Pre-Stop Build Scrimmages - What Have We Learned So Far?

[MarcD79]

Here are my observations from Suffield, though might not reflect the rest of the country.
1. Almost all Frisbees I saw were face up on the floor.
2. There were a few colored Frizbees being scored on the pyramids.
3. Only one robot was a floor retriever & only used it early, but I saw a huge opportunity for additional points to be made by scooping on the same side as they were shooting, possibly eliminating lost time going to their feeder stations.
4. I saw no bounce-outs at the Suffield. The flexibility of the lexan & the give of the chains eliminated that.
5. Due to the timing of last weeks major snow storm, we ended up with only 14 teams at Suffield. I know with that event, the robots that were there weren't anywhere near 100%. Also, there were so many teams that weren't there who have the potential to devastate their opponents.
6. The frenzy during the last 30 seconds was incredible during finals. With so many being tossed, it was hard to keep track of who was getting them in. I do know that the HP from 177 had a rocket arm and actually slammed the disks so hard into the player station that they almost deflected in half. He did make shots into the top goal. One thing for sure, anybody near the field will need to be paying attention at all times with powerhouses like that. Getting hit with one of those is going to be dangerous.
7. All in all I see the point scoring increasing rapidly as we go into week 1.