Week 1 Number One Seed Score Average

[Jared]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

Not only are there a lot of posts that overestimate like they do every year, it's particularly odd this year. Why? Let's recap

1) This is the hardest game in the modern era.
<snip>
5) This is the hardest game in the modern era.

I do agree that this game is spectacularly difficult and slower paced than most games (many teams had to speed up their robot reveal videos and make cuts - it's not too exciting to see a robot park in front of a feeder station and load 6 totes for 25 seconds), but I'm not as pessimistic as you are.

Here are a few reasons:
1). Teams have access to an amazing selection of COTS parts this year, including REV robotics bearings/extrusions for making simple lifts, new Vex Pro and AndyMark gearboxes for powering these lifts, and many options for affordable, off the shelf drive systems. These COTS products are cheaper than ever before, so building a decent elevator is no longer too difficult.

2). There are a decent number of reasonable easy points to get. Coopertition sets are quite easy to get, and a coopertition stack only requires one robot to do any stacking so it may happen more than the 2012 co-op bridge, which required two robots to be good balancers.

3). There's less room for robot damage. In previous years, there has been lots of defense, things to fall off of, things to crash into, and scoring racks to get tangled in. This year, there's not much on the field that can damage your robot.

4). It's easy to practice. A practice field can be very close to the competition field this year. Teams need less room to set up the field, and the scoring platforms, tote chute, and step are much less complicated than the 2013 tower + goals, the 2012 bridge + hoops, and is as easy to build as the 2014 low goal and high goal.

5). RI3D. The Team Indiana lexan flaps are a great idea that many teams have implemented.

I could be wrong, but it seems like we've gotten carried away with saying that teams will always do worse than we expect.