A few of my thoughts, after the regional ended.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Rick TYler
1. The state of the robots on Thursday is not as good as it was last year. This was a tough technical challenge year.
|
Yes, it seemed like there was much more noise in the pits this year on Thursday from machinery operating (of course, it could have been that the team right before us was running their jigsaw the entire day straight!)
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Rick TYler
4. The Cheesy Poofs looked human! They were struggling to get their robot ready just like the rest of us!
|
Yeah, after all I heard about them I was expecting everything perfect. When I looked at their pit, they had the hopper off and were still making modifications. However, once they got that puppy working it sure was something to see!
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Rick TYler
8. Huge props to three students from Issaquah Robotics Society (1318) who took time out to help me install our bumpers. I stayed late in the pits to do this (the team was at dinner) and Eric, Kyle and Elise helped me with holding, drilling, and bolting. Finest FIRST tradition!
|
No problem! We had finished up the work we could do on our robot a little earlier, and the programmers wanted us out of their way. We were just looking for something useful to do. It was good to meet you in person.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Rick TYler
9. It is hard to tell which period is which from the stands. The instant scoring is cool, even if one alliance did have a reported score of about 425 in one round. I think Thursday is practice day for the Regional team, too.
|
Yeah, that was a challenge. As a driver, it was really hard to figure out when the periods switched, and when it was coming up, while still staying aware of the situation on the field. I was lucky enough to have a coach that was able to keep track of that, letting me know when periods 2 and 3 were about to end (to get ready for the next) and when there was about twenty seconds left in the final period (to go for the ramp). Without that, it would have been impossible to keep track of everything.
And about the score, there was that one elimination round where blue got a reported score of around 3100, the "high score of the universe" according to the announcer. I couldn't stop laughing as I saw that number just keep going up...
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Rick TYler
10. Quite a number of balls hit the chains in the center goals and bounce back out.
|
Yes, I think there were more of those than FIRST anticipated. I hope they do something about that in later regionals.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Rick TYler
13. This early, the best robots scored in the corner goals.
|
Yes. From what I could see, the most effective robots were the ones that could either score well and consistently in the corner goals, or were so incredibly amazing/had such a great strategy of scoring in the center that they could negate any defense. This was best illustrated by the match between alliances 1 and 8. Although 1 had some great shooters, 360's defense was enough to totally shut them down. Alliance 8 could easily have won the regional, if it wasn't for 254's amazing strategy in that final round.
Sciencenerd's final analysis of Aim High: Shooters that can't shoot faster than 1 ball/second are next to useless. They will never be given an opportunity to sit still long enough to score significantly. Defense will be high, with many effective robots dumping at most one load of balls in the corner goal, then spending their time stopping the shooters from ever getting lined up. Robots that can't ramp had better be pretty durn amazing to make up for it. Team 254 is awsome.
