What did it take to win a Week 1 Rebound Rumble match?

[MrForbes]

From my experience at San Diego being able to balance on a bridge is not usually a matter of time...it's something that is difficult or impossible to do at all for many teams.

[Gray Adams]

Originally Posted by squirrel

From my experience at San Diego being able to balance on a bridge is not usually a matter of time...it's something that is difficult or impossible to do at all for many teams.

Do you have any guesses as to why they couldn't balance? Was it a lack of specialty hardware to aid in balancing, or was it a driver practice/communication problem.

[MrForbes]

First you have to get the bridge down. That is a significant challenge for many teams (it took us two days at the regional to get our bridge arm to work reliably). Getting on the bridge is easier if there aren't any balls in the way...which there are about half the time, it seems, since when you first lower the bridge the balls roll right in the way. Then you have to be able to drive the robot slowly enough and with enough control that it can balance. The kit drive train is a bit fast for doing this, and also most robots roll a bit after you let go of the joystick. This is assuming you were able to get on the bridge straight, and didn't fall off the side.

We found a whole bunch of ways to fail at getting on the bridge and balancing. Fortunately our shooting made up for it, but many (most) teams don't have that to fall back on.

[Alpha Beta]

Originally Posted by squirrel

From my experience at San Diego being able to balance on a bridge is not usually a matter of time...it's something that is difficult or impossible to do at all for many teams.

My experience was quite the opposite. In KC I could get almost anyone on a bridge. Sometimes their appendage was too weak for them to get on by themselves, but almost every drivetrain could follow me up the bridge for a co-op attempt.

We did have some difficulty with Jags set to coast instead of break. Teams had trouble keeping their drive train from sliding around the bridge as it tipped back to level in coast. Many younger teams did not fully understand the difference.

We saw drive trains with six pneumatic wheels, 2 friction and 2 omni, swerve, mechanum, even 4 mechanum with 2 omni. They could all balance with the right partner and someone to give them some pre-match coaching.

[MrForbes]

Originally Posted by Alpha Beta

They could all balance with the right partner and someone to give them some pre-match coaching.

That seems to be a big part of it....if you are with a team that is good on the bridge, and both teams work together well, then it's usually doable. That's pretty common in eliminations, but not so much in qualifying. My guess is we'll see a wide variation in regionals.

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by Alpha Beta

My experience was quite the opposite. In KC I could get almost anyone on a bridge. Sometimes their appendage was too weak for them to get on by themselves, but almost every drivetrain could follow me up the bridge for a co-op attempt.

We did have some difficulty with Jags set to coast instead of break. Teams had trouble keeping their drive train from sliding around the bridge as it tipped back to level in coast. Many younger teams did not fully understand the difference.

We saw drive trains with six pneumatic wheels, 2 friction and 2 omni, swerve, mechanum, even 4 mechanum with 2 omni. They could all balance with the right partner and someone to give them some pre-match coaching.

This makes perfect sense.
You know what your team can do, but imagine if it was vice versa?
Without mentioning specific teams, I saw it to be just the case in eliminations......where the widebot was waiting at the end of the bridge for their partner to balance with them on the bridge. It failed when they needed it the most, and was the difference between advancing vs. being eliminated.

[Lil' Lavery]

From my experience at Hatboro-Horsham (which, granted, now seems to be one of the best events of week 1), it was rare that teams weren't attempting to get on a bridge during a match. Balls under bridges caused many failures, especially if teams didn't leave time to cross the bump or couldn't cross the bump. Many other teams, including 1712, didn't have functioning bridge manipulators and had to follow up other teams.

Because of this, 1712 only once tried to balance on our own alliances' bridge during qualifications (we tipped with 1 second remaining), but had seven attempts at balancing on the co-opertition bridge (three successful, two where the other team never went for the bridge, and twice where we "failed"/ran out of time). Without the ability to manipulate the bridge ourselves, we figured the best way to ensure QPs was the co-op bridge with a balancing machine from the other alliance. The 4 coop points we had at the end of Friday were a big portion of why we were seeded 5th at the time. Some bad luck on Saturday and other teams starting to use the co-op bridge more led to us falling to 13th, but the concept was proven.

Our bridge manipulator should be functioning and durable by Lenape, so we'll see if our strategy changes.

[pandamonium]

I guess my comment stems from the title more so than the presented data. A QS of 22 seemed on average to be good enough for 1st or 2nd seed. As I see it during qualification rounds there are 20 opportunities to get 2 points. 11/20 doesn't seem that great to me. The point being that winning is not everything as the tournament structure is different this year.

[Jaxom]

Originally Posted by pandamonium

I guess my comment stems from the title more so than the presented data. A QS of 22 seemed on average to be good enough for 1st or 2nd seed. As I see it during qualification rounds there are 20 opportunities to get 2 points. 11/20 doesn't seem that great to me. The point being that winning is not everything as the tournament structure is different this year.

KC only had 9 matches, so our average may be a bit higher than it appears from raw numbers. As for the average -- I don't think a lot of teams thought through the scoring system enough, and didn't realize that coopertition points would be so important, win or lose. I don't like having them so important, but they are what they are. I think this will change dramatically in the coming weeks, and 22 will soon not be enough to get you in the top 10.

[Chris Fultz]

I only looked at SMR data, but 45 of the 81 qualifying matches were decided by 10 points or less, so without a lot of detailed review that would imply the ability to balance at least one robot would be very beneficial. Many matches the winning score was <10, so either alliance balancing just one robot could have won that match. In 28 of the 45, at least one alliance had less than 10 points, so a single balance could have changed the outcome.

From the matches I watched, I think a key was to be flexible. Many matches just needed one robot to balance to win, but alliances were trying for 2 and then ended with o.


It would be interesting to look at all the match data from week 1 and see the "margin" trend.

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by Chris Fultz

It would be interesting to look at all the match data from week 1 and see the "margin" trend.

Ask and you shall recieve. I'm still waiting on someone to parse the FRCFMS twitter feed for me, as the margins we care most about are the ones where the alliance had the opportunity to make up the difference. That is, if you lose by 10 points but already balanced two robots you couldn't have done more.

25% of matches were decided by less than 5 points, 50% by less than 10, 75% by less than 19, and 90% by 30.

[pandamonium]

Ask and I shall receive eh.. well it would be nice if data was separated by elims and quals. I imagine this request may be too difficult though.

[DampRobot]

I would be interested to know what the winning score data without bridges is. Ie, how many baskets do you need to make to get a chance of winning?

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by pandamonium

Ask and I shall receive eh.. well it would be nice if data was separated by elims and quals. I imagine this request may be too difficult though.

All of the data he has posted so far was just qualification matches.