Week 1: Robot Capability Poll

[Joe Johnson]

I would like to try something new.

I would like to track robot effectiveness / capability week by week.

I am asking for only people who ACTUALLY ATTENDED a regional (webcast's don't count -- sorry) to vote please.

There are 4 areas that I think would be interesting to track.

% Robots that could effectively do these 4 functions IN A REAL MATCH:

Climb the ramp
Score in the Corner Goals
Score in the Middle Goal
Score during autonomous

For each function pick the 1 box that best applies:
<10%
11-20%
21-30%
31-40%
41-50%
>50%

I will have similar polls in each subsequent week.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Joe J.

[Tom Bottiglieri]

BAE GSR

Climb the ramp - 30%

Score in the Corner Goals - 40%

Score in the Middle Goal - 40%

Score during autonomous - 30%

[Petey]

I entered in my results for BAE.

Only about 5 or 6 robots could really accurately shoot for the center goal. Corner goal was also surprisingly touch and go. Most robots could climb the ramp, but a ton tipped.

[Joe Johnson]

I won't vote because I just watched off and on at the web, but my sense from what I saw was:

Climb the ramp - 21-30%

Score in the Corner Goals - 21-30%

Score in the Middle Goal - <10%

Score during autonomous - <10%

There were a lot more robots who could theoretically do these tasks but not effectively and not in a match.

I am interested in what others who watched the VCU regional on the web thought and if those that actually attended had a much different opinion.

Ramp climbing is the strangest thing to me -- It is almost like teams didn't even thing about CG management this year at all. After so many ramps and steps from past years, this year's number of fallen robots (fallen even if nobody touched them) is a real surprise to me.

Joe J.

[Joe J.]

Originally Posted by Joe Johnson

I am interested in what others who watched the VCU regional on the web thought and if those that actually attended had a much different opinion.

I watched NASA / VCU Regional on the webcast (didn't vote in poll)

Here is what I thought:

Climbing the ramp: <10%

Scoring in Corner Goal: 20-30%

Scoring in Center goal: 10-20%

Scoring in Autonomous: 10-20%

[Rick TYler]

Originally Posted by Joe Johnson

Ramp climbing is the strangest thing to me -- It is almost like teams didn't even thing about CG management this year at all. After so many ramps and steps from past years, this year's number of fallen robots (fallen even if nobody touched them) is a real surprise to me.

Me too. Robots were toppling like trees at PNW. It's almost like they didn't remember the falling tetra towers from last year.

[Lil' Lavery]

All the aspects of gameplay dramatically improved from thursday-saturday, even greatly from early friday or early saturday. Albeit, my perspective is slightly tainted, because 116 was paired with and against several very good robots (such as 343, 435, 1731, 510, and 1541) in VCU, here's how I rated it from my coaching vantage point:
Ramp: 21-30% (most of the teams claimed they could, and most could get partially up, but often didn't either give themselves enough time or needed some assistance to get, only about 25% could do it consistantly).
Corner Goal: 31-40% (there were a bunch of herders who could score 10-15 corner goal points easily in match, typically in only 1 or 2 dumps. A few could even score 25-30 points per match. A few of the center goal bots also posessed this ability, but most did not fully utilize, nor needed to).
Middle Goal:<10% (although this dramatically improved as the competition went, very few teams could score many, especially not without having to spend 10-15 seconds get aligned and wasting half of their ammo on test shots, even without someone playing defense on them. A few, such as 1731 and 343, did get turrets working, although a majority of the shooters were relatively simple in design, did not have good corner goal potential, and lacked turrets).
Scoring in Autonomous:<10% (a ton of teams were having trouble getting their code working, aligning their bot, competing for starting positions, getting past randomly charging defensive auto bots etc)


An intersting observation I had. At VCU, it seemed many of the "traditionally competative" teams were not as competitive, and some of the newer teams definately accepted their spots. Two of the 3 winning alliance members had numbers 1500 or greater (1598 and 1610), 1522 was a finalist, 1731 was the #1 seed, 1541 the #4, etc. This especially interesting consider the fashion in which these teams stepped up, and took on the highly difficult proposition of shooting at the center goal, accurately. And they definately succeeded in that venture. The "old guard" is by no measure dead. 384 and 435 (both finalists) have been two of the most dominant teams at VCU and they definately kept their dominance alive this year.

[Kim Masi]

Originally Posted by Tom Bottiglieri

BAE GSR

Climb the ramp - 30%

Score in the Corner Goals - 40%

Score in the Middle Goal - 40%

Score during autonomous - 30%

wow tom! you were generous!
i say climbing the ramp 20-30%
score in corner goal >50%
score in middle goal 11-20%
score during autonomous 20-30%

I would like to say that I am really pleased with how many people scored in autonomous. It seems like whoever wins autonomous went on to win the match. That's the way it was in the eliminations at least. Also, teams programmed a lot of defense in auton which was really affective.

I cant wait for UTC!

[nuggetsyl]

I was really suprised that more people did not score in auto mode. The week before the comp started i got the sense that the chester changle was going to be awarded in the first week. I know we will see scoring in auto mode go up as the comp presses on. Team 48 is a great example of this. By the end of the nj comp they were hitting 7 in auto.

shaun