Is competing at multiple regionals REALLY fair ?

[smurfgirl]

Originally Posted by Hachiban VIII

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Maybe not at the regional level, but at the championship the 3rd partner is always EXTREMELY important.

On our Curie alliance all three teams hurdled and traded off defense. In this method we were able to outmaneuver defensive robots. If one robot was slowed down by defenders another took the ball.

The alliance that won Curie (67, 16, 348) won largely due to the their third robot. 348 was a ruthless defender, that could get in front of other teams and dramatically slow them down. There was just no outmaneuvering them...

The entire front end of our robot got bent in during the finals on Curie

I have to agree with this.

Our alliance was three hurdling robots. When we were tied 1-1 in the finals on Archimedes, and had been decimated in the second match, we put a new strategy in play. Everyone was expecting us to play offense, since we had been a strong offensive player all season, so we started our robot as defense and put 1024 and 177 on offense. When the other alliance caught on that 177 was scoring, they went over to play defense on them, so we started scoring instead, and let the other robots pile up in the corner. It was a little messier than that on the field, but that's the concept that allowed our alliance to win the final Archimedes match and make it to Einstein.

On Einstein, however, the winning Curie alliance destroyed us with their defense. During the second semifinals match, I think all three of our robots were so tangled they were immobile. It was pretty frustrating standing in the alliance station, unable to do anything about the situation.

This shows that while the third alliance partner choice was great against one alliance (on Archimedes), it didn't hold up as well against another (on Einstein). Curie's alliance's third partner was also important in their strategy against our alliance. It's not all about the offensive "powerhouses", strategy is key.