What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?

[xraymypanda]

From a full court shooter which got stopped by them, a modification at lunch turns a small defense bot into a tall defense bot to stop a low full court shooter(me). Then into an 84" tall robot to stop a taller full court shooter. That's all it takes, given that the full court shooter is alone.

[Jay O'Donnell]

Originally Posted by Kusha

What do you mean?

He means that bumpers ruining a hang can change the outcome of a match.

[connor.worley]

Full court shooters are vulnerable to defense (see 1138 and 2339 at SD) and the double defense strategy beats teams with no ground pickup.

[hammerhead_399]

1. Like a broken record... Autonomous, autonomous, autonomous, autonomous.

2. By week 4-6, every full court shooter is going to be ineffective. It is too easy to block them. One trick pony.

3. Refs are not aware of the absence of a starting configuration height rule. Our match start was delayed because we attached tall plastic straws to our 2nd alliance partner. The head ref argued with us for a good 5 minutes before someone would do a rule check. If you plan on attaching pool noodles last second, be ready to explain why it is legal.

[Koko Ed]

We learned that no matter the outcome when you don't give up you will always win.

[nikeairmancurry]

That the FIRST community will always step up in times of need (Robodawgs trailer getting stolen, along with 1592 and 801 robots being tore up in a accident).

[Wayne TenBrink]

Didn't learn much that I didn't already see in Week 1. In no particular order:

Climbing for 30 is not a ticket to victory.

Full court shooting is like fender shooting in 2012 - its great until a defender comes along. To be effective, you need to set up quick, be accurate, and be prepared to leave and shoot from the pyramid when needed.

Variable elevation shooters are the biggest cause of missed shots/reduced cycles for so many teams. First, because teams just miss. Second, because it slows the whole cycle down (position robot, adjust shooter, shoot, adjust, shoot, adjust, shoot, shoot).

Time at the feeder station is just as import as time spent anywhere else. Practice lining up, practice feeding discs. Practice, practice, practice.

Floor pickup is a good thing, even if you don't use it all the time. Every alliance should have one.

Reduce cycle time.

Autonomous.

[IKE]

Originally Posted by Wayne TenBrink

....
Time at the feeder station is just as import as time spent anywhere else. Practice lining up, practice feeding discs. Practice, practice, practice.

....

This was a huge variable for a lot of teams. Time at the feeder station often exceeded the time to run down the field, set up, and shoot for many teams.

With median OPR last week being at 13, every cycle at the feeder station and making the shots is worth about 1x the median OPR. Thus, every extra cycle puts you way above the rest of the competition.
************************************
I saw a handful of teams this weekend capable of putting up 70+ points per match, but a consistent 50+ seemed to get you ranked higher than a 30-70 range machine.

[NotaJoke]

Many of the best of the best still can't climb to the top. Perhaps they won't ever need to.

Curses can be broken (GO 1718!) Maybe this is the year of broken curses

Even the best teams have off tournaments. Don't count them out of the next one because of it, though!

[Becca334]

All cameras from teams can be turned off if FTA thinks cameras cause field issues. Even teams with vision tracking had to turn their cameras off at NYC.

[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by Becca334

All cameras from teams can be turned off if FTA thinks cameras cause field issues. Even teams with vision tracking had to turn their cameras off at NYC.

That's really distressing. It's akin to telling teams halfway through a regional that CAN is now illegal. Or using PID control or something. The affected teams need to raise a fuss about that so it gets addressed by FIRST HQ.

Originally Posted by Wayne TenBrink

Variable elevation shooters are the biggest cause of missed shots/reduced cycles for so many teams. First, because teams just miss. Second, because it slows the whole cycle down (position robot, adjust shooter, shoot, adjust, shoot, adjust, shoot, shoot).

You mean manually adjusted variable angle shooters. Speaking as a variable angle shooter that was pretty darned accurate shooting from the back or the front of the pyramid.

[GBK]

Don't count out those full court shooters just yet. Yesterday at Waterford we saw one alliance with two short full court shooters, both very good teams. Had they both been dialed in, good luck defending both of them. There was also an alliance with a tall full court shooter, when they were protected by their partner, there was not way of stopping them. The lack of protection allowed for a very powerful alliance to pull out the win.

Watch out for 1718

[Herbblood]

Weather can't stop some people(We had bunch of snow at WPI, some teams were late or couldn't make it... ... )
Underdogs can win, and the actual rankings don't always work like you would want them to.. With half of hour matches we were one of two robots on the field and ended up in 30th, yet we had one of the top robots for autonomus.
Luck and a prayer can do very well in competition.
Defense is really helpfull, and robots need strategys for going around defense.
Spirit is amazing for your drive team or you team in general.
Some climbing isn't counted from simple things like a zip tie, or your robot goes slowly down.
Your human players can do alot with throwing the colored discs at the end..
Scouting helps a lot!! As well as cordinating with the other teams on your alliance

[Camren]

Originally Posted by xraymypanda

From a full court shooter which got stopped by them, a modification at lunch turns a small defense bot into a tall defense bot to stop a low full court shooter(me). Then into an 84" tall robot to stop a taller full court shooter. That's all it takes, given that the full court shooter is alone.

This was a disappointing show in my mind I personally thought it was more of a trolling device. I called them RTD (Royal Trolling Devices) because they were created to shut down 2169 King Tec the first match one of these RTD's were found shutting them down the crowd cheered for every blocked shot. I dont know why it just seems ungracious to me, but at the same time you are helping your alliance so it is kind of hard to say how FIRST worthy these duct tape contraptions are.

[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by Camren

This was a disappointing show in my mind I personally thought it was more of a trolling device. I called them RTD (Royal Trolling Devices) because they were created to shut down 2169 King Tec the first match one of these RTD's were found shutting them down the crowd cheered for every blocked shot. I dont know why it just seems ungracious to me, but at the same time you are helping your alliance so it is kind of hard to say how FIRST worthy these duct tape contraptions are.

2169 should have been expecting this. This isn't an engineering fair and demonstration, it's FRC. Defense is part of the game. You can't expect a good FRC team to just sit there and get clobbered by a full-court shooter; they're going to engineer a solution to the problem. As long as those teams weren't breaking any rules, I don't see how their actions are possibly ungracious.