Breakaway in review: what have we learned?

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by IKE

Comp-team.
Highlight all the penalties in the rule book, and do your best not to do them. I can understand driving up on a ball especially when going over a blind bump. Penalties are the make/break point for low scoring matches. Keep it clean.

This is the best advice for the upcoming regionals. Team 422 got into 2nd place in the standings by not receiving any penalties. In our last match of day one, the ball return penalty took a glaring loss for us into a 22-point gain in the standings. We never left the top eight on day two by playing methodical, penalty-free ball. We won two of our elimination games off of penalties.

Another tip is to "topple-proof" a bot. They ended up on their sides often. Our elimination alliance had our bot, which had a net preventing a tip, 2016's climber could be tilted to the side to push the bot upright, and 816 was tunnnel-capable and close to the ground. This advice is a little late, but it's something to keep in mind if you want to edit your bot for your regional.