Importance of Climbing

[brrian27]

So with lots of teams having participated in regionals or at least having watched some other regionals, what value do you now place on climbing? Have you seen it make a big impact on winning alliances, or has it become a secondary feature to better shooting?

Personally at Orlando, dominant shooting could be beat out, as seen by the 50-pt climb that 4451 Robots Garage completed every time (I think). Their climb was huge, got them multiple awards, and regional finalists. We hope to perfect out climbing for South Florida in a few weeks and make a large impact.

So what have you seen? Is climbing important or not?

[MrForbes]

I think we've seen a few threads on this topic already. From what I saw in San Diego, it was far less important than accurate shooting. However, the 10 point hang was worth doing, it didn't take much time and the extra points were needed if the opposing alliance's robots all hang.

[Jay O'Donnell]

It depends on how fast you do it...if you spend the entire match climbing, then in my opinion you are hurting your alliance. If you can get the 50 point climb in 30 seconds or less, and either score or play defense the rest of the time, then you will be a huge asset to your alliance.

[Ninja_Bait]

In New York, our alliance (694, 4797 and 3137) won in quarterfinals by outshooting an alliance with a 30-pt climber but weak shooters. We then won semifinals by putting up 20-30 climb points (10 each) along with shooting against an alliance of 3 amazing shooters.

tl;dr: Winning is about being able to adapt to any strategy by figuring out what is important on a match-by-match basis, not on a CD-thread-hypothetical basis.

[45Auto]

Points are points. Doesn't matter how they're scored.

A 50 point climber/dumper that spends the whole game doing it is more valuable than the shooter who spends the whole game (including autonomous) scoring less than 50 points.

Any time less than 2 minutes required by the climber can be used by it to block the opposing alliance. A climber that takes 45 seconds to climb can spend half the match blocking the opposing shooters. Turning a 3-frisbee-cycle opposing robot into a 2-frisbee-cycle opposing robot (costing the opposing alliance 12 points) is the same thing as the climber scoring 12 points.

Obviously a dominant shooter has the potential to outscore a climber/dumper. Seeing how the average total alliance score after the first 3 weeks is less than 50 points, it's pretty obvious that the a typical shooter is scoring much less than 30 points total per game.

[MrRiedemanJACC]

Umm where are you getting your data that the average total alliance is getting less than 50 pts per game? If you mean winning and losing you may be right, but this weekend at st. Joseph's those numbers seemed to be much higher than that. But then again we lost in semi finals scoring 108 and 113, so I may be a little biased....

Originally Posted by 45Auto

Points are points. Doesn't matter how they're scored.

A 50 point climber/dumper that spends the whole game doing it is more valuable than the shooter who spends the whole game (including autonomous) scoring less than 50 points.

Any time less than 2 minutes required by the climber can be used by it to block the opposing alliance. A climber that takes 45 seconds to climb can spend half the match blocking the opposing shooters. Turning a 3-frisbee-cycle opposing robot into a 2-frisbee-cycle opposing robot (costing the opposing alliance 12 points) is the same thing as the climber scoring 12 points.

Obviously a dominant shooter has the potential to outscore a climber/dumper. Seeing how the average total alliance score after the first 3 weeks is less than 50 points, it's pretty obvious that the a typical shooter is scoring much less than 30 points total per game.

[Weinberger]

Peachtree Regional finals came down to climbing, lead change at the last second! Teams (4th seed, Red) 1683:4509:832 vs. (7th seed,Blue) 3489:4026:4080
Ref called three 10point climbs for Blue. Red had two successful 10point hangs. Red climb points were uncontested. But all three bots in blue were reviewed by ref team. Required a long discussion & Jan Spurlin (Head Ref at Peachtree) confirmed 30points, in favor for Blue. blue takes Championships by 97-88; congrats Category 5. And Jeremy Roberts from 4026. And that disc hucking 4080 bot from the feeder station. Killer alliance. Amazing match, we (1683) had a blast playing these finals matches.

[Squeakypig]

At the Detroit district, having a 10 point climb was very important for winning...unless you could score 6-8 discs at the end while everyone is hanging *cough* 469 *cough*. We tried to counter that by hanging for 10 and shooting 4 while hanging...instead of countering, we just teamed up!

In conclusion, hanging is good, so is 469.

[MrRiedemanJACC]

Oh, don't get me wrong hanging is good, but going for 30 is just too risky in my opinion. 10 is easy and should be done by all teams. Well, unless this happens....

http://imgur.com/r34BB3L

[rzoeller]

Originally Posted by MrRiedemanJACC

Oh, don't get me wrong hanging is good, but going for 30 is just too risky in my opinion. 10 is easy and should be done by all teams. Well, unless this happens....

http://imgur.com/r34BB3L

How were penalties called for this?

[MrRiedemanJACC]

Our alliance was awarded 50 climb points. Two of us climbed for 10, the third member was awarded a full 30 pt climb. Only one was actually touching the red bot at the end of the match.

[Gregor]

Originally Posted by MrRiedemanJACC

Our alliance was awarded 50 climb points. Two of us climbed for 10, the third member was awarded a full 30 pt climb. Only one was actually touching the red bot at the end of the match.

Was there a tech foul on red for violating G30?

[MrRiedemanJACC]

We were awarded 23 foul points for that match per frc-spy. Not sure of the breakout. Tomorrow I will check with my student who went to the question box to get clarification.

[FRC BOTMOM]

At the NC. regional in the quarter finals the 6th seeded
alliance 3319,2642 and 3196 had 2 30 pt climbers and a 10pt for a total of 70pts. That was impressive!

[Clem1640]

I agree with 45Auto. Points are points. Ultimate Ascent is a high-scoring game, with alliance scores of 140 or more not uncommon. A good shooter can easily outscore a dedicated climber.

On the other hand, a balanced design combining a good shooter with a quick climb (30 s) can contribute significantly to its alliance's score.