams, but we wanted to do one thing and do it well. Then, when we couldn't hang, we always had the backup strategy of herding balls. This "plan b" saved our neck multiple times (good job, HP Tim).

Finally, it is not "boring" at all to watch a match of hangers. When hangers fight for the top, it is far more fun to watch than ball collecting. Take our 2nd semi-final match. Our alliance-mate hung (997) then, the opposing robot hung (957). We got on the bar and tried to lift ourselves (and the other two robots) up. Lifting 360 lbs of weight was too much for the hook - it gave up and we fell. Although we lost, this was one exciting match! In addition, at the Pacific regional, I think people clapped most when robots either hung or multiplied, not herded.

At the Pacific NW regional, many of the earlier matches were decided with very low scores like 30/35 and 40/15. Once the teams who had hanging improved it, scores skyrocketed. Record scores in order were (team setting the record in parenthesis): 130 (948 & 1256), 140 (948 & ?), 180 (360 I think). Every record-setting match had at least one hanger (correct me if I'm mistaken).

One thing that seemed unstoppable was the combination of a hanging robot and a capping robot. Even w/o any herding a capped 6-ball goal and a hanger gives you 110.