Observations after week !

[Creator Mat]

Scouting is also exremly important in this years game. You must always know what teams have a good robot. At midwest everyone pretty much got a good first pick. but come 2nd pick some teams looked like they where digging deep trying to remember the number of the "one bot" they saw.

Ranking doesn't mean anything if you don't have a chance to be a allaince captian. stuff happens during the qualification matches that could drop a team out of the running to be in the top 8. Ill use my team as an example. at the midwest regionals we finished with a record of 2-6. but because team 135 had great scouting and didn't care that we where ranked 47 out of 53. They saw that in the beginning that yes we where not working right and had really bad luck. However we stabalized and where consistanltly a factor in our final 3 matches. They picked us and we then went with 135 and 2039 all the way to the finals. Long story short just because a team is ranked badly doesn't always mean they are a bad team.

Thank you 135 for picking us to be on your alliance it was a great experience

[spc295]

were there any turreted shooters that did well, if so how were they tracking?

[Kimmeh]

Originally Posted by Chrono101

Thoughts from KC:
3) Autonomous - If someone on your team doesn't have an autonomous mode, you will lose, every time. Go around and make sure your alliance partners have something, even if it just runs straight ahead at full speed.

8) Make a plan - Always, always, always meet with your alliance prior to queuing to develop a strategy. Every time we did this we won by massive margins (one time it was 100 to 17). Know your teams capabilities and strengths, and how to use them against the other team's weaknesses and faults.

Same thoughts, just in TC.

3. If all your autonomous code is one where you drive straight ahead, let your alliance know. That's all that ours did. So we'd make sure we were in a spot where we could drive straight and pin another robot while our HP just sat there and threw balls into their trailer.

On another note, don't be afraid to ask for help. One of our alliance partners (2834 I believe), was having problems with their code and they asked us for help. One of our mentors looked at the code and within a few moments, it worked.

8. Plans are always good ideas, just don't make them with your alliance while your opposing alliance is standing right next to you. I believe that's a good part of the reason why we lost in the quarter finals.

Thanks 2834 for picking us. ^_^

[Creator Mat]

Originally Posted by spc295

were there any turreted shooters that did well, if so how were they tracking?

At mid west the best turreted shooters where 217 thunder chickens and 1114 simbotics. From what i learned from them was that they where just eyeballing the aim of their shooter. The cameras where not that reliable this year due to the sensitivity to the lighting.

My team is also a turreted shooter and we had camera calibration issues. the lighting in the pits was different than the lighting on the field. Our camera in the pits would see the target just fine but on the field it was a glowing. To correct this we put a sunglasses lense over our camera. This gave us a 75% success rate in the tracking of targets. however we only used it in autonomous because it is just too slow to use in the teleoperated period.

P.S. our bot never scored a ball in autonomous but our camera did track targets every now and then and once tried to shoot but ran out of time.

[FRC1672]

What I actually saw was most of the strong winning teams were dumpers. Shooters were effective but dumpers seemed best.

EX: team 25's robot was a short range shooter and worked really well. I haven't seen very many successful long range shooters though.

The winning alliance teams from the NJ Regional, 2753 1923 and 2344, were all quick fast power dumpers.

I believe shooter work but personally I believe dumpers are best.

[TigerDrive09]

Originally Posted by sabruce01

Teamcap 2395-That is very interesting.....we too were at OKC (Team 2389) and you might remember we had comm troubles the entire regional. When I tried to get assistance, the FIRST people told me that we were the only ones having that problem and that no other teams were experiencing no comms. They simply blew it off saying it was "your robot" but I was simply trying to get a fix on what was wrong. I was a mentor for 2389 and we changed EVERYTHING except the receiver. The only reason we didnt change that was time constraints because it would force us to have to reprogram and have another numer assigned. I thing communications is a bigger problem here that what they want to admit. I think there was several teams having the same problems. One time it would be fine, the next match we would loose it. There's more to the story here..........

Oh my gosh I couldn't agree more!! the first couple matches they kept telling us "you guys need to fix your electronics, we're not recieving any voltage" so we asked EVERY SINGLE TIME "ok so what did we do wrong so we can go fix it" and they would always say the same thing "well we're not recieving any voltage from you guys, if you ask someone at the pits they'll tell you" so we asked and they said the same crap. And we got no comm a time or two but they fixed it before the match started. I must admitt it was rather frustrating, eventually the guy told us exactly what we needed to do to fix it so I do give them credit for that.

[Tottanka]

Originally Posted by TigerDrive09

eventually the guy told us exactly what we needed to do to fix it so I do give them credit for that.

And what was that?

[schaffin]

One idea we came up with while competing in KC was that if we had doubled or tripled the other alliances score, we started having our huma player shoot into our own trailer. We did this to prevent us from losing super cells our next match. We thought it was a very strtegic move even though a lot of teams wondered what we were doing.

[jblay]

another thing that really stuck out to me was that basically any shooter that was effective was in essence a dumper in that they would try and pin the trailer and would only shoot from close range. i don't think i saw anyone actually shooting the entire weekend.

also i saw very few teams human loading. The only 2 teams i saw human loading where 1923 and 25 but only like 2 or 3 balls when they drove up to the player and 1625 who loaded up only at the start of the match. what are peoples thoughts on this matter?

[tim_reiher]

Originally Posted by jblay

also i saw very few teams human loading. The only 2 teams i saw human loading where 1923 and 25 but only like 2 or 3 balls when they drove up to the player and 1625 who loaded up only at the start of the match. what are peoples thoughts on this matter?

We started human loading friday at BAE, and continued through saturday and elims. Near the start of each match, we drive up to the outpost and are loaded with 3-4 balls, in order to fill our hopper without sticking around for too long. Afterwards, we stayed to floor-loading. This worked well, as long as we used it wisely, and got away if strong dumpers or shooters came up to us from behind - in one semi, we stayed around for a second too long and got a load of moon rocks scored upon us by BUZZ. This was the only instance that this mid-field paused caused us any real vulnerability, though. Overall, I felt this strategy proved solid.

However, that is only to speak for a quick, optional and partial human load strategy, and not for dedicated human loading. What troubles or successes have teams going with no-ground pickup strategies encountered?

[teamdriven17.30]

At KC I saw very few teams that were human loading during the match. It seemed to me that the robots that were not made to collect balls off of the ground did not recieve more than the occational miss by an HP during play. That being said once they spent their beginning load they either became EC runners or targets.

[Akash Rastogi]

Human loading is risky unless you do it in autonomous which is what 25 did.

[Travis Hoffman]

Originally Posted by jblay

also i saw very few teams human loading. The only 2 teams i saw human loading where 1923 and 25 but only like 2 or 3 balls when they drove up to the player and 1625 who loaded up only at the start of the match. what are peoples thoughts on this matter?

Some floor loaders like 1114 also went to their corner airlocks to receive ammo, I believe. It was one of these moments when 1114 was pinned and stayed there the entire match. Regardless of loading method or reason, it seems prudent to consider having an alliance partner stand by and protect you while moving over to a PS corner. You might also choose to get creative in how you position yourself in a corner so an escape under duress is more likely, and you limit the opposition's access to your trailer while you load up.

Finally, consider using your human loader robot as a decoy to lead other teams into a trap in your PS corners..... Turn the tables against those would-be assailants.

[johnr]

Did any teams get caught trying to avoid a g-14? You know, keep the score close and then the other teams toss fuel cells. Or worse, you over fill your own trailer.Just wondering if anyone is now saying,"We will take the 2x but try to avoid 3x"

[XXShadowXX]

Defense can make a big difference, by pinnign the moust powerful robot on the other alliance you can make a massive difference.