Week 1: Thoughts, comments

[Conor Ryan]

• This year's game is undoubtedly much more complex than we ever thought
• Everyone's first day at your first regional will be crazy, if you go to a second regional you will dominate in the early rounds
• Robots that shoot in autonomous and can score are rare, and if they have it, they are great.
• Scoring in the corner goals is much tougher than anyone expected because of the small ramp there, ideally you need 6 wheels, good ground clearance, and a powerful and fast way to propel the balls out of your robot, the dumping style will not and does not work well.
• Human players score a great deal of points, and the best way to score with them is th throw the balls 2/3 of the way diagonally across the field, then hope that it rolls in. (this scoring method determines the low point values)
• The average match is between 25 and 40 points
• Defence is positional! You don't push other robots out of their way this year, you just get in front of their shooter, and give them a hard time. Ploughing robots away though it maybe effective is slow and gives the other team a little bit of time to get a shot off.
• The best alliance at this point is 2 shooters and a Corner/Defensive robot to stick on the best shooter of the other team.
• Speed is often more helpful than torque, too get in position and collect balls, which take up a lot of the match.