[FTC]: Climb or No Climb-That is the question?!

[DadInaDaze]

Summary of what I saw re: climbing while reffing @ our state's second qualifying tournament of the season...

In short, most action was at or below the Mid-Zone; very few rested on the highest heights. (One robot got on the pull-up bar x2, one got in the High Zone [also, I think, in two matches] by hanging on the Cliff low bar.)

As was mentioned up-thread, the majority approach seems to be get to the Mid-Zone, and establish yourself solidly there as best and as high as you could. Getting in the High Zone seemed too tough to do/try for vast majority. Along the way, attempt to trip first and second zip line triggers (modest success from attempts-- almost all were the first trigger only) and score in mountain goals (little attempts, about 33% of scoring in maybe 6 tries), and from there attempt Cliff achievements. I saw no attempts to trip the highest zip-line trigger.

Also did not see what I cautioned against earlier... no robots hit the mountain with a lot of speed in attempt to get as high as possible. Teams learned early that debris foils best-laid plans and they needed to combine enough speed to get onto the mountain while maintaining control.

Tournament winners/high placers were teams that consistently: got at least the minimum points from Autonomous*, was better than .500 at getting climber(s) in the shelters (most done while under driver control), moved some debris into the floor goal, a low zip line trigger attempt, and got into Mid-Zone... often going to the opposite Alliance's side.

*I'd guess half or more of the teams I viewed weren't ready or didn't want to risk things, so sat still in Autonomous. My partner ref and I joked about the stress of scoring in the several cases of an Alliance having two non-moving robots. Again, it's early in the season.