[RRLedford]

I agree that this years game is difficult for BOTH rookie teams and smaller teams to handle - especially if they try to accomplish too much, as our team likely did, and then don't prioritize realistically. Just getting so many systems built was a struggle, forget about testing, troubleshooting and improving them.

As a rookie mentor of a rookie team, at least I had five seniors who had previously been part of a cooperative team (doing electronics & programming mostly), I initially had to rely, perhaps too much, on their past experiences, rather than my own (zero) mentor experience. Being understandingly eager to make a big impact with having their own team - the Robotic Colonels went for a high speed, high traction, high power, short wheelbase, maneuverable, hump climbing tank drive, 4-wheeled bot. They then opted for a full-field capable variable winder high velocity kicker. Ball control was a last minute afterthought, and hanging seemed to be the only thing they could finally abandon as reality started to set in.

With just 11 team members and many of these only part time, it seemed that the work could just not progress fast enough. There was too little time for doing good design, and NO TIME for building bad designs. Doing a mostly hand-tool built bot with the only additional tooling being the the drill press and metal band saw of the school's wood shop, proved very tedious and time consuming. The kicker was really turning into quite a monster as it went from wood prototype to metal.

We finally got focused on the drive system enough to get something we could actually drive by late in the 3rd week after finishing the electronics board, and it then took all of about 3 days more before we broke it driving over our hump. Those dual CIM super shifters on each side proved to be way more powerful than the framing and gearbox mounting scheme could handle. So we finished week three scrambling to rebuild the entire drive with a several fold beefier mount structure for the gearboxes and the wheel wells. By the time we finished this, everything else was bogging down to a standstill.

The seniors were starting to see another year's ship day arriving and a half-built bot scenario again looming over them, so most of the team really kicked up their effort. Meanwhile, we still had no mounted kicker, only winder parts, a marginal trigger idea that was only half built, no pneumatics, and our failed vacuum scheme leaving us with no ball control, but at least all thoughts of doing a hanger were long gone.

Only by the 65 pound withholding miracle would we have been able to have anything more than a minimally functional bot for the Midwest regional. Still, without a CAD model, and still having to finish making so many tight fitting hardware items with no robot to measure, nearly killed us. The bumper mounts would not fit either, we ended the first day with only the ability to drive fast and push balls poorly. Our pneumatics were only intermittently shifting gears, but they would not fire the kicker trigger at all, and the winder was barely 2/3 assembled.

We entered qualification rounds thinking we might at least defend well. We next found out that the added weight of pneumatics and winder h/w had now also made us too rear heavy to make it over the humps, so we just focused on learning how to drive what soon proved to be an exceptionally well performing tank drive scheme. As Day 2 progressed, it was clear our stellar drive performance let us get to locations quickly enough to harass the more nimble swerve and mecanum bots, to the point of neutralizing much of their scoring and other capabilities, by effectively pushing them away from where they wanted to be or go. In the pits we struggled to finish assembly while troubleshooting multiple pneumatic valve problems, a winder encoder failure, adding ball control, dealing with penalty producing problems,,,

So by the end of Day 2, being still unable to kick or control balls, sitting at 29th position, we were not expecting to make it into the elimination rounds. Since we were also attending the Northstar Regional in two weeks, we began focusing on what we needed to do to have a better working bot by the 2nd day there. We even thought we should maybe decline any alliance invitations to better use the time for fixing our bots shortcomings.

Day 3 begins, and what happens next? We complete our remaining elimination matches and only to find out we've jumped ahead some in the standings. We then end up being picked to be with Wildstang and Winovation -- How can we decline? Now we have to refocus. How can we up our game? Can we bail on position encoded kicker winding and go to timed winding scheme? Will our untested winder-kicker stay out too long if we activate it? Can we improve our ball pushing, or even get our basic ball magnet installed in time? What about all the things coming loose on our bot? Can we tighten up the ship enough to avoid penalties. One of our four chains seems to have started getting looser with each match, and we don't have time to shim the gearbox properly. Can it survive into the finals?

We weren't exactly expecting to be under this much pressure for Day 3. We really appreciate all the help and parts sharing that sustained us throughout the competition, and allowed us to accomplish much more that would have otherwise been possible. These are the times that make you feel really glad you are a participant in FIRST program. I look forward to days when a less stressful pit scenario may allow me to also help some other teams a bit too.

So we complete as many critical bot tunings as we can, and then proceed to make it with our veteran partners past the quarter finals and into the semifinals. At this stage is when things start going downhill, as multiple failures start hitting all the members of our alliance. In our final match we shatter one sprocket and rip the pieces right off the wheel breaking the chain as well.

Finally, getting back to the question posed in the thread though, it does seem to me that Breakaway is a very challenging game, especially for the rookies, but also quite challenging for even many of the powerhouse veteran teams. Making it to the finals demands a lot of capabilities in your bot and a good synergy of these capabilities within the alliance. Plus, the individual bot breakdowns must be avoided or handled swiftly, and any multi-bot breakdowns in alliances quickly spells doom. Between the field bumps and the high traction/velocity collisions, it also seemed like there was a lot of damage and disruption of robot functionality at the Midwest Regional.

Despite getting knocked out in the semifinals, even with two powerhouse vets as our partners, we were able to end up receiving the Midwest Rookie All Star award! Now we have to see if we can switch our trip plans from going to Minneapolis to going to Atlanta instead! Not a bad problem to have.

-Dick Ledford