Week 1: Thoughts, comments

[Alex Cormier]

From my few hours of watching matches at VCU, i have seen this.

I feel like that there will be a different type of play will come about in the elimination rounds as the Alliances that have the best chance will be made of this: 1 robot that can shoot, 1 robot that can use the side goals amazingly and 1 robot that can get up that ramp easily and not be so tipsy on impact.

i see 222 as a top pick with their access point of how they shoot. They get up on the ramp easily and shoot the balls then. It does two things, get them protection from other bots that can't handle the ramp and they don't have to worry about anything getting in their way of shooting.

The autonomous is and still will be important in the elimination rounds. I have only seen a few robots with effective shooting capabilities in auto. As stated above in this thread, i also see that changing as the regional goes on and as the weeks go by. By the time we get to Championships, i will guess that 4/6 will have an affective auto mode to score points for their alliance.

With a few remarks on the periods, i saw that some teams didn't even try to get on the proper side for the specified 'back bot' and get penalized. that should not be happening, and needs to get told by the coach's of the alliance.

The shooting that takes place during their Offense mode is different then what i had expected coming into this year's game. I have noticed a few robots that get away from others to shoot like team 343 did, they waited until the last few seconds were the alliance they were made of had gone for the ramp and then got behind the opposing robots made a few balls in the last second, great decision.

As the Defense goes, i love it! It too does remind me of Stack Attack of how important the ramp was at the end of the match. It has a big part of this years game and if your getting hit by 2 robots while your trying to shoot or just get to the side goals is hard to deal with. I have noticed a lot of robot with casters and other things that will have your robot spin if hit form that side. I was really against that call from the start to think, if we have to get somewhere and we can easily be moved, that will waste that precious time we have and will make the drivers readjust every time a hit form the side.

other then that, i love the game and can't wait till FLR!

p.s. my longest post ever. yay.