[FiM] Midseason Review

[ahaltom]

First, thanks for the shout out for qualification match 79 in Midland. As I am the drive team coach it was awesome to experience this match on the field.

After competing in 2 events, it seems the ideal alliance would be:

1. Consistent high goal shooter capable of 4+ boulders per match.
2. A robot that can pump many boulders in the low or high goal to guarantee a capture.
3. DEFENSE, DEFENSE, DEFENSE.

The winning alliance at Midland is a prime example of the combination.

1. 3538 - RoboJackets. Consistent high goal shooter.
2. 2619 - The Charge. Put many boulders into the low goal consistently.
3. 5222 - Jackbotics. Completely shut us down when we faced this alliance and shut down any other robot that was a high goal threat. Our alliance had no defense threat, so 3538 and 2619 were able to score boulder after boulder.

A defense breaching specialist may be nice to have as well, but from the two events we have been to, it seems like the breach just occurs naturally if you have capable robots. Also, if you are capable of scaling you will be picked no matter what rank you are after qualification matches (Example: 5166 at Midland).

Thanks for writing this analysis. I hope to see one for the MSC event!

[JABot67]

Great analysis, FiM Informer!

Do you think the batter shooters from MI have a chance to win against the 1678s and 2056es of the world who have dialed in shots from the outer works? What would be some key plays that would tip the balance to either side in that matchup?

Also, do you think it's possible for 67 to start shooting from the outer works? Their vision targeting has been improving, and I know they posted about redesigning their shooter to get a more accurate shot.

[tr6scott]

Good Read, thanks for putting that together.

[sodizzle]

UGH I'm so triggered right now! We didn't mean to break!!!! Haha just kidding
We've had two completely separate gearbox problems that I've never seen before, and from who I've talked to, they've never seen or heard of either. Hopefully we've fixed the problem (again) for this weekends competition.


But for real, great read. I enjoyed it. Thank you for the post.

[tr6scott]

^ I used to wish for TORC to be mentioned by FIMinfromer...
I'm ok with no mention this time. Be Careful what you wish for.

I have a feeling both TORC and BX will be back on tracks this weekend. Good Luck!

[Zebra_Fact_Man]

Originally Posted by sodizzle

UGH I'm so triggered right now! We didn't mean to break!!!! Haha just kidding
We've had two completely separate gearbox problems that I've never seen before, and from who I've talked to, they've never seen or heard of either. Hopefully we've fixed the problem (again) for this weekends competition.


But for real, great read. I enjoyed it. Thank you for the post.

If I may ask, what were your gearbox problems?
We had a gearbox problem of our own flair up the day before our first event, but it was diagnosed and fixed the following day.

[sodizzle]

Originally Posted by Zebra_Fact_Man

If I may ask, what were your gearbox problems?

At Waterford we were using the WCP DS Gearbox. We ended up destroying a dog gear, an axle, a shaft collar, and the mounting block.

At Pittsburgh we decided to get rid of that problem and used WCP SS gearboxes. Part of the problem was with the 11t pinions we were using not quite meshing with the other gears. I wasn't there so I can't say exactly what else happened but I believe the CIMS broke through the mounting hole that has 2 positions for the different sized pinions and spread away from the gear.

All that aside, we're ready to come out to Livonia with fixes and improvements and hopefully perform better than ever.

Originally Posted by tr6scott

I have a feeling both TORC and BX will be back on tracks this weekend. Good Luck!

I sure hope so! Good luck to you too!

[Zebra_Fact_Man]

Originally Posted by sodizzle

At Waterford we were using the WCP DS Gearbox. We ended up destroying a dog gear, an axle, a shaft collar, and the mounting block.

At Pittsburgh we decided to get rid of that problem and used WCP SS gearboxes. Part of the problem was with the 11t pinions we were using not quite meshing with the other gears. I wasn't there so I can't say exactly what else happened but I believe the CIMS broke through the mounting hole that has 2 positions for the different sized pinions and spread away from the gear.

All that aside, we're ready to come out to Livonia with fixes and improvements and hopefully perform better than ever.

Holy carnage, Batman!
1076 also went with WCP DS Gearboxes, and also wrecked a gear (the 42T gear that teethed to the 11T pinions). Our problem was 1/4 CIM motors was mounted to the outside hole (the other 3 were mounted correctly in the inside holes), and the pinion slipped and shredded away the gear it interfaced with. Luckily we found out about this problem during driver practice the Wednesday BEFORE our first event and got it fixed Thursday at the event.

I'm curious, why are your gearboxes and versblocks not protected by your bellypan? Seems awfully risky to leave $800+ of parts exposed to the field elements. We put our bellypan on for the sole reason of protecting our gearboxes. Invested too much money in them; didn't want to risk breaking them. I could easily see something getting hit by the corner of the rampart or the rough terrain and fracturing.

In no way am I trying to tell you guys what to do (1023 is clearly still miles ahead of the pack), but it does seems unnecessarily precarious, especially considering the rough nature of this year's field.

[FiM Informer]

I was beaten to the punch on making point predictions, so I'm happy to defer to Eric on this one.

I'll be polling Michigan's experts again this year for the pre-MSC power rankings. Are you interested in participating? Fill out this application and I'll select a few guest voters.

Originally Posted by sodizzle

UGH I'm so triggered right now! We didn't mean to break!!!! Haha just kidding
We've had two completely separate gearbox problems that I've never seen before, and from who I've talked to, they've never seen or heard of either. Hopefully we've fixed the problem (again) for this weekends competition.

I needle because I care Was great to see BX back on track at Livonia.

Originally Posted by Richard Wallace

Time to add 27 to this list.

Most definitely!

Originally Posted by JABot67

Do you think the batter shooters from MI have a chance to win against the 1678s and 2056es of the world who have dialed in shots from the outer works? What would be some key plays that would tip the balance to either side in that matchup?

Also, do you think it's possible for 67 to start shooting from the outer works? Their vision targeting has been improving, and I know they posted about redesigning their shooter to get a more accurate shot.

There have only been a handful of events with world-class matchups, so it's hard to say which style of shooting will be dominant.

Let's look at batter shooting. It's easy to say that predictable shooting location leads to easy defense. Einstein 2014 is an interesting case study. A couple big factors made shots easier: open field, wide goal. Of course, a shooter had a minimum of one robot playing defense and often two. In most situations, a shooter facing a single defender (or two defenders but having a blocker) was able to break free of the defense and score, either by taking a quick shot (like 1114) or getting to the hard to defend place (like 254). The batter is a similar hard to defend place that makes lining up easier (especially once you consider the plastic barriers). Although the field is much less open, I think this year will be pretty similar in that even batter shooters should be able to get around defense with a small amount of difficulty, and should be able to get an accurate shot off once they're there.

Next, let's look at outerworks shooting. You mention 2056 and 1678 specifically, so I'll focus on them (folks who've watched them more than I have, feel free to chime in). They're both pretty d*** accurate from the outer works. I'd say 2056 is a whisker more accurate. The important point is that neither were perfect. 1678 in particular had a match at Sacramento where their shooting accuracy looking positively human. To me it seemed like their auto-targeting wasn't working. I'm deathly afraid of that happening at any particular moment, but especially on Einstein where conditions are very different from other fields. I imagine teams will get more time than usual on the field before Einstein matches begin, plus I'd bet those elite teams will have SOPs for retuning vision.

2056 is definitely great at the outer works shot, but when left undefended, they take a midrange shot, and I think that's telling. Any good team will tell you to minimize the number of places you take shots from. Why would they choose to take the shorter shot? Maybe it's a bit faster to line up, maybe it's really the same shot just from slightly closer, maybe it's significantly accurate. No matter what, it's an indication that outer works shooting is not optimal, it's just what they do to avoid defense.

It should also be noted that once your alliance has one batter shooter, the second batter shooter gets defended a whole lot less. Additionally, most of the outer works shots have been from directly in front of the middle goal (though with vision, it's not like they have to). If you have two teams that prefer the same spot, you could have some interference problems.

Altogether, I think batter shooting will be a legit strategy seasonlong. I'm not sure I saw the accuracy concerns 67 mentioned, so trying to move the shot back might be the real focus. It's always hard to redesign a system midseason because you have all the surrounding systems (in this case, the intake and shooter) as design constraints. I think it's also clear that vision targeting is absolutely critical for outer works shooting. Maybe 67 will have that in place, but they're also a team that had trouble crossing in auton every match, so you can draw your own conclusions.

[aeastet]

If you want to see a really good top goal shooter you should look at 107. They were the top shooting machine at the West Michigan Districts. Here are some of their videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBoaBdaGCrY&index=10&list=PL6fCSvDccI_6LFz E4X4srtWTr-UZDPye3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVL-...srtWTr-UZDPye3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daMk0Wyfamg&index=25&list=PL6fCSvDccI_6LFz E4X4srtWTr-UZDPye3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5H1u...DPye3&index=30
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbZtFHfPoto&index=92&list=PL6fCSvDccI_6LFz E4X4srtWTr-UZDPye3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K5pMnXzXTQ&index=93&list=PL6fCSvDccI_6LFzE4X4srtWT r-UZDPye3

[Arhowk]

No love for my sophomore boys?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zlREbAH2mas

[Mike Schreiber]

Originally Posted by JABot67

Great analysis, FiM Informer!

Do you think the batter shooters from MI have a chance to win against the 1678s and 2056es of the world who have dialed in shots from the outer works? What would be some key plays that would tip the balance to either side in that matchup?

Also, do you think it's possible for 67 to start shooting from the outer works? Their vision targeting has been improving, and I know they posted about redesigning their shooter to get a more accurate shot.

Batter shooting really depends on your ability to get to the batter - if it's easy then we will do that every time because we won't miss. It may even be faster than a low goal for us now.

While outer works shots are defense free, line up time makes them no more advantageous for reducing cycle time than the batter for most teams (there are several exceptions) and even then the risk of missing is much higher. We'll be mainly batter shooting at Howell although our camera aim does function - we'll see what happens at MSC.