Suffield Shakedown observations...

[Bongle]

The most-hurdled match was the final match, where the winning team managed 5 hurdles combined (or at least according to the announcer).

The specialized lap-running bots (don't have their #s, the webcast quality wasn't good enough to read them) typically got about 7 laps. That's pretty good considering it isn't entirely likely that an opposing robot will get the 2 hurdles needed to offset that. Even the uberbots above said they averaged 2 hurdles in a match.

The field reset time was not fantastic, but that may have been because the teams were slow getting their robots on-field.

I cannot believe so many teams didn't go for the drive-straight autonomous mode. This is the first year I've been in FIRST where you can actually get some permanent points simply for driving straight. If you have 3 robots that can do nothing else, having all 3 of them drive across the first line is 1.5 hurdles of points. DO IT. This is certainly something I see teams helping with at a competition pre-match: "hey do you have a drive-straight autonomous mode?" "no?" "ok here you go".
If you're having trouble with the code, here's some:

pwmLeft = pwmRight = 127;
if(time < AMOUNT_OF_TIME_TO_DRIVE) // experimentally determined, but 100 might be a good bet
{
  pwmLeft = pwmRight = 190;
}
time++;

The farthest autonomous mode I saw was one of the Gaels with 3 quadrants crossed, AND a trackball unmounted.