Predictions Week 4: Bash Fests in Boston, San Diego & Waterloo. Big Scores @ Buckeye

[Travis Hoffman]

Originally Posted by Joel J.

I can't wait to see how the teams fall into alliances at GTR-- where is 48 going to be? will it be 1114 and 2056 together again, going for the double?

48 looks forward to mixing it up with all the North of the Border talent next week.

I think you'll enjoy the Buckeye elims once the videos are posted. Some amazing offensive displays, some amazing defensive displays, and some of the best teamwork I've ever had the pleasure to witness. At Buckeye, 1 solid scorer, 1 defensive/offensive hybrid, and 1 defensive ramper took down the extremely potent offensive combo of 1126 and 1038 and their rampbot partner, 1528. At least at Buckeye, defense won the day! Can't say I can complain about that outcome.

Balanced and flexible alliances can, do, and will take down overloaded offensive alliances. Believe it!

[Tom Bottiglieri]

Originally Posted by Joel J.

Great regionals this year (of the ones I've seen):

- BAE
- New Jersey
- Florida
- Great Lakes
- UTC
- Waterloo

Yeah, I've been to BAE, UTC, Boston, and watched FL and NJ on the webcast. I had teams in the finals at both UTC and Boston, but I'm going to have to Boston took the cake as the most exciting.

[Joe Johnson]

Originally Posted by James Dowd

For the record, Team 830 was a semi-finalist in the St. Louis Regional. We built a reputation on being a defensive robot, so we certainly fit the mold that Dr. Joe was talking about for Waterloo. We are currently ranked 7th after the end of day one. And we also won the Xerox Creativity Award for our custom-made arm controller.

My bad. The numbers all start to blur after a while, I just missed 830 in the mix of numbers I was studying. Sorry about that.

Joe J.

[Jonathan Norris]

Hey Joe I think you have a few things to learn about us Canadian teams, we know how to score and score alot. Look at the list of offensive bots at Waterloo this year:
1114 - we all know how good they are
2056 - very similar to 1902's design, amazingly effective.
1503 - these guys know how to score, and great crab drive
854 - best omni drive system I have seen, very good pickup, good scoring, and great ramps
188 - once again solid bot, good scoring and good ramps
1305 - great drive again, slow but effective arm
1901 - solid scoring bot
2166 - good ramps
2076 - good ramps
773 - good ramps
(those were just the good Canadian scoring bots there, and thats 1/3 of the regional)

That's not to mention the defensive bots that we always produce. Canadian teams know how to build solid drive systems, look at; 1241, 1006, 1305, ect.

GTR will be a very offensive regional, the stats may not be high in the qualifiers as Waterloo's but there will be more good offensive bots there. However as usual the overall quality will not be as high because of the larger number of teams. Once we get into the elimination rounds each team will be stacked with great robots that can score at will. It will be a fun event!

[Richard Wallace]

Jonathan, you neglected (?) to mention another very strong robot -- your own. Gotta be a reason you were the #3 overall draft pick, and made life very tough on the #2 alliance in the semis.

[Dylan Gramlich]

Originally Posted by Travis Hoffman

At Buckeye, 1 solid scorer, 1 defensive/offensive hybrid, and 1 defensive ramper took down the extremely potent offensive combo of 1126 and 1038 and their rampbot partner, 1528. At least at Buckeye, defense won the day!
Balanced and flexible alliances can, do, and will take down overloaded offensive alliances. Believe it!

especially when our alliances own defensive ramp bot blew up their transmissions and couldnt move, but trust me i am not complaining about finalist and a design award!

[hayakuneko]

Originally Posted by Joe Johnson

San Diego:
San Diego is similar to Boston in the number and mix of teams (approx 50 teams, only 15 teams with less than 4 digits in their team number). Again, look for a whole lot of bashin going on. The only thing that may make CA different from MA is that the field in San Diego is much more experienced THIS SEASON. Like the Buckeye regional, this is the second regional this season for 2/3rd so the teams competing. But a second competition doesn't make a basher become a tuber. If anything, I expect many may become even MORE agressive their second week out. Bottom line, Lots of broken bots and low scores the whole weekend, but most especially in the later rounds of elims.

The Beach Bots (#330) will be working hard to make SD work out like LA. Don't be muddled by the fact that these guys had the mighty Cheesy Poofs as partners in LA in Week 2. The Beach Bots can really do some heavy lifting and notice that Poofs proved they were mortal in SJ in Week 3. While Beach Bots will have a hard time finding another partner in SD as good as the Poofs, looking at the Beach Bot and knowing what I know about this team, I think Team #330 is going to have things go their way in Week 4.

Another two teams to watch in California this week are Teams 980 and 696. These two were Finalists in LA. They were a very powerful combination and came so close to taking the Finals to a 3rd match against #330, #254, & #4. I wouldn't be surprised to see either of these teams take home a banner this weekend. Though to be honest, I am a bit worried about that arm on Team 696. A big storm is brewing. Can that arm weather the storm? Time will tell.

heh... looks like the predictions were correct. 330 won, 696 did pretty well alongside 330, SD was a bashfest, and our arm had a bit of troubles.

Luckily, we got the arm fixed for the second match of the finals round and came back to win it in 2 straight.

[Jonathan Norris]

I found a match which shows how offensive qualifying at Waterloo was, it was match 25 the alliances were 1503, 1680, 771 vs. 1114, 610, 1815

19, yes 19 ringers were scored in total, 12 by the blue alliance (1114's). Only 5 spider legs left at the end of the match without a ringer on it.

[rees2001]

Originally Posted by Travis Hoffman

1 solid scorer, 1 defensive/offensive hybrid, and 1 defensive ramper t

I have seen threads about the best Scorers, the best ramps, & the best defensive bots of '07 is it time for a new thread started for the best defensive/offensive hybrid robot?

What is a defensive/offensive hybrid robot?

[Conor Ryan]

Originally Posted by Brandon Holley

I hate to say it Joe and others...but you really couldnt have been more wrong about the Boston regional....

The rack was full through all of the elims and ramps were hardly a whisper through the noise of the mighty tubers

Boston had two types of teams, teams that could score on the rack and were capable of scoring 6 in a match (often doing so too)

...and the type that lead to the regional planning committee to request for more technical help volunteers for the pits.

[Brandon Holley]

Originally Posted by Conor Ryan

Boston had two types of teams, teams that could score on the rack and were capable of scoring 6 in a match (often doing so too)

...and the type that lead to the regional planning committee to request for more technical help volunteers for the pits.

I agree...we crippled our own team in hopes of making this regional more competitive by getting all of the "outer ring rookies" as they were called up and running.

I'm glad that this regional turned out the way it did, because it honestly is one of the best run regionals out there. We did our best to help a lot of teams this year, and we hope those teams go on to be self-sustaining sophomores.

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by Brandon Holley

... the "outer ring rookies" as they were called ...

What's an "outer ring" rookie? Does the term refer to their geographic origin, or to the location of their pits, or something else?

[Spider-Man]

Originally Posted by Richard

What's an "outer ring" rookie? Does the term refer to their geographic origin, or to the location of their pits, or something else?

Most teams had pit space in the normal pit rows, but the final 5-6 teams were in a row perpendicular to the other pit rows on the far side from the pit administration table behind a hockey ring wall.

[Travis Hoffman]

Originally Posted by rees2001

I have seen threads about the best Scorers, the best ramps, & the best defensive bots of '07 is it time for a new thread started for the best defensive/offensive hybrid robot?

What is a defensive/offensive hybrid robot?

It's an effective ringer scoring robot with a strong enough drivetrain to play shutdown defense when needed. 379 fits that bill perfectly. In addition to these, you can also have ringer scoring/ramp hybrids (503) and ramp/defense hybrids (48).

It's good to be able to do two things well. I think you'd want to have a bit of flexibility on your alliance - it helps you cover for unexpected emergencies.

[sanddrag]

Originally Posted by rees2001

What is a defensive/offensive hybrid robot?

Being primarily a ring scorer and dual 12" lifter in LA, 696 really pulled some defense out of the blue in San Diego. Our driver, for only the second time ever, ventured onto the far side of the rack, and with a strong drivetrain and excellent maneuvering, was able to nearly shut down the opposing alliance. It was quite exciting to watch.