how is the game played?

[Rickertsen2]

With each new year comes a new game which brings with it unique aspects and strategies that do not revel themselves until competition. I ask those of you who attended scrimmages, what are the dynamics of the game like? How common is scoring? Are there alot of teams with autonomous? What is the most improtant aspect of the game etc?

[Ian Curtis]

There were several threads earlier about this. I can't seem to find them but I did copy down what people had to say. Here it is:

A lot of penalties at the beginning (this can kill your ranking early)
Low alliance scoring (strategy really counts)
A lot of the bots look alike (look alike, look alike , look alike...)
Blocking is useful strategy (it seem easy to knock tetras off of other bots)
The game is challenging (and was exciting to watch at the end)
There is enough space for six bots to move
Capping is not so easy (tetra don't always land correctly)
It is dangerous for the auto-loader guy (I saw him pull back several times)
Automonous mode is not utilized much
2 minute is a very short time
Fast bots are very affective
1. the arm operator and the driver need to communicate with each other well. ie: If the driver is heading to wards the human loading stating, be sure to tell the arm operator to put arm in appropriate position.

2. I send the 2 minutes is not a lot of time and tetra stacking is difficult. There is not much margin for mistake if team are hoping to stack tetras one at a time. we mostly only got 1 stack, and never got more than 3.

3. have the "mentor" position keep a close eye on the clock while looking at who owns what rows.
*Almost all of the robots were similar in design and in functionality.

*The only auto mode I saw was capping the tetra they had in the beginning of the match, which caused the magnet tetra to fall.

*This is one of those rare years were operators have to be careful and look out for robots, because their long arms with tetras on them can cause them to swing a tetra behind the glass, if the arm is high enough.

*No one went for the end zone, they scored tetras until the end

*Getting rid of the vision tetras off the floor in the beginning of the match proved very useful

* Being fast and maneuverable is very good advantage

*The center goal seems to be worth scoring it, if you have the time.

Here is one of my team matches from Today. It isn't our best, just the first one I pulled from my camera.
1. Penalties are KILLERS. In the craziness of everything you have to pay close attention to what you are doing on the field. Teams were losing 10 points at a time on a match by match basis.

2. I'm thinking I will be shocked if I see a single robot pick up and score a vision tetra this year during autonomous mode. Teams were having a hard time scoring vision tetras in manual mode, let lone autonomously.

3. I dont know how much the webcast showed of the finals, but one of the big reasons why the alliance of 38, 177, and 88 won was because their opponent did not spread the field. What happened in the final match was that a bunch of robots became so involved in a defensive struggle on one side of the field, that no one was paying attention to the silently scoring team 88. The focus was on the two teams who could do damage fast (230 and 177) and the simple but effective pick and place robot 88, did the damage in the end.

4. I think I underestimated the 3 robots in the home zone bonus. As it turns out it helped out quite a bit to the winning alliance.

5. Careful about getting tangled in the auto loader. I saw it get ripped off the ground multiple times, which caused teams problems.

6. Teams were not paying attention in many of the matches. So many matches could have been won had teams just realized that if they capped over a certain team instead of going to an empty goal, it could cause a huuuuge point swing.

7. It is VERY easy to descore points accidentally. In other words...if you aren't sure if you can cap over a stack...it might not be worth the risk.

[Lil' Lavery]

From what i saw at the DC scrimmage, there are mixed results.
So far auto hasnt played a huge roll, but that typically changes during the first day or so of competition as teams work out the bugs in there auto code. As the DC scrimmage wasnt keeping track of score(plus it was 2v2 instead of 3v3 and the tetras werent even colored, all of them were bare PVC), I couldnt grasp a lot about score. But from what I saw, some teams are able to score and load very quickly, and very effectively. The highest stack I saw was 5, but it was on the center goal, meaing the team would probably be able to stack 7 or 8 fairly easily on the side goals. The larger arms and cranes tended not to do as well as some of the simpler mechanisms, but a few could still reasonably compete.
Much of that scrimmage was focused more on working out bugs(and keeping your arm from turning off your curcuit breaker.... no way we did that.. =P) than actual matches and competition. A few teams actual practiced driving and scoring, and did fairly well.