900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles

[steelerborn]

Just would like to say that I think that all 4 members of an alliance (no matter the amount of play time) get to share in the winnings.

I have a lot of respect 148 (one of my favorite teams), 1114, 1923, and 900. Karthik and Libby are both great mentors that do so much for their team and the FIRST community.

Watching that last semi-final match was insane I was on the edge of my seat. I think MrJohnston also made some points that I feel are correct. Recycle Rush at its core was a game of consistency. I am personally not a fan of telling robots to sit and just wait for the end of the game (especially since this year there was no defense, or endgame. Finding a job was more challenging).

Just food for thought if 1923 had put up 1 tote in teleop, in each SF match, you would have a different set of world champions right now. That is just one tote a match, I would trust almost any team this year with that task. Even if they spent the whole match doing just that 1 tote. It still is a contribution that would have made a huge difference. And after watching 1923 this year I am sure they could have done this easily.

In the end it was just a poor strategy decision, but from reading all of the posts from 900, 1923, and 1114 it sounds like the kids had a blast being there, learning from some great teams, and were able to make some great memories which is what FIRST is all about. Great job all around

[meg]

Originally Posted by Chinmay

Agreed, it is a shared setup, and you should discuss with 1114. Make sure not to completely defer to them, as I think your colleague may have implied in his post. It is not presumptuous of him to own that work. He worked hard on it, and it is as much your as theirs.

Clearly you have never met anyone on our team . We are some of the most stubborn people I've ever met. Makes for some fascinating team dynamics! The statement was definitely to respect 1114's interest in the project as well.

Originally Posted by steelerborn

Just food for thought if 1923 had put up 1 tote in teleop, in each SF match, you would have a different set of world champions right now. That is just one tote a match, I would trust almost any team this year with that task. Even if they spent the whole match doing just that 1 tote. It still is a contribution that would have made a huge difference. And after watching 1923 this year I am sure they could have done this easily.

In the end it was just a poor strategy decision, but from reading all of the posts from 900, 1923, and 1114 it sounds like the kids had a blast being there, learning from some great teams, and were able to make some great memories which is what FIRST is all about. Great job all around

I disagree with this. As 1923 has already said, they were less reliable loading their robot without their ramp (which they couldn't have and can burgle). Since 148 got nearly all of the bins stacked from the HP station, it is definitely possible that the totes falling sideways out of the feeder station trying to feed them to 1923 would have actually decreased the number available to 148 and would have meant less points for the alliance. With the close quarters and not being able to see, there was also a higher risk of knocking over stacks. As has been previously said by the teams, the alliances discussed the possibility of having 1923 stack and decided as a group that it was a higher risk than they were willing to take. I have the utmost respect for 1923 for being able to make that decision and put the needs of the alliance above their desire to stack themselves

[steelerborn]

Originally Posted by meg

I disagree with this. As 1923 has already said, they were less reliable loading their robot without their ramp (which they couldn't have and can burgle). Since 148 got nearly all of the bins stacked from the HP station, it is definitely possible that the totes falling sideways out of the feeder station trying to feed them to 1923 would have actually decreased the number available to 148 and would have meant less points for the alliance. With the close quarters and not being able to see, there was also a higher risk of knocking over stacks. As has been previously said by the teams, the alliances discussed the possibility of having 1923 stack and decided as a group that it was a higher risk than they were willing to take. I have the utmost respect for 1923 for being able to make that decision and put the needs of the alliance above their desire to stack themselves

I never said that the strategy was not decided as a group. I am sure 900, 1923, 1114, and 148 all had long discussions about the strategy together especially with 900 getting up and running with the cheesecake. All the teams I know have great drivers, students, and mentors

I was saying that no stack needed to be made, even if they just dropped in one tote (from the other feeder station, opposite of Robin) and pushed it up onto the scoring platform (even if it was sideways). That would have been all they needed in the match. I think 148 would have been okay with having just one tote less. It was hard to tell but did they ever drain the human stations by themselves? And I know that it is easy to see what could have happened once the event is done and over with. But I was just showing how such a small strategical decision could have a big outcome.

[meg]

Originally Posted by steelerborn

It was hard to tell but did they ever drain the human stations by themselves? And I know that it is easy to see what could have happened once the event is done and over with. But I was just showing how such a small strategical decision could have a big outcome.

I believe they were constantly within a few totes of the human stations being cleared by themselves. And the likelihood that a single tote would land sideways/upside down was not negligible.

[steelerborn]

If the tote fell sideways it still would have been fine just push it right up onto the scoring platform. Spend the whole match making sure that at least one tote was scored. That is all I was saying.

[meg]

Understood! It was a risk vs reward decision.

It could also be said that if 148's auto had worked in just one more SF match it wouldn't have been nearly so close

[steelerborn]

Yup that is also very true as well
Little things can make a big difference.

[howdosheeplamp]

After all this argument, I am certain there is something we can all agree on.
From the 21-seconds-left noodling of one of 118's stacks to them pushing a piece of litter into the landfill during the last moments of the match, to each and every noodle human players missed or scored, the semifinals, especially semifinal 6, was one of the most stressful, hand-wringing, and emotionally charged moments of my entire high school experience.
As a student at the end of my senior year, I can't believe I was part of such an amazing event. I have only gratitude towards all the teams at the event, and I am certain there are hundreds, if not thousands, of other inspired students much like myself. And isn't that the point of this all?
Sincerely, to all the teams that challenged me, inspired me, and brought me to tears of joy at the end of it all,
Thank you.

[Citrus Dad]

Seeing the video of the 1114/900 mechanism was quite interesting. We had developed a "counter-counter-cheesecake" to this counter-cheesecake that may have left a mess in both landfills. In the end, we might have left 118 off the field and used 1671 to stack from HP station while 5012 and 900 had can wars.

[pabeekm]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

"counter-counter-cheesecake"

Darn it.... now I can't stop imagining an entire counter full of cheesecake.

[marshall]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

Seeing the video of the 1114/900 mechanism was quite interesting. We had developed a "counter-counter-cheesecake" to this counter-cheesecake that may have left a mess in both landfills. In the end, we might have left 118 off the field and used 1671 to stack from HP station while 5012 and 900 had can wars.

I really want to hear about the strategy you guys had developed with 5012. I have only heard bits and pieces. I hope someone is working on a write up. Y'all were an amazing alliance!

[steelerborn]

I wish 1671 was given some cheesecake, would have been nice to celebrate with some desert lol.

[howdosheeplamp]

Originally Posted by marshall

I really want to hear about the strategy you guys had developed with 5012. I have only heard bits and pieces. I hope someone is working on a write up. Y'all were an amazing alliance!

Immediately after 5012 was picked, 118 got to work putting their cheesecake on the back of the robot (dubbed "Bane"). They finished their cheesecake sometime during division semis, if I remember correctly.
Meanwhile, 1678 was building and testing a separate cheesecake. This was originally designed to be mounted on top of a robot drive base, but a wooden frame was used as a substitute since 5012 was being cheesecaked at the same time. After the 118-1678-1671-5012 alliance won their division, we started planning the counter-counter-cheesecake against 1114's harpoons. This ultimately led to the wooden frame being the final mounting spot for the cheesecake, and after cutting some weight off of both 5012 and the second cheesecake, the whole assembly (5012+118's "Bane"+1678's tethered cheesecake) was under 120 lbs. It was good to go by Einstein semis, if I recall correctly.

[RoboChair]

Originally Posted by howdosheeplamp

Immediately after 5012 was picked, 118 got to work putting their cheesecake on the back of the robot (dubbed "Bane"). They finished their cheesecake sometime during division semis, if I remember correctly.
Meanwhile, 1678 was building and testing a separate cheesecake. This was originally designed to be mounted on top of a robot drive base, but a wooden frame was used as a substitute since 5012 was being cheesecaked at the same time. After the 118-1678-1671-5012 alliance won their division, we started planning the counter-counter-cheesecake against 1114's harpoons. This ultimately led to the wooden frame being the final mounting spot for the cheesecake, and after cutting some weight off of both 5012 and the second cheesecake, the whole assembly (5012+118's "Bane"+1678's tethered cheesecake) was under 120 lbs. It was good to go by Einstein semis, if I recall correctly.

It was ready just after Newton Finals. Preparation of our cheesecake was setting up the mechanism on a stand-in kitbot frame, a wood base on Friday. Saturday morning the plan changed to make it able to tether to 3rd bot with our robot parked OVER it. The mechanism was tested with 5 wraps in the pits while being weighed down with 2 cinder-blocks and 2 sandbags and grabbed the cans in 158 ms AFTER BUCKING NEARLY A FOOT off the ground and shrugging the blocks off. So if our robot could hold it down even better on the field there would be less wasted energy propelling it even faster! Then after auto we would drive off of Tether-Cake and stack some totes while leaving those 2 cans to be tied up the whole match.

[JeffB]

Originally Posted by steelerborn

Watching that last semi-final match was insane I was on the edge of my seat. I think MrJohnston also made some points that I feel are correct. Recycle Rush at its core was a game of consistency. I am personally not a fan of telling robots to sit and just wait for the end of the game (especially since this year there was no defense, or endgame. Finding a job was more challenging).

This was my first year getting to know FRC and seeing what it was all about so my understanding of past years may be a bit foggy. I've talked with countless teams at several events this year and have heard stories from all sides. I can understand where you're coming from with a distaste for teams being told to sit on the sideline. I remember one team in particular I worked with struggled early on. It was heartbreaking to see how down the team was about being told to stay out of the way during qualification rounds. It was also very gratifying to see the difference in their faces as we fixed issues they were having and had them climbing the charts and being a larger part of their team's success.

But, that's apples to oranges. None of the teams in this thread feel pushed aside. In fact, it's strange to me to suggest a can burglar staying out of the way the rest of the match isn't an integral part of the team. The consensus agrees the most important part of this year's strategy was the can race. If we agree this is true, the most important part of a team's success is the robot grabbing the cans. Even if they're idle the rest of the match, they play the most important role on the team. How is this fundamentally different than a robot with the sole purpose to go disrupt the other team's strong robot? The amount of time being active doesn't change the importance of a robot nor that team's role in decision making. Why are we acting as if it does?

I think we're losing something in all of this debate. FRC isn't about robots. You can gather the purpose behind FIRST from Dean's promos. It's about inspiring the next generation to find a higher purpose than idolizing shooting a ball through a net. Too many of us forget there's more to being an engineer than putting together an amazing machine. The soft skills some of these kids are showing are just as incredible as the machines they put together. Are we really preparing them for the real world if we penalize using soft skills to collaborate? We're quick to credit 1114 for designing half the robot. We're slow to recognize 900 for putting together a base that could accept that robot and stepping out of an engineer's comfort zone to work with peers. We're ignoring the team was able to successfully network with their peers, their competition, and staff to come together towards a common goal. Isn't developing those skills a key component to what FIRST is about?

One of the teams I worked with this past weekend was a second pick at their regional. If you look at the three teams, it's not difficult to see which robots were handling the event. Their robot wasn't a strong robot at the competition. But, that's not all there is to the event. They worked with their alliance to develop a strategy that won. At worlds, they weren't frustrated about that experience. They were proud of their banner and one of the more solid teams I worked with. When obstacles came into their path, they were telling their mentor how they were going to move forward. They maintained relationships with the teams from their regional and used these relationships to help get through their current obstacle. With this, they spread their network to include other teams all while showing poise that left me in awe. Their networking skills helped them be selected to elimination rounds at worlds. They're leaving multiple events with new friends and new resources they can use to build their knowledge and excitement. Isn't that at the core of what FIRST is all about?