CALIFORNIA?

[Chris Fultz]

Hey, do California people post on CD anymore?*

Anyone have a status on the CA regional this weekend?

* intended as a joke, just looking for some standings from CA...

[eugenebrooks]

Originally Posted by Chris Fultz

Hey, do California people post on CD anymore?

Anyone have a status on the CA regional this weekend?

We are having great fun at the Sacramento Regional hosted by
UC Davis. Penalty rates are quite high, and some robots have had
one or more wheels broken off in high speed collisions (presumably
forbidden in the rules for 2005). If you have room to put fenders
on an open wheeled robot, it would be a good idea to do so...

[Doug G]

Originally Posted by Chris Fultz

Hey, do California people post on CD anymore?

Anyone have a status on the CA regional this weekend?

I don't have a lot of specifics, but at the Sacramento (UC Davis) Regional, Teams 56, 973, 254, 114, 599, 1097 seem to be doing very well - forgive me if I'm leaving some teams out. One thing I noticed that is a huge deal is the amount of penalties. Luckily we have yet to draw a penalty, however, we've been allied with a few teams who weren't that familiar with the rules, especially harassing robots around the loading zones, and the human player not standing in their loading area when placing a tetra. I bet half of the first 20 matches had scores less that 10 points if not zero. There were a couple of zero point ties as well. I kinda sucks for your team if you do happen to when, but the opposing alliance commits so many penalties who get a very low QP score which lowers you in the tier rankings. In one match a robot flipped our robot with their wedge and committed several other penalties - so we one but with a QP of zero and had to fix our arm. Luckily we got it back together to play again.

We played eight matches today. In one match, Team 254's alliance got 77 points, which I think was the highest match score of the day. Beach Bots mentor received a well deserved WFA.

Anyhow, big surprise to me was the amount of penalties and low scores. No teams used the camera, and a couple of teams capped in auto mode with a starting tetra.

[sanddrag]

Originally Posted by Chris Fultz

Hey, do California people post on CD anymore?

You bet I do. I am topped in post count by only three people. As for the regionals, I'm in SoCal so it'll be 4 weeks before I can give you an update on that.

[DCA Fan]

I'm still here, my team will be heading to Phoenix next week and LA soon after.

Right now there are two undefeated teams, 254 at 9-0 and 1097 at 8-0 - if things continue like they are 1097 will probably be seeded higher because of the QP situation.
Don't cry for the Poofs. It is O.K. to be the lowest seeded undefeated team. As said previously lots of good cappers, so the alliance picks will be interesting.

The penalties are really surprising - some just didn't read the rules, I bet you could have won a lot of matches by just hanging out in your loading zones, and waiting for someone to run into you! High score I think was 79. The craziest thing that happened was that a human player touched a robot and was DQd, that tetra fell onto the field of play, but the refs forgot (or didn't know) they were supposed to remove it. We came along and scored the tetra on the center goal. (I guess tetras that don't count are supposed to flash a warning color or something?) After the match the center goal was de-scored, so we lost 23 points because of what we think was a referees error. We still won the match, so no harm done. I heard that the issue was under review, but wow.

[Corey Balint]

Anyone have any more updates?

[L_SMOKEY]

Yeah, in the finals the teams were 114, 254, 1097 against 1072 and 2 other teams (i forget their numbers :/) if i remember later i will post the other 2 teams.

If anyone has the full alliance list, please post it here.

Although the teams 254 and 1097 both went undefeated in the qualification rounds, the second alliance won both matches in the finals. (2-0)

Hope this helps

[whakojacko]

we won 2-0, sorry 1097 and 254 . btw our allies with 245 and 766. We were undefeated in elinimations, woot our strategy is nice

[Alex1072]

Originally Posted by whakojacko

we won 2-0, sorry 1097 and 254 . btw our allies with 245 and 766. We were undefeated in qualifiers, woot our strategy is nice

Sorry, we wern't undefeated in qualifiers, he was refering to quarter and semi finals.

[Joe Ross]

Here were the alliances:

1: 1097, 254, 114
2: 330, 56, 1422
3: 245, 766, 1072
4: 814, 973, 1147
5: 599, 1280, 753
6: 692, 393, 1696
7: 1671, 115, 1323
8: 610, 701, 1120

The number 3 alliance won.

Sac was a great regional. What it came down to was three capers can outscore two capers and a defender bot, unless the defender bot is 100% effective. The difference in score is dramatic, because if your alliance caps six times , but your opponents cap 8 - They may end up controlling 4 more rows than you. So based just on tetra points there is something like 21 to 25, but on final score the result is 75 to 21.

And I don't care how good your defense bot is, it can't stop two robots from
scoring. It might stop one, but not the other from hitting the center goal, and if it is successful defending the center, it is leaving another goal open for uncontested capping. In that finals every goal was capped at least once, most twice, a couple had three! So the only successful defense is to with gracious professionalism push one of your opponents over or completely disable them. I don't know about you, but I would never try to play the game this way. (someone who did was DQ'd and lost the match and the round.) Still the Quarter-Finals of elimination was the closest thing to Battle Bots I ever saw at a FIRST event.

[whakojacko]

well yes, but 610 did a great job 1st game of your quarters stopping both you and 1097. Didnt work so well later on though when oyu get a good strategy. In qualifiers, we had lots of trouble with bots messing up our capping. However we figured a way around it through good strategy. A pusher CAN work, but id rather have another capper

[jgannon]

Originally Posted by Dr.Bot

So the only successful defense is to with gracious professionalism push one of your opponents over or completely disable them. I don't know about you, but I would never try to play the game this way. (someone who did was DQ'd and lost the match and the round.) Still the Quarter-Finals of elimination was the closest thing to Battle Bots I ever saw at a FIRST event.

I know the match you're talking about, and it was indeed the most vicious match I've seen in competition. One robot managed to tip over two of the opposing robots, and was going for the third. The first two looked okay from the stands, because the contact point between the robots was relatively low. When this robot went for the third, though, they had their arm pushing firmly against the upper joint of the opposing robot's arm, which is not allowed. I think that the first two attacks were relatively GP, and would have been an acceptable strategy, but the third one merited the disqualification.

[steven114]

Originally Posted by Dr.Bot

And I don't care how good your defense bot is, it can't stop two robots from
scoring. It might stop one, but not the other from hitting the center goal, and if it is successful defending the center, it is leaving another goal open for uncontested capping. In that finals every goal was capped at least once, most twice, a couple had three! So the only successful defense is to with gracious professionalism push one of your opponents over or completely disable them. I don't know about you, but I would never try to play the game this way. (someone who did was DQ'd and lost the match and the round.) Still the Quarter-Finals of elimination was the closest thing to Battle Bots I ever saw at a FIRST event.

Actually, many of the team 114ers agree with you - we don't much like the defensive aspect of the game. However, after being asked by the field teams of both the Poofs and the Jesuits to play defense for the extent of the elimination tournament, we went with that and tried our best to keep the others out of the way. Unfortunately, even with our maneuverability (swivel drive) we couldn't keep all three cappers down. Probably a somewhat flawed strategy - but who knows, maybe the three of us can give it another run with a few changes at San Jose!

I'd like to thank both Site 3 and the Poofs for picking us! We had a great time playing with you guys, and it sure was a pickup after we had such slanted qualifying pairings!

And, congrats to the alliance that beat us - you guys played an awesome game! I think it was a bit closer than the scores showed - a few key tetras were holding a bunch of rows for you guys - but I think that the final rounds were some of the only ones where I could say that I felt that all the teams played well and that there weren't any gross miscalls by the referees.


See everyone at San Jose!