First Regionals

[Molten]

Now that the first week of regionals are over, I want to see who really stood out among the rest. This is a chance for all of you to post teams that you think really led their regional. I would like to request that you only post comments on other teams to keep this an impartial thread. Also, if you have or find pictures of these teams they will just add to the thread.

[dbell]

I went to the BAE GSR. great regional! The teams that stood out to me were:
tube scorers:
175, buzz,
501, powerknights
126, gael force

ramp bots:
172, northern force
1824

175, 501, and 1824 won the regional, so it's not surprising that they stood out.


DB

[Tottanka]

I have watched the entire VCU regional and most of NH regional...

In NH i think that team Buzz (175 if im not mistaken) was awesome along with team 40 Trinity, both had great arms but no ramps, though they can climb high angles...

Think Pink probably were the best ramp there..

In VCU there were a couple of interesting machines starting team 167 wiht a great arm and team 1610 with a very original gripper and lifting mechanism...
As of ramps, 2 rookie teams rulled it, i dont remeber tem numbers, but it was the Awkward turtles with a 10/10 ramp, worked every time. Also the team that was ranked #2 was an awesome rampbot...

I heared that in MO the Thunder Chickens(217) were great as an arm bot, i personaly saw the finals only where they didnt show much, as they were on the ground for one entire match.

IU recomend you watching Qualifying match 10 from NH...it has an entire 8 ringers loop

[kborer22]

i went to the nj regional, got to see 836 robobees get a row of 8 both friday and saturday. Also 25 was on top as always, they were quick and effective, 25 and 103 scored 140 pts in the final match, their partner did not even move in that last match. I though 484 was the best ramp bot, in the finals they were scoring 3-4 tubes and then back to the home zone to lift, and one their teammates were on they lifted to 12 inches flawlessly.

[teenmisfit]

Not trying to be impartial but Buzz was the best tube scorer at GSR and in my opinion the easiest most sturdy ramp was definitely 1824. Every team that could climb ramps climbed theres. Again not trying to be impartial but those two did amazing

[sciencenerd]

I didn't see many matches (being on the drive team) but these are the ones that left an impression on my mind the few times I was able to play with/against them at PNW:

Scorers:
948

Lifting bots:
997
488
1280

IMHO, 488 had the best lifting mechanism for their platforms (they would continue to lift after the power was cut) but because their platforms were higher off the ground than the other two lifting bots (3.5" as opposed to something around 1.5") there was a longer, if not steeper, climb to get onto it, and what seemed like a shorter (frontwards-backwards wise) platform. The one issue I noticed was the long time it took to reset their ramps between matches (they seemed to take about 5 minutes between rounds to reset, and when one of the ramps accidentally deployed as we were bringing the robots onto the field our alliance had to call our timeout to reset it. In all fairness they only had to use the first couple of minutes to correct the problem).

1280 had to lift both platforms at the same time and 997 couldn't lift both platforms at the same time (they had to wait 15 seconds between lifts to recharge their tanks). These were both problems the 488 design avoided that definitely made a difference (997 lost one match because they tried to lift two bots at once in the last few seconds, and they didn't have enough air so the robots only counted for 15 points apiece).

[1359th Scalawag]

At the Pacific Northwest Regional, one of the only teams that really stood out to me was 997. (who eventually won) They had simply, two platforms that would lift the robots. Team Xbot did good with that too but 997 stood out to me because they're located closer to us. Since I was on the drive team most of the time, I didn't get to see many matches but in the matches I saw, there were some pretty reliable tube scorers (though I dont know what numbers they were)

[Madison]

Originally Posted by sciencenerd

I didn't see many matches (being on the drive team) but these are the ones that left an impression on my mind the few times I was able to play with/against them at PNW:

Scorers:
948

Lifting bots:
997
488
1280

IMHO, 488 had the best lifting mechanism for their platforms (they would continue to lift after the power was cut) but because their platforms were higher off the ground than the other two lifting bots (3.5" as opposed to something around 1.5") there was a longer, if not steeper, climb to get onto it, and what seemed like a shorter (frontwards-backwards wise) platform. The one issue I noticed was the long time it took to reset their ramps between matches (they seemed to take about 5 minutes between rounds to reset, and when one of the ramps accidentally deployed as we were bringing the robots onto the field our alliance had to call our timeout to reset it. In all fairness they only had to use the first couple of minutes to correct the problem).

Thanks for the compliments

Our lifts can be reset very quickly -- about a minute or so for each -- but we were being very, very cautious about things in Portland. If we've got the time to make sure things are set up correctly, we may as well use it. I didn't want to use that timeout when the release came undone, but the lifts are strong enough to break themselves off the robot, so we thought it'd be better to take as much as we could to check everything over.

We've got some changes planned for the lifts when we compete this weekend in San Jose. We're going to make the backstop a little larger and further back so that it can react against a team's bumpers or chassis rather than their wheels.

[Richard Wallace]

At St. Louis, the top rack scoring machines were 148 and 217 -- if those two get together, look for the rack to quickly assume a dominant color. In the eliminations they combined to put up 7-rows twice against very stiff defense. 148 did the same trick with other partners three times during qualifying matches. These are two very quick robots.

We also had some excellent ramps/lifters -- 1625 springs to mind, and 1985.

And of course it is not an accident that 1444/45/829 won the event. Two very strong rack scorers, and one very solid hybrid. The Digital Goats got two partners to 12" in three of their six elimination matches, including the very dramatic final match.

[IndySam]

Originally Posted by Richard

And of course it is not an accident that 1444/45/829 won the event. Two very strong rack scorers, and one very solid hybrid. The Digital Goats got two partners to 12" in three of their six elimination matches, including the very dramatic final match.

And don't forget to mention that that two of those times we didn’t get 60 points 1444 was disabled on the filed and the third time 1444/45 were both barely off the edge of the ramp and we and scored 15 each.

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by IndySam

And don't forget to mention that that two of those times we didn’t get 60 points 1444 was disabled on the filed and the third time 1444/45 were both barely off the edge of the ramp and we and scored 15 each.

Yup.

This points out a risk inherent in the ramp strategy: your partners have to get to you, and they have to drive straight when it counts. Of course, some ramps are easier to climb than others...

[Fred Sayre]

Originally Posted by sciencenerd

I didn't see many matches (being on the drive team) but these are the ones that left an impression on my mind the few times I was able to play with/against them at PNW:

Scorers:
948

Lifting bots:
997
488
1280

IMHO, 488 had the best lifting mechanism for their platforms (they would continue to lift after the power was cut) but because their platforms were higher off the ground than the other two lifting bots (3.5" as opposed to something around 1.5") there was a longer, if not steeper, climb to get onto it, and what seemed like a shorter (frontwards-backwards wise) platform. The one issue I noticed was the long time it took to reset their ramps between matches (they seemed to take about 5 minutes between rounds to reset, and when one of the ramps accidentally deployed as we were bringing the robots onto the field our alliance had to call our timeout to reset it. In all fairness they only had to use the first couple of minutes to correct the problem).

1280 had to lift both platforms at the same time and 997 couldn't lift both platforms at the same time (they had to wait 15 seconds between lifts to recharge their tanks). These were both problems the 488 design avoided that definitely made a difference (997 lost one match because they tried to lift two bots at once in the last few seconds, and they didn't have enough air so the robots only counted for 15 points apiece).

I think it was one of their first matches that 1280 tried to lift one robot and tipped over, but matches 18 and 27 they got a single robot up 12". Maybe more, we only scouted on Friday. I didn't get to personally see a lot of 1280, but they looked good and played some really excellent defense in the finals.

Edit: You only said that they had to raise them at the same time, not that they had to lift two robots at a time

[IndySam]

Originally Posted by Richard

Yup.

This points out a risk inherent in the ramp strategy: your partners have to get to you, and they have to drive straight when it counts. Of course, some ramps are easier to climb than others...

Absolutely, there is a huge risk-reward for a pure ramp machine, loose a robot and you loose half of your scoring potential.

[cziggy343]

at vcu, the top tube scorer was us (343) but only by a couple over team 116 who was very good both days.

the best ramp, that depends. do you want a ramp that can play defence? or just one that folds out and does nothing else for u?

if u want the ramp to play excellent defence, then i thought that team 2068 was the best.

if u want a ramp that doesn't do anything but fold out, then team 617 had an awesome ramp. very sterdy, just doesn't do anything else.

[BornaE]

In Arizona team 1726 was pretty good they scored 128 by themselves. 1726 has a ramp but i didn't see anybody on it, team 60 fixed their arm on friday and they were scoring pretty good on saturday. also we(39) were scoring high points and during the competition we lifted 8 robots over 12" and 1 robot about 11".
but after all i think 1726 had the best claw and we had the best arm.