Strategy during Final at Einstein

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by BigJ

2056/1690 actually announced both picks simultaneously, so there wasn't any lobbying from 3015 (as far as I know). In fact, they were some of the fastest decisions in the Tesla selections overall

Not uncommon on the #1 alliance. In Hopper we had 364 and 2990 as side by side picks on our draft list so it was easy.

[Electronica1]

The 3 team offence was the right strategy in my opinion since it minimized the risk of penalties. The only change I would have made was to put a taller defense near the low bar. The blue alliance's human player was able to get a decent number of boulders all the way to the opposite side of the field in some of the matches by going over the ramparts.

[LeelandS]

Originally Posted by Electronica1

The 3 team offence was the right strategy in my opinion since it minimized the risk of penalties.

This was actually the reason our team felt so comfortable playing defense. Oliver, our driver, is an exceptionally smart driver, with a great skill for foresight and controlling the field as he wants. It was his knowledge of the rulebook and awareness that kept our penalties to a minimum.

At Finger Lakes, where we were our alliances defensive robot, we drew 2 penalties in the quarterfinals, and then we did not draw an additional penalty afterwards. And those penalty-less matches were pitting us against the likes of 5254, 2791, 3044, 4930 and 340.

In playoff matches at champs where our robot was fielded, our alliance never drew more than 1-2 penalties. In any match where we did draw penalties, the opposing alliance did not successfully capture the tower, so I believe one might argue that our defense contributed more to our alliance than against it. The only matches where this streak falls through, ironically, are the final Einstein matches.

The penalty we drew whilst in the 3rd final match on Einstein was hard to avoid, as Oliver had no visibility of the courtyard referee (a recurring problem for him all throughout the event). As many have noted, it was a tough call by the referee to begin with, coupled with the fact he was having information relayed to him instead of seeing it with his own eyes, it would have been quite a feat for him to have been aware of the whole situation. But hey, that's the risk we took.

In the end, it couldn't have been any closer. As far as I'm concerned, all 8 teams deserve to be world champions. It just so happens that the record books with not have our alliances names in them. It was a disappointing loss, especially given the fact that it was such a crazy alliance to work with (3 different countries represented, and allied with another team from our region). It would have been a good story to tell, but nevertheless. Congrats to the champs, they were hard fought matches and I'm happy with our season in the end.

Edit:
In response to our choice of strategy, 3015 was constantly used throughout eliminations. In our first QF match, our line-up was 2056-1690-3015, and our alliance ended up putting in 250pts. It was quite a spectacle, but we found that that match was a "perfect scenario" and difficult to repeat. Essentially, 3015 with their superior shooting (to us at least) and being a good defense robot as well, was our advance team, and was fielded in the first match of each round. If it was found that we couldn't brute force our way against an alliance, then we took the field. We knew that if it came down to 2v2, 2056 and 1690 could overpower almost any other duo, so all we had to do was take our one robots worth of shots, and that sealed the deal all the way to the finals.