Who will win at Nationals?!?

[Hailfire]

The world may never know. But this year there has been a lot of good bots out there. Hope the National Competitions will be more challenging though.

[shawny963]

i guarantee it will be an alliance similar to ours, 930, 65, and 16 at midwest. Two blazingly fast and strong veterans, with a very robust 2nd year or rookie. Our alliance took the bins everytime with our auto modes. Baxter hit the bins in under 3 seconds, 65 in 4 seconds, and we followed up with 5 seconds. I think the midwest outcome would have been different if 16 wouldnt have lost radio connection in the first finals match. Oh, by the way, we flipped beatty two matches in a row. Now what do you all think about that alliance.

[Alaina]

Originally posted by FotoPlasma
Everyone.

That's what I was going to say. There are tons of excellent teams out there.

[Greg Needel]

I firmly believe it the winning alliance will include a good consistent stacker and 2 good tank bots

[Matt McNelley]

Shawny, I like the alliance we had at Midwest too. A fantastic combination, and all of you were great. We too, wish we hadn't lost our radio... Maybe things will go better for nationals.

[ryanspensley]

What about the St Louis Winning Alliance of #171 and #650!?!

[Etbitmydog]

You know what. Somebody should make fantasy robotics. You get to pick your teams and then you get points on how well they did.

Anyways, IF I had a fantasy team, my all stars would be 111, 71, and 68.

I'm thinking the multipliers will probably be super important and 71 has that over the top arm slash scooper arm. Over top could KILL stacks. PLus they can take horeds of boxes and shove them to the sides quick so the other team can't get points. How can you loose!
Plus, 68 has a lot of speed and power and it another robot manages to get all the boxes to one side, it'll just sweep them to the end fast and other team gets 0 pts from boxes.

It all revolves around 111 though. They have a killer robot with a very unique idea. You can't get to teh multiplier you can't win If any of these robots were on my for sure list it'd have to be wildstang. I love this robot.

Thus there you have it. My fantasy robotics team.

Good luck!!
P.S. No rookies chosen sorry

[sevisehda]

The best alliance...

Seriously, the alliance who is the best constructed. Someone mentioned a stacker and 2 tanks. I've said from the begining stacking was of minimal importance. There have been few bot constructed stacks that actually scored. The vast majority of matches end in a 1 multiplier and the rest with a human player stack. My perfect alliance would be 1 amazing fast and reliable wall hitter who takes a min fo 5 stacks with him. A tank with an arm is invaluble when it comes to taking out a human stack. The 3rd bot could be a second arm equipped tank or a KoTH(45,111,179,229) bot. Stacking is utterly useless in a match with bots that are that fast and powerful.

There are 2 matches in the finals for the current dom then die strategy. One round you want to score huge and the other you want to kill the score.

For the first match play the fast wall bot and KoTH. The wall bot hits the wall first continues over then defends his human player stack. The KoTH comes up after and secures the hill. With the wall in your zone and the KoTH controlling passage over the hill the match is yours. For example when 229 worked they're QPs were around 200 and all they did was sit on the hill for the whole match. This shows a KoTH can post big numbers. Or if you prefer use the second tank bot to try to limit the other alliances scoring, this is a little riskier though.

The second match is the kill everything round. Send the same fast to the wall bot out with the armed tank bot. The wall bot takes out the wall and then continues to his side and pushes boxes into the dead zone. The tank bot stays on the starting side and kills the stacks. Then shoves them into the dead zone. The tank then moves to the lower left of the ramp. The fast wall moves to the upper right. Near the end when the opposing alliance moves to the ramp they'll have to come up the center. Being near each other increase the chance they'll end up touching and if 1 is off both are off. Also being close increases the chance they knock each other off as the first alliance is shoving them.

The draft at nationals will determine the champion. Selecting the wrong bots IE all tank or no bots that are fast to the wall will end the alliance before it even began.

[tonyargote]

hmm.... I hope we win.

Best of luck to all teams competing at nationals. CYA there

[PMGRACER]

Texas is going to be exciting to say the least! If it anything like the Buckeye or Great Lakes, we will all be in for a heck of a ride! As far as competitive alliances-27 with 541 and 1126 was formidable in Ohio and all 3 teams will be in Texas, hopefully all in the same division. 322,27 and 217 put up a real fight to the end against a real tough alliance in 302,67, and 226. The final matches were a ton of fun to watch. Or 27, 302 and 217. 3 'bots with fast auton modes and excellant defenders. Baxter looks pretty fierce this year, 2.5 seconds to the bins is awesome! Guess we'll have to step up our program!! Can't wait to see the Technocats at the top of their game. Also looking forward to seeing Swap thing in action. #308 always has some pretty cool designs. 25 will undoubtedly put up a tough fight too. Would be nice if my cable company had the NASA channel. I would have liked to watch the competition in action. I guess Soap will have to do. The list of competitive and awesomely engineered bots is too long to go through. We are looking forward to seeing everyone down in Texas and can't wait to start playing!! Good luck to all the teams who are going. Have a safe and quiet journey.

[tonyargote]

Texas is going to be exciting to say the least!

Very True... Can't WAIT!

[JVN]

Originally posted by sevisehda
The draft at nationals will determine the champion. Selecting the wrong bots IE all tank or no bots that are fast to the wall will end the alliance before it even began.

Definitely.
Picking is going to be the most important part of the compeition this year. Everyone better be scouting!

[Etbitmydog]

PS.

my alternates are 45 and 79 krunch. 79 has an insane drive system. They're pretty wicked.

But wait and see. they'll win if they're in the same DIV.

[tonyargote]

Everyone better be scouting!

I've received several e-mails already. It seems that many teams have decided to start scouting already, and creating a list or database of possible allies or opponents.

HINT HINT: Seems pretty smart

[Matt D]

i never thought a stacker would do well in the playoffs, but 115 (Monta Vista Robotics Team) proved me wrong. We were allied with them at SVR. They successfully stole the oposing alliance's human player stacks twice, gaining our alliance a 3x multiplier and a 2x. Without there stacking, we probably would have lost.