Week 1 Observations

[wireties]

Originally Posted by Pretzel

Did you perhaps mean Dallas, which finished at around 9:00-10:00 mountain time? If so, it is because they had to end qualifications matches on Friday at ~3:00 due to weather concerns. This meant they had to finish qualification matches on Saturday afternoon before they could do alliance selections and eliminations.

And the weather delay continued through Saturday morning. Matches did not start till 11:00 Saturday morning after ending at 3:45-ish on Friday. On top of that many local school districts sent buses to pull their students home mid-day Friday and would not transport students on Saturday. It was a mess and FIRST did the best they could.

[Kevin Leonard]

It was interesting sitting at home and watching different alliance compositions compete.
Dallas was the battle of the superpowers, with 148-987 and 118-624. These two alliances mostly competed as individuals, with each robot doing their own thing. However, sometimes in eliminations, 987 would grab a stack from Robin while Batman was out to get a quick score toward the end. 3rd picks only really came in to play when they needed to come in clutch and keep up average scores.
These two alliances also showed that a less crowded field can be better, often putting up high scores despite having only 1 or 2 robots on the field.

At Hatboro-Horsham, you also had the top two robots working alone, but their third picks were tremendously important, with the third robots of the finalist alliances working to grab containers from the step during teleop. The winning alliance had major help from 5407, who had an interesting mechanism for grabbing containers.

At Waterbury, the number one seed and eventual champion alliance worked as separate systems for the most part, but the other finalist alliance was much more interesting. The alliance of 237-558-4557 worked as an amazing team. The alliance hinged on having all the recycling containers due to 237's auto. 237 and 4557 would make short stacks of 2-3, and 558 would work to add noodles to cans and cap the stacks. Most of their successful matches would end with 4-6 stacks of 1-3 that were capped with RC's. They took the winners to 3 with this fascinating strategy.

The first seed and finalists at Indianapolis had similar teamwork, with 5188 and 1024 working to make stacks, and then 1024 would cap all of them.

Most successful robots and high seeds took primarily from the feeder station, but a few of the competitive machines, like 987, 118, and 230 all took to the landfill, and a few alliances making short stacks also took from the landfill.

Stacks of 5 and 6 seemed interchangeable at most events, but the shorter the stacks being made, the more important litter became to success.

Matches in eliminations at most events were sometimes decided by which alliance more effectively threw litter.

Lastly, most people's crazy score predictions were way off, and a very competitive machine is one that can make one full stack per match.
High scores at most regionals were around 100.

[KosmicKhaos]

Unfortunately after 24 hours i can no longer edit this post to add more observations. However i will continue to add observations of other people and such on the reddit version of this thread.

http://http://www.reddit.com/r/FRC/c..._observations/

[dradel]

Originally Posted by Kevin Leonard

It was interesting sitting at home and watching different alliance compositions compete.

Dallas was the battle of the superpowers, with 148-987 and 118-624. These two alliances mostly competed as individuals, with each robot doing their own thing. However, sometimes in eliminations, 987 would grab a stack from Robin while Batman was out to get a quick score toward the end. 3rd picks only really came in to play when they needed to come in clutch and keep up average scores.

These two alliances also showed that a less crowded field can be better, often putting up high scores despite having only 1 or 2 robots on the field.



At Hatboro-Horsham, you also had the top two robots working alone, but their third picks were tremendously important, with the third robots of the finalist alliances working to grab containers from the step during teleop. The winning alliance had major help from 5407, who had an interesting mechanism for grabbing containers.



At Waterbury, the number one seed and eventual champion alliance worked as separate systems for the most part, but the other finalist alliance was much more interesting. The alliance of 237-558-4557 worked as an amazing team. The alliance hinged on having all the recycling containers due to 237's auto. 237 and 4557 would make short stacks of 2-3, and 558 would work to add noodles to cans and cap the stacks. Most of their successful matches would end with 4-6 stacks of 1-3 that were capped with RC's. They took the winners to 3 with this fascinating strategy.



The first seed and finalists at Indianapolis had similar teamwork, with 5188 and 1024 working to make stacks, and then 1024 would cap all of them.



Most successful robots and high seeds took primarily from the feeder station, but a few of the competitive machines, like 987, 118, and 230 all took to the landfill, and a few alliances making short stacks also took from the landfill.



Stacks of 5 and 6 seemed interchangeable at most events, but the shorter the stacks being made, the more important litter became to success.



Matches in eliminations at most events were sometimes decided by which alliance more effectively threw litter.



Lastly, most people's crazy score predictions were way off, and a very competitive machine is one that can make one full stack per match.

High scores at most regionals were around 100.

Was amazing being part of the Waterbury district final! Seeing 237, 558, and 4557 develop and implement their strategy made this mentor proud.

[Doug Frisk]

Originally Posted by Squillo

I think this is mixing apples and oranges. You go from "nothing a rookie can contribute" to talking about the difficulty of making "full stacks" - implying that if a team can't make a full (I assume that by this you mean a 6-high) stack, they can't do anything. Consider our robot - we can make stacks up to 4 (though 3 is our sweet spot), cap a stack of up to 4, help with coopertition, move our bot, a tote and a can in auto (or do less if desired). We don't even have a MechE mentor, and we just started learning CAD this year. We have no sponsors who provide parts, machining, or shop space. Even if "putting together a full stack" were more than we could do (and I'm not conceding that, but it may very well have been true had we tried to do that), I do tjink we'll "contribute" to our alliances. We actually found it easier to build what we think will be a solid competitor (no, not a superstar), without having to worry AS MUCH about being beat to a pulp by the other robots, strict perimeter rules during competition, etc.

I like this game. I wouldn't say it's my favorite, or least favorite, but I just don't see why everyone hates it so much. Admittedly it would be more fun to watch if more robots actually did stuff, but I'm thinking that will improve over the next 6 weeks.

I didn't say I hated the game I said it's hard, perhaps impossible, for teams who don't have excellent engineering and manufacturing (and programming) skills to be able to build a high scoring robot.

The major scoring this year comes from lifting recycling containers onto the top of stacks. Yes, totes are worth 2 points each, but if you can build a stack 6 totes high and then put a container on top, that container is worth 24 points and there's no path to advancement in this game that doesn't involve lifting those containers up very high.

There's no question that's an engineering and manufacturing challenge that relatively few teams can achieve.

[rich2202]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

Look at my other post. We came to the regional with the impression we could "pop" the totes by stopping them at the end of its travel trough the chute. Myself and other team members, along with other team members, were split on how we thought referees would rule on this with regards to the Q&A, so we asked at the event and got what we got.

Print the Q&A where First allows dragging
Go to the Question Box, and ask the Head Ref for a clarification
Show the Q&A and confirm that dragging will not be called as a foul

At Lake Superior, dragging was not a foul. What is a foul is: When the HP lets go of the chute door, if the door does not fully close - then that is the foul.

So, push the chute door closed, and don't let go until it is fully closed.

[tindleroot]

Originally Posted by Zebra_Fact_Man

The other thing that I thought was kind of funny was that this is the only year to my knowledge where a #1 seed can end up playing as the blue alliance.

I though the highest seeded team was always red alliance this year.

[JeffersonMartin]

Originally Posted by tindleroot

I though the highest seeded team was always red alliance this year.

Alliances reseed after each playoff round. So the 1 overall seed could end up as the fourth seed in semis.

[MechEng83]

Originally Posted by Jay O'Donnell

Agreed. One bad match in quarters/semis (whether it is your own fault or a dead robot) kills your average and chances of advancing, but one bad match finals and you still have a chance to win the other two matches.

The advancement structure has created a big problem with red card penalties in eliminations.

Case in point: My team's alliance was given a red card for G14 after our 1st semifinal match because we had back-to-back matches and our alliance partner tethered their robot as many teams have done in the past with back-to-back matches, during the field timeout. We were about to do the same to get log files when the head ref came out to give our alliance the red card.

Now, I'm not disputing the penalty, it's clearly in the rules (though easily overlooked by teams used to previous years). But I feel the consequence of the penalty far outweighs the action. In the past, a red card gave you zero points, and the counter was reset, so you could recover from that. With the advancement structure being average score, you're basically hosed from a single red card, with almost no ability to recover.

So my warning to everyone is: don't tether the robot on the field. Ever.

My plea to FIRST is to change this rule. I understand the safety implications in Frank's written notes about this in the team update, but this is another example of the infamous "beatings will continue until morale improves"

[carpedav000]

We just came back from a week one Indiana district event, I noticed that the landfill can be a bit too crowded to make larger stacks of totes. The quarterfinals at the event were rather exciting, as the 8th seated alliance (The CyberCards, 1720, and 1741) took first and held it until the last quarterfinal match.

[plnyyanks]

Originally Posted by MechEng83

Now, I'm not disputing the penalty, it's clearly in the rules (though easily overlooked by teams used to previous years). But I feel the consequence of the penalty far outweighs the action. In the past, a red card gave you zero points, and the counter was reset, so you could recover from that. With the advancement structure being average score, you're basically hosed from a single red card, with almost no ability to recover.

Are you implying that you could tether the robot on the field in previous years? Because that isn't true. From archived game manuals

Originally Posted by 2014 T15

ROBOTS will not be re-enabled after the conclusion of the MATCH, nor will Teams be permitted to tether to the ROBOT

Originally Posted by 2013 T15

5.5.5.2 T15
ROBOTS will not be re-enabled after the conclusion of the MATCH, nor will Teams be permitted to tether to the ROBOT

Originally Posted by 2012 T23

Robots will not be re-enabled after the conclusion of the Match, nor will teams be permitted to tether to the Robot

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by plnyyanks

Are you implying that you could tether the robot on the field in previous years? Because that isn't true. From archived game manuals

To my knowledge this was never enforced during eliminations where there are field timeouts, and there was no applied red card for it either.

[plnyyanks]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

To my knowledge this was never enforced during eliminations where there are field timeouts, and there was no applied red card for it either.

That's a good point - the red card is new this year. I guess that's why it's starting to be enforced.

[Thad House]

In past years, we have been specifically asked to tether on the fields if we had back to back matches. We were asked to do it this year as well. Thats weird that you guys got carded for it.

[IronicDeadBird]

Whats the reasoning behind no tethering on the field? The red cards in FRC follow the general pattern of being safety related (don't let your robot wield totes in an aggressive manner towards refs), GP related (be civil) or just actions that would break the game (don't throw auto totes that you took off the field into the auto zone during auto)
Tethering doesn't fall into any of those categories at least not that I know of.