What we learned from week 1

[Mike Norton]

What we learned. To play well you need to to have a great scouting crew. If you go into a match with a good plan you can beat some great robots.

1) shooters vs climbers. You need both. If your climber can stop the other team great shooter then come back and score 30 to 50 pts that will win 90% of the matches. You need great auto shooters. You can not give up the bonuse points to the other team and expect to win.

2) a great driver can insure great results. If you have a great robot and can't drive, then what good is it.

3)Why we did so well in the finals was because of great scouting. Our students knew what teams would work well with our robot. They picked teams that where not on the top seeding. But had watch team 175 and 172 get better and better as the seeding matches went along. 172 at the end was hitting all 3 disc in auto mode then kept shooting and holding their own against the best. 175 was the same way they starting to hit all of their disc in the auto mode. That 36 points to start the match off was great. I would watch out for team 175 at the CT. Regional by then they will have a fine turn robot that will be at the top of the seeding rounds.

4) do not waste or damage your robot when you know your score is high enough to win the match. I saw a lot of plans to play defense against robots that could not score much points. Know what you can score and know what the other team can put up and play to that. We saved our robot from any damage using this plan.

5) For all you 30 pts climbers make sure you have some tall kids to be able to take your robot off the top. This is a back breaker.

6) it was easy to put your robot in place to have the other team incur penaltys. This was a defense position.

[swwrobotics]

Watching the Palmetto webcast, many teams got stuck at the feeder stations by not taking the time to line up right and unfortunately ended up with a bunch of frisbees blocking their way to the wall.

[Jaxom]

Originally Posted by stevend1994

Care to elaborate on this one? Did it have an effect on gameplay/driving around the pyramid?

It only happened to this degree a couple of time in Lubbock, but there were many times that the field reset folks were out there with tape on smaller repairs.

[Dragonking]

What great addition out team added to our robot that has been so useful is a supershifter. We could push anyone who got in out way and we could switch to high gear and outmaneuver any one as well as get anywhere fast.

I agree that scouting is extremely important. For our alliance we got a 5 disc auto scorer with a full court shooter at the 3 pt who also had a 10 pt climb. The to of us were the top 2 seeds. The question was who else to get. We also got a second full court shooter which was too tall to be blocked against. They could also block opponents with their height.
Our alliance didn't lose a single match and outscored most of our opponents

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by Jaxom

It only happened to this degree a couple of time in Lubbock, but there were many times that the field reset folks were out there with tape on smaller repairs.

That seems like a field fault big enough to warrant a "foghorn" reset. I assume that wasn't the case?

[2789_B_Garcia]

Originally Posted by Jaxom

Pool noodles, pvc, and duck tape are among the materials that can be easily obtained and used to block full-court shooters.

Some of us on 2789 are still in awe/laughing about how crazy the idea was, how fast it was put up and taken down, and that it worked, lol

Needless to say, we learned A LOT from Bomb Squad at this regional!

[Jaxom]

Originally Posted by Dragonking

We also got a second full court shooter which was too tall to be blocked against.

With all due respect, there is no such thing in this game. If you're going to be a full-court shooter you're maxing at 60"; defenders can be 84". 84" > 60", and there's no way you're going to be shooting steeply enough to get over them *if* they're in the right place. Now, you may not have had anyone that set anything up to be able to block you, but I guarantee it could have been done.

Having said that, congratulations on your win. Looks like you guys put up some great scores.

[Jaxom]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

That seems like a field fault big enough to warrant a "foghorn" reset. I assume that wasn't the case?

No. There were two of these that I saw; both were actually put back in place (mostly) by a robot running over them in the right direction.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Jaxom

With all due respect, there is no such thing in this game. If you're going to be a full-court shooter you're maxing at 60"; defenders can be 84". 84" > 60", and there's no way you're going to be shooting steeply enough to get over them *if* they're in the right place.

With all due respect, you're thinking inside the box. There are teams that may be able to get over 84" defenders by using other methods than the typical shooter.

[pfreivald]

Defense is every bit as big as I expected it to be!

[dtengineering]

Originally Posted by Andrew Zeller

Simple, feeder-station only fixed angle shooters with passive hangers like 862 can be very effective.

That is the single best camera angle that I've ever seen for an FRC video. It's better than the live camera operators at worlds... you can see EVERYTHING. It's just like being there, but with the added benefit of being able to rewind and rewatch parts that you missed.

Whoever mounted that camera... well done!

Oh, yeah... the robots did a pretty good job, too... but did I see human players throwing frisbees at the end of the match? I thought that got outlawed.

<goes off to re-read the rules and updates>

Jason

[Brian Ha]

Originally Posted by Jaxom

With all due respect, there is no such thing in this game. If you're going to be a full-court shooter you're maxing at 60"; defenders can be 84". 84" > 60", and there's no way you're going to be shooting steeply enough to get over them *if* they're in the right place. Now, you may not have had anyone that set anything up to be able to block you, but I guarantee it could have been done.

Having said that, congratulations on your win. Looks like you guys put up some great scores.

Unfortunately Jaxom, ill have to agree with Eric H. If you have the time to see, a way to beat the 84 inch tall blocker robots is to do exactly what 326 did, the super blah blah blah eagles. They have a rectangular robot with the shooter being parallel with the longer side. It is also near the back of their robot. This allows them to have the end height of their robot to be much higher than the standard shooter. This also makes it harder to block them because of the way their robot is built that you have to stay farther away from them to not incur penalties for touching them in their zone.

They were at Kettering, and while i don't think it turned out as well as they had wished is had for them, their robot is much more difficult to block them let's say 910 which is Foley Freeze.

I just wanted to input what i had seen at the Kettering District in accordance to what you said.

[dtengineering]

Originally Posted by sircedric4

I learned a lot this weekend and all of it just makes me sick to my stomach. Looks like this year will be a very good year for lessons learned for our team bible.

1) The GDC did an awesome job this year building a trap. Let's call the game Ultimate Ascent and introduce this awesome pyramid and impossible top target and then it turns out to be a waste of a season to defeat the obstacle. We and only a few others conquered the very difficult only to watch EVERYONE (hyperbole!) outscore our top end.

We have this awesome climber and dumper and I am seriously thinking ...

(PS. I am not trivializing the "easier" robots before you get all in a hissy, I know all those were built in the same 6 week vacuum we were. But shooters have been done for years and there was a 3 day robot, so frisbee throwers were easier to get a base scorer.) :-)

The GDC is not responsible for your team's analysis of the game.

Jason

[cmrnpizzo14]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

Depends on where you do it.
HINT: Don't repeatedly do it when the team is firing away in their loading zone and you start accumulating over a hundred points in technical fouls.
Though the move 48 pulled on 1559 where they ran under the blue pyramid and shoved them all the way across the field before they could hang had to be the boldest defensive move I have ever seen. It could have backfire bigtime.

I disagree!
Please continue to think that that defense is effective, we want the high score back!

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by cmrnpizzo14

I disagree!
Please continue to think that that defense is effective, we want the high score back!

Only if 4023 agrees to keep hitting you in the loading zone again and again.