Wall 'o Boxes

[Solace]

Originally posted by M. Krass
I wrote that poorly. What I meant to say, I think, is that any team that's relying on getting on top of the ramp first, and stackers in particular, aren't going to do well. If you can manage to get the bins to your scoring zone, you're in good shape. But, to me, it seems like everyone's putting all their eggs in one basket with their design and strategy. You either get to the bins first or you don't. There's very few teams that have shown anything that can reliably tip the balance of the game after that wall has come down.

I hope that the teams who have chosen to keep their robots hidden are doing so precisely because they have such designs. If our robot were designed to reliably control the score regardless of where the majority of bins land, I'd not have shown it. In fact, maybe we didn't .

I do believe teams can excel in more than one role, but not likely at the same time. Again, I just think that too many teams decide to let the matches be decided in the first 15 or 30 seconds - without really considering whether or not it needed to be.

Thanks for the clarification.

However, you obviously didn't attend the UTC Scrimmage. In 3 out of the 4 finals rounds that led to victory, teams 571 and 173 failed to get to the ramp first (mainly due to not yet having autonomous mode programmed in). We won because we were able to a)move large numbers of the opponents bins into the no-acore zone and b)outmanuever the opponents on the ramp.

I will agree with you that this would not be a likely outcome when facing a robot like 68 or 179, but it shows that losing the initial battle for the wall is not necessarily the end-all. (although its always nice to get there first).