First ever 70 point auto

[Nathan Streeter]

A tremendous congratulations to 195 for getting their two ball auto working... it's an exceptionally difficult feat!

I think the vast majority of teams underestimate how difficult it is (this coming from a team that usually 'specializes' in auto, with things like a 5-ball auto in 2010, 4-ball auto in 2012, and 3-tote stack in 2015). Our robot quite frankly can't support the speed of actions necessary to make it work through the low bar. Not to mention that the two-ball auto almost neccessitates more unique driving patterns than many other "top notch autos" from previous seasons.

As such, I definitely do not expect to see as many as 12 2-ball autos working at CMP. Perhaps as many as 12 teams attempting it... but there's a lot that separates a success from an attempt in this case!

Originally Posted by engunneer

I think it is worth discussing the conundrum the opponent's to this alliance had for defense picking. After the 70 pt auto, the next match had all of the b and d choices stacked up against the low bar in slots 2 and 3.this did a great job of disrupting the auto by having the robots all crowded together, but also opened up a Lane for 195's excellent human player.

And because of how audience selection goes, their opponents in the semifinals didn't have this option of crowding the auto.

I think in the end, the only defense against this combination would be to crowd them together in autonomous, but then also dedicate a robot to blocking the bowler.

I'm glad our conundrum didn't slip by you. :-)

We did very much like the defensive selection that 558's alliance developed in quarter finals against 195-125-2168... it constrained their autonomous routines to be clustered together and made the slot 2 auto a particularly difficult angle. Unfortunately though, the Drawbridge was the audience selection in semifinals, so that was locked into slot 3. If it weren't, we could've done either the same setup as QFs, or we could've placed Slot2: Drawbridge, Slot3: Portcullis, Slot4: Rock Wall, Slot5: Ramparts (which would've prevented the HP-courtyard throughway 195's HP maximized).

An astute observer would have noticed though, that although 195 was able to roll as many as 10 balls through to the courtyard in SF2-2 (replay 2), they weren't nearly as proficient in QF3-2, SF2-1, SF2-2 (original), or SF2-1 (replay 1). I think as a benchmark SF2-1 had two successful bowls to the courtyard... which I think speaks even more to the 195 HP's skill, because he became so proficient at it so fast!

An astute observer also would have noticed that after our SF2-2 auto scores were accepted, when SF2-3 was being set up (before SF2-2 was declared a field fault), we had changed the Defenses to prevent 195's highly capable HP... I believe we had Slot2: Portcullis, Slot3: Drawbridge, Slot4: Ramparts, Slot5: Rock Wall. Unfortunately for our alliance though, when SF2-2 was ruled a field fault and was replayed, we had to return to the Defense arrangement that 195's skilled HP loved. :-)

Kudos to an alliance that makes you try to pick Defenses based off a killer autonomous and a tremendous HP... not just teleop cycling!