Pre-Shipdate UTC Scrimmage

[Ian Curtis]

I wasn't there, but I watched about 3/4 of the webcast.

Ramping?
Ridiculously important. I was astounded by the lack of ramp robots there. Many matches had scores of 4 to 2 (or something in that range) and even high scoring matches typically did not go above 30. 1@12 will probably win matches in early regionals.

Difficulty of Ramping?
Severe, many ramps folded, or were just too darn hard to get up. Steepness was also an issue. Matches were 3vs3, and I didn't see 2 robots up, but it was pretty close a couple of times (it may have happened when I wasn't watching)

Autonomous?
Bad. I didn't see a single keeper scored (but I saw 230 almost get it several times.) People didn't even play defense. No one moved. This was a scrimmage, so autonomous is probably still under development, but I don't think this bodes well for Rack'n'Roll autonomous. I really wanted to see some autonomous scoring. Guess I'll have to wait til week 1.

Opposite side?
Nope. Robots couldn't score on their own side, let alone their opponent's.

Tubes?
Their own. Too far to go to get the ones in the home zone.

Robots on opposite side?
Only if they had a good tube placer. Then that tube placer was defended like crazy. Otherwise, no. Too difficult to score.

Rack Swingage?
Yes.

Overall, I was astounded by the lack of ramps, and the lack of scoring. I was expecting no more than 3 tubes a robot, but in most of these matches, robot's were lucky to get 1 up.