Best Feeder Bot of 2012

[Ekcrbe]

Originally Posted by Dchandler

Although the argument to this question will be between "who is better 16 or 4334" I want to bring more attention to 125. One of the biggest differences between 125 and 16/4334 is size. Both Bomb Squad and ATA were compact compared to the NUtrons. I'm unsure of their dimensions but they were similar to ours which were 26"X34"X50".

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel that their feeding strategy didn't come from design but rather by strategy. Where as 4334 designed their robot to be primarily a complimentary bot instead of a main scorer, I see it as once 125 realized how good they were at feeding they stuck with it and honed that ability.

Even though, our teams played together twice this year I never realized, just how good they are at feeding until qualification rounds at IRI.

I wish someone had video of match 46 when 125's alliance pulled off the upset victory against 1114 and 67. That match definitely goes in my list of favorite matches this year.

And, as the beneficiary of that feeding in match 46 (along with 359), I noticed that they not only feed well, they have a special way of making feeding look majestic. Our driver once said in that match, "We don't have any balls!" and then three balls instantly fell out of the sky onto the field. I would call their feeding superior to most others, though not quite 16, because they can stick the balls in the open areas of the field. Whereas other teams sometimes spray balls across the field and into the corners, 125 makes it easy to collect the balls. I once saw them land three balls within a second or so just off the key, two touching and one about a foot away, and they froze right there. I think this is an underrated attribute in feeding well.

[Dchandler]

Originally Posted by Ekcrbe

And, as the beneficiary of that feeding in match 46 (along with 359), I noticed that they not only feed well, they have a special way of making feeding look majestic. Our driver once said in that match, "We don't have any balls!" and then three balls instantly fell out of the sky onto the field. I would call their feeding superior to most others, though not quite 16, because they can stick the balls in the open areas of the field. Whereas other teams sometimes spray balls across the field and into the corners, 125 makes it easy to collect the balls. I once saw them land three balls within a second or so just off the key, two touching and one about a foot away, and they froze right there. I think this is an underrated attribute in feeding well.

I'm sorry for not mentioning you guys earlier, I didn't want to detract any attention from 125. This entire alliance was on fire. Accurate autonomous and superior feeding it wasn't a surprise that they were the third pick of the second round.

Although I'm sure some teams in the top 8 were disappointed when 16 became the 8th alliance captain.

[Ekcrbe]

Originally Posted by Dchandler

I'm sorry for not mentioning you guys earlier, I didn't want to detract any attention from 125. This entire alliance was on fire. Accurate autonomous and superior feeding it wasn't a surprise that they were the third pick of the second round.

That's fine, we benefited enough from it already. Plus 359 was one of the underrated shooters at IRI. We had targeted 125 Friday night as a good second pick, and were very happy to see them available at pick number 11.

[XaulZan11]

I saw literally one match from IRI, but what made 125 so great at IRI? They were good on Galileo but was not selected for eliminations (I do think they were one of the best teams not picked). Did they make any significant robot or strategy changes?

[O'Sancheski]

I can see arguments for all the teams that are mentioned. 16, 125, 207 (really didn't see them feed as the only matches I saw them in was Einstein), and 4334 were all great feeders.

4334- the little robot that could and showed tremendous improvement as the year went on. The had a wide intake that was able to scoop the balls up quickly and dump over the barrier. They played some of the best defense I have seen all year. I see this team being the next 2056. Maybe not the amount of regional wins, but definitely the knowledge and skills to be a great team.

125- Started the season with a win in NYC because of amazing strategic planning. They moved on to Boston with a better shooter and ended as finalists. Champs didn't turn out as well as the regionals but still performed well. Speaking with members of 125 at IRI, they realized that they weren't going to be noticed as much if they stuck with shooting. They decided to try the feeding technique and it payed off. They were one of the best feeders there. They were able to give their alliance partners balls quickly because of their hopper and were able to load the balls faster than having to pick them off the floor.

16- Had an amazing season. Three regional wins, Division Champions, and World Champions. Took the feeder role at Champs and were the best feeder in the World. IMHO, they are the best feeder because unlike 125, they picked the balls off the opposing alliances side of the field. This makes the opposing alliance have to cross the barrier in order to retrieve scoring elements. Another reason that 16 was the best feeder was because their intake allowed them to feed directly into a robots intake. This is seen in the "High Score" match at IRI when they feed directly into 118 during telop. Another can be seen when they fed into 148s robot. (Wasn't planned)

Just my $0.02

[Daniel Brim]

Hey everybody, we here at 125 are very proud to have brought as much attention to ourselves as we have.

Our feeding strategy was in our back pocket since the design stage, but it was always a back up plan. We were designed as a shooter first. The first time we tried to feed in this method was during the Boston finals, where we lost out to an amazing alliance of 341, 233, and 246. We did manage to put up a pretty good fight, despite being outgunned - we only lost by 4 points in the second final (if we had put up a few more points, they had a triple balance just about lined up and they would have tried it).

We did use the strategy a few times at championships, but our primary strategy was still regular shooting. We had some other bugs there that made us less desirable - we lost most of two matches due to comms issues (which were 100% our fault). We did think that we had an outside shot at getting picked, but when 3322 is on the board as a final pick, you take them 10 times out of 10.

We had two offseasons between championships and IRI that were also really important in teaching us what bugs we needed to work out. We lost our front intake at Battlecry while playing defense against 78 (their corner went into our front drum, bending the front drive axle pretty badly). At Blitz we realized that we needed a bit more power on the back roller, since we were having motor burnout issues. Between Blitz and IRI we installed a new gearbox that had an extra reduction in it to beef up the back roller.

We knew going into IRI that our shooter was not going to be as consistent as the top teams, and we thought that our feeding ability was going to be the best way to stand out. It worked better than we could have imagined, obviously. We still wish we could have helped take our alliance further, but we're extremely proud of our showing nonetheless.

As for videos: we have some. People at IRI will probably recognize us as the team who had a camera taped to a hockey stick. Videos actually came out fairly well. We will post the match against 1114-67-1592, as well as quarters 3-1 (I reviewed that footage tonight and it came out awesome). There will be a few more that we may put up, and we're putting together a wrap video as well. We'll happily share the links when we're all done. We will also have our CAD up at some point in the future.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by XaulZan11

I saw literally one match from IRI, but what made 125 so great at IRI? They were good on Galileo but was not selected for eliminations (I do think they were one of the best teams not picked). Did they make any significant robot or strategy changes?

Essentially 125 spent the majority of the match in the alliance lane. They would take three balls from the HP into their open hopper, drive forward a bit, and shoot them right around the key area. They would rinse and repeat this strategy, also picking up balls off the floor on occasion, until the field was starved.

It made a lot of sense. Because they were in the lane, they couldn't be defended, and they had free reign to stray balls that landed in it. Even a 75% accurate human player would still be giving too many free points to an alliance, when you could be getting guaranteed feeds via 125. It was a great strategic change for IRI.