Do We have a trend here?

The Finals at both PNW and UCF were Deja Vue all over again.


First Match a Tie,
Second One alliance wins,
Third, Other alliance wins,
Fourth and final match determine winner.


This could be a nightmare demolition derby nationals - Best way to win is not be gracious and professional but bully the weaker of your opponents until the the last second and then hang. I really think there should be no ties in the elimination rounds. Best two out of three with highest points, highest qp, highest hanger, closest to the bar, coin flip breaking the tie at the end of 3.

I can just see the finals going until midnight, tie after tie.

[Ashley Weed]

I had realized this, however I had not put it into perspective of what will come of it at Nationals. I can see this highly possible as happening, and having extremely robust machines batling and able to fight till the end, match after match. However, I would think that by match 4, or match 5; soon therafter we would see one of the machines become "exhausted". Although, it would be sad to see, one of the alliances would get to the point, where they would no longer be able to compete due to unworking status.

...... Factors such as the balls and human player abilities will affect the outcomes though after time.

[Will Hanashiro]

hmmm.... "demolition derby" eh? could be a very strong possibility. the elims at GLR were very physical... by the end i doubt that any team team made it through eliminations without damaging/breaking their robot. time-outs were very common in the elims, where teams were rushing to get their robots fixed.

[NoRemorse]

yes, the GLR elim rounds where VERY physical. our robot was banged up pretty bad, and I was quite disaapointed that this was what the other teams did. But o well, we did much better than we could have hope for so great job to all the teams at GLR!!!

[Randy_VanW.]

Yeah GLR was brutal (I didnt mean to I swear (sry about the arm HOT)).. I mean I think I broke at least two things just trying to do what I was supolse to. Yeah go Alliance #8! (Bedford, Mach Vee, Chargers!) Well for us a Semi Final finish was great oh and great job to all the other teams there!

[cybrsabr]

i think that if you have 3 ties, then they would just see how many points each alliance scored total in that round and that would determine who wins. It probally has something about it in the rule book.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by cybrsabr

i think that if you have 3 ties, then they would just see how many points each alliance scored total in that round and that would determine who wins. It probally has something about it in the rule book.

Nope, I don't think so. As far as I've seen in the rules, you could tie match after match and it'd keep going till one alliance got two wins.

Cory

[KenWittlief]

At the pittsburg regional the top seeded team, 808 was excellent at getting on the bar, and they crashed to the ground in the elimination matches.

Im not sure if the other bot that was pulling itself up snagged them a little on the way up, unhooking their bar, or if they snagged it somehow and added more weight than it could handle - I think their hook straighten out - they were eliminated in that round

Things werent really that rough at pittsburg, but we did get bashed twice in the very last match - our bot was herding balls on our side of the field, and an opponent bot came over and rammed us going quite fast, smashing two of our tri-wheels on one side.

then they rammed us on the other side, smashing those wheels as well

I saw lots of pushing and shoving around the platform and the bar - but that was the first time I saw a team ram a bot that was herding balls.

Will be interesting to see how this continues this year- we sustained about $750 damage in destroyed custom machined PVC wheels in that one match, and was a little surprized that no penalties were called for the incident.

[Cory]

The fact that a team would smash one side of your wheels sucks, whether it was intentional or not, but to go and do it again to the otherside is just donwright ugly. I really wonder how people can do something like that and then feel good about themselves for it.

Cory

[KenWittlief]

well we did learn something cool from the experience - triwheels will rotate around and put a good wheel on the floor when one has been broken - even with 4 of the 6 wheels in our triwheel pair totally smashed, our bot was still able to drag itself towards the corral, and push two more balls in

BTW - we literally lost the last match and missed being regional winner by an inch - our other alliance partner, team 1114 just couldnt quite get up off the floor - they were hook on the bar and just needed a few more seconds - if they had been up we would have won the match.

[NotQuiteFree]

I am proud to say that our alliance (492,957,1031) won the PNW Regional in this pattern:

1. Tie
2. Their Victory
3. Our Victory
4. Our Vic...

Ah....I see what you're saying...

[Bob Steele]

I, too think I see a trend... and I am not sure if I like it...
We were on the winning side of the quarter final in St. Louis that had two ties.. it was tremendously exciting to be part of that...
We are just a second year team and I was very proud of the Alliance we had there... but on to the rest of the story...
I posted the following elsewhere here:
************

I do want to clarify something about the semi-final matches. This is where it became very physical... 1098 was again damaged and couldn't compete... and in the very final match after withstanding a pounding by Team 16 ...even our beloved Luci robot couldn't get the grippers to work because the contact had bent the rod on our pneumatic actuator. I guess this is a viable strategy as it wasn't flagged. We were on the verge of capping a small goal with 12 balls and couldn't open our grippers...so we didn't go on to the finals.

I just am sending out a warning to all teams who use grippers and collect balls and perform these tasks.... the big hangers will just pound you into submission... you may not be able to do what you are designed to do because of the physical damage you may have done to you. It is not just pushing around... it is IN YOUR FACE, hammering and slamming with whatever they have to do it with... reminiscent of battle bots rather than the FIRST competition we all enjoy.

My personal thoughts are that this is a dangerous trend... but it is within the rules and I cannot fault teams for using the strategy as long as it is legal.
More power to them...

All three of our alliance's robots were damaged in the semi at St. Louis.
I am sure many others were too...

I, for one, really don't want this competition to be about robots beating on each other.... FIRST has more to say than the "strongest robot" should dominate another...

Please don't think that I am complaining about any particular teams... everything done was within the rules and using those rules are part of the game... I only speak to the greater good of the competition as it matures...

It does seem to be a trend though... last year we had quite abit and now this year its even worse...... anyway that's my two cents

We will be busy in Cleveland on practice day repairing our robot and we will continue to try and accomplish the game using our strategy...

Our robot WAS pretty robust... until the last match, our robot had competed in 4 quarter final matches and 2 semi-finals with no more repairs than just changing the battery...

thanks for reading

Bob Steele

[TGreen]

Originally Posted by Randy_VanW.

Yeah GLR was brutal (I didnt mean to I swear (sry HOT)).. I mean I think I broke at least two things just trying to do what I was supolse to. Yeah go Alliance #8! (Bedford, Mach Vee, Chargers!) Well for us a Semi Final finish was great oh and great job to all the other teams there!

Not to mention knocking out Wildstangs and Rush.... oh and breaking team 1481's arm

[WakeZero]

They did the best average out of 2 matches last year... it was horrible in my opinion. Best of three accounts for one team just having horrible luck in one of their matches... at least more than 2

[ThetaDot]

Originally Posted by TGreen

Not to mention knocking out Wildstangs and Rush.... oh and breaking team 1481's arm

hahahah 1481's arm
We were done anyway.