GTRW - After-thoughts and thank-you's

[billylo]

Since there isn't an official thread for GTRW, I am starting this one to capture your after-thoughts and thank you's.

Here are my top 3 to kick it off.

1. Participating teams were awesome and gracious. Competition was very intense and yet professional (yes, Canadian spirits were well-represented!) Great to see 188 to be back in the fold and the Blizzard delivered!

2. Similar to other week 1 events, day 1 of qualification matches had several glitches and mis-communication. Volunteers/HP/Refs/Teams were still learning to officiate and play the game. Unfortunately, the 50-pt penalties made it more difficult for participants to ignore/overlook these week 1 glitches.

3. Elimination games were exciting as ever. Open field enabled all teams to actively engage. Lessons learned for teams playing in week 2: tighten/strengthen everything and build spare parts. It's almost like battle-bots in some games.

Bonus tip: Low goal is your friend during elims. (unlike Ultimate Ascent.)

Three cheers to 1310 for winning and captaining the #1 seed!

[Matthew Lang]

Thanks to everyone who came out to GTRW, and an extra thanks to all of the volunteers who kept the event running more smoothly than any first week, new venue event I've ever been to. Here is a 610-focused recap video again created by our own Jordan Grant and Jacob Kachura.

[Gregor]

Many thanks to everyone that made this event run so smoothly. Getting 30 teams loaded out the one door 2 cars at a time was run excellently. Special thanks to 610 and 5076 for being excellent parters. 610 is 610, what can I say, and 5076 was everything we were looking for in a third partner.

To the teams that saw us before bag, I bet you weren't expecting how we ended up performing.

Originally Posted by billylo

Bonus tip: Low goal is your friend during elims. (unlike Ultimate Ascent.)

Seriously, this. Too many times this regional did I see certain teams miss the high goal once, twice, three, even four times! They continued to try and didn't end up completing the cycle. The low goal is way too valuable to ignore. If you're getting defended don't even bother for the high goal, the defence played is just too brutal.

[mman1506]

GTRW was the most fun our team has had at a regional in a very long time.
It was great to see 1310 and 610 get their much deserved win.

Here are my 3:

Adapt: Adapting your robot and strategies to the competition was important to stay competitive. If something consistently doesn't work don't keep doing it.

Durability: An issue with our functions left us playing more aggressively than we had planned and it took a lot of work to keep our robot together between matches. We found that even aesthetic pieces have to be secured properly or they risk becoming field debris.

Rules: Make sure every part of your drive team knows and understands the rules. With the heavy weighting of fouls this year your drive team is only as strong as its weakest link.


Crescent did a great job at hosting GTRW. The amount of work that goes into setting up an event like that baffles me.

[Edxu]

Again, I'd like to thank everyone for coming out to GTR-W, especially the Rookie teams, who I personally thought were all great robots.

Thanks to 1310 and 5076 for being great partners, and to our alliance for collaborating together to create a strategy.

My things to carry forward, which are probably very similar:

Backup Plans: Always have a backup plan ready. If someone misses a ball in Autonomous, who's going to get it? Make sure a robot is assigned to "Cleanup" duty so that there's no confusion.

If a robot is playing heavy defense, and your strategy calls for high goals, just switch to low goals. It may lower your scoring average at first, but you'll catch up in matches won through simple 1/11/21 point cycles.

Defense: Defense is ridiculously powerful in this game. Never underestimate a robot's defensive capability, even if they can't block shots. If a robot can get between you and your ball, and stay there, your entire cycle is stagnated, and you're unable to do anything until that robot is cleared.

Regarding above, always have a robot that's ready to come forward and protect the shooting robot. Even if the robot doesn't play direct pushing defense on other robots, their mere presence will be able to deter most defenders.

Fouls: There were too many games won and lost because of foul points. Make sure that your team has an expert on the rules, and make sure that they review G40 extremely carefully, and have them review the rule and practice the inbound with the human player.

That's all.

Thanks for a great regional!

[wendells]

Thanks to 610 for hosting the GTR West, the venue was appreciated.
First Robotics Canada (Mark, John and all those that played a role in this year organization) you continue to inspire, I am happy to see more teams on board.
Our team will continue to test teams that represents Canada at the World Robotics Championship to ensure that we send the best.
To the winning alliance, good luck, you 3 were awesome.

To my students, (RAMAZOIDZ) I am so proud of everyone, your performance was frightening to me.
We shall be back.

[Thuvishan.R]

On behalf of Team 1241 THEORY6, I just wanted to thank everyone who had a part in making this event run so exceptionally well for a first week regional. Never has Canada had a first week regional, let alone one filled with many high caliber teams willing to compete. This proved to teach a lot and us here on 1241 are glad we could be a part of it. I just want to take a moment to congratulate Mr. Rob Stehlik for all his outstanding work. I am honoured to be able to call him a friend and we could not have been any happier when his name was announced as this year’s GTR-W WFFA winner.

I’d also like to congratulate Teams 1310, 610 and 5076, all of which earned their right to the championship. Thank you as well to our partners 2852 DM High Voltage and 3541 Bulls. We were excited to work with both of you and we hope to do it again in the future! Once again, thank you to all of 610 who not only built an amazing robot and won, you truly are a class act team one which everyone who knows you should try and emulate to be like. Special thanks go out to Mr. Lim for all his help up to and throughout the regional.

The only afterthought that I could leave to add value to the discussion is that efficiency is key. Those who have the most efficient alliance will do well, and everyone should have a specific role to fill while they have the ball or when they don’t. The successful teams will realize this early on and work to make that distinction clear.

[Tem1514 Mentor]

This was a great event and a great game. One of the most exciting moments was when the Third alliance team BEAT the First alliance seed in Finial 1-1. It sure showed that assisting and that low goal is your best friend.

My hat goes off to team captain 2935 and their well name robot Un-der Taker.