[archiver]

Posted by aTm at 1/11/2001 3:39 PM EST


Student on team #111, Wildstang, from Wheeling High School and Motorola.


In Reply to: Black and Colored all over
Posted by andre on 1/11/2001 11:10 AM EST:



After several days deliberating and running through scenario after scenario of possible events during a match, the calculations seem to say that picking up black balls is almost never worth the extra time spent in doing so. To be worth the time, the mere amount of black balls needed to be scored is simply ridiculous. On the other hand, the big balls usually did offer an additional couple of points instead of simply ignoring them altogether, although the payoff was MUCH smaller than going after the multipliers. There's also the fact that a great amount of resources must be expended in order to make a mechanism to pick up and balance the big balls. While we're still in debate as to whether or not to bother with the big balls, I believe that it's my teams concensus that the black balls are simply not worth it, UNLESS you're talking about simply loading from the human player which Rebecca brought up. But that does not require picking up black balls, therefore does not require a mechanism, and therefore should not really be taken into account when designing the bot. As for optimal strategy, I believe that while we might not decide to focus on the big balls, a team that does is certainly extremely valuable. It all boils down to simply what you want in most cases, seeing how this year there is no definite way to go (ie last year: score the most balls) The best alliance might be one person specializing in balancing the goals, one bridge-keeper, one big ball handler, and a very quick robot. So as you can see, nearly everybody's take ( balls vs no balls, bridge vs bar, balance vs stack) has a very important role in the game this year, it simply might be the best combination of an alliance that wins it all. Just my thoughts.


aTm