[kirtar]

At this point in time I would say that my team's robot falls in the "average" category by the definitions given for the ends of the field, and between "below average" and "average" for the middle. Honestly, some of the differences between categories are more driver skill (especially below average->average on the far zone) than robot design/capability.

In any case here are my reasons. At least at the Buckeye Regional, while playing offense, we would consistently score around 3 per match while defended when no balls come in or leave the zone (except when a ball is scored by us). In addition to that, we were able to cross to the middle and hang most of the time (non point in scoring non-existent balls).

In the middle, our kicker/rollers were having problems, so not much kicking over the bump later in the competition (although I think it was working at some point). With the exception of a few mechanism failures (something broke) and an unexpected situation (alliance partner's weight loaded onto arm pushed it below the plane), the hanging was fairly consistent with multiple attempts being possible in the last 20 seconds.

We did not play much defense at Buckeye, but at the Boilermaker Regional, we helped to get our alliance into the semifinals by keeping 829 and 447 busy in the far zone for most of the matches, and preventing at least one of them from hanging (and IIRC, each time either of them did hang, they had a penalty for touching the ball return).

I think for Championships, we're looking at the improving the reliability of the kicker as well as giving our driver some more time getting comfortable with mecanum drive.