The Quest for Einstein

[ice.berg]

Money - I am going to have to disagree on this one. Yes money does help, but doest it directly influent success? I don't think so.

Resourcefulness - I believe this is one of the most crucial things in FIRST. You may not have a lot of cash or other fancy things, but its how you use your resources to their greatest ability. I have seen some many successful robots built with a reciprocating saw and a dewalt. Now, of course it may not be the most efficient or prettiest, but it sure could get the job done.

It may be a surprise but, money does not automatically buy you a great robot in FIRST.

[artK]

The third (and fourth) bot is extremely important to doing well at champs. Consider the third robots of the past few years championship alliances. Getting the best alliance partners requires a great combination of an amazing robot, strong scouting, a generous schedule, and some teams to fall deep into the draft. Teams like 2848, 610, 16, 973, 177, 971, 148, 987*, who normally go deep (or win) at the most competitive regionals, were the second picks on these alliances. Even the fourth bots this year were all exceptional robots (5136 and 3467 were among my favorite machines that year, and those four backup robots won three events, a couple of district champion finals appearances).

The one catch for trying to build a good third robot is that what it contributes to the alliance can be difficult to see year to year, especially when doing initial strategic analysis. I could write in extreme detail what third bots did, but in general, the best third robots specialized in something other than the primary scoring function.



*I am not sure what the draft order was when they won champs, but it was from the 8th seed, and 177 is already on the list.

[dodar]

Originally Posted by artK

The third (and fourth) bot is extremely important to doing well at champs. Consider the third robots of the past few years championship alliances. Getting the best alliance partners requires a great combination of an amazing robot, strong scouting, a generous schedule, and some teams to fall deep into the draft. Teams like 2848, 610, 16, 973, 177, 971, 148, 987*, who normally go deep (or win) at the most competitive regionals, were the second picks on these alliances. Even the fourth bots this year were all exceptional robots (5136 and 3467 were among my favorite machines that year, and those four backup robots won three events, a couple of district champion finals appearances).

The one catch for trying to build a good third robot is that what it contributes to the alliance can be difficult to see year to year, especially when doing initial strategic analysis. I could write in extreme detail what third bots did, but in general, the best third robots specialized in something other than the primary scoring function.



*I am not sure what the draft order was when they won champs, but it was from the 8th seed, and 177 is already on the list.

190 picked 987 then 177 in 2007.