Newton Division 2010

[KrazyCarl92]

Originally Posted by JABot67

Pre-scouting?

Pre-scouting is spending endless hours being frustrated due to the fact that the blue alliance does not seem to post any videos this year.

In all seriousness, its using resources like thebluealliance.net, youtube, CD, etc. to see what other teams can do, what they're good at, how they're successful, how to work with them, how to beat them, you get the point. The purpose is to get a thorough idea of what you'll be seeing at the championship, mostly in your division, but some elsewhere in the event Einstein is in the cards for u. The more u see the and the better u scout, the more prepared u will be and the less surprised u will be.

Some say u need luck to reach Einstein. I say "Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity." your robot and your scouting are your preparation, and u have earned yourself and opportunity in Atlanta, who's to say u cant get lucky? It all depends on the quality of your preparation, and how u respond to opportunity.

[JABot67]

I do that for fun, not because my team tells me to do it.

However, I do know the extreme importance of scouting. It's all you do on 67, if you're not in the pits. We have up to six people watching every robot on the field, during every match. Even in our own matches, we still have scouting groups keep track of all the other robots, even if they're very distracted by what our robot is doing. We also scout elimination matches, in order to know how an alliance works together and what we must do to defeat them.

I agree that pre-scouting is a good way to get a feel for a division, but it is not possible to come up with a decent alliance selection list just by watching demo videos and video from other tournaments.

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by JABot67

Joe Ross, what order are those teams in? All I know is that it goes from generally higher seed to generally lower, but there are discrepancies. 2619 looks like it's in worse shape than 910, yet it is higher on the list.

Oh, and it'd be great for 67 to seed first! (too bad that never happens in Atlanta)

It's in the order of highest weighted average OPR to lowest weighted average OPR. I'm sure if given enough matches per schedule or enough iterations of match schedules it would even out.

[Noah Booth]

There has been quite a bit of talk about 125 from teams that were not in boston. With much respect to the hard work of team 125: to me, Their robot seemed to be a great concept but failed to perform consistently. I was watching when a previously posted video of them on the practice field was being filmed and the whole team would get excited when it worked. With a strong alliance 125 could provide a huge boost but if put on the weaker alliance it can not tip the scales. In Atlanta I expect to see some big big wins and about as many disappointing losses. I hope that their modifications make the more consistent and more like team 496 which approached attempted to solve the game problem in the same way as 125 and produced some serious results. This being said, Team 1922 is looking forward to working with 125 in Atlanta because we think with a strong midfield robot [Like us ] starting in the defensive end and moving up to mid field we could have a phenomenal match assuming we had a decent robot in the offensive herding in 125s returns into the goal.

Does anyone else think that team 20 is being overlooked. They are probably the most accurate robot I saw at BAE or Boston and are very maneuverable. With their improved kicker i expect to see massive results from them in ATL.

[Akash Rastogi]

Oh team 20 is very serious for Atlanta....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSWy6OdkAEc


.

[Meredith Novak]

I don't think anyone will be overlooking Team 20 now...

[darkangel]

Originally Posted by Noah Booth

Does anyone else think that team 20 is being overlooked. They are probably the most accurate robot I saw at BAE or Boston and are very maneuverable. With their improved kicker i expect to see massive results from them in ATL.

Agreed. They were a killer midfield bot at WPI, and it was a pleasure to watch and work with them. I can see them being a serious competitor in Atlanta.

[pfreivald]

Oh, don't misunderstand -- for better or worse, I'm certain that every team will have a very good idea of how good everyone's robot is going in to alliance selection.

At FLR, we had every intention of picking 1559 as our 'third' bot (after Thunderchickens) on Saturday morning, as they were very very good and well-suited to compliment our robot's play strategy... but in their last few qualifying matches they started having communication glitches with the field, and in the end we felt as if we just couldn't risk that happening in the tournament.

If our team -- with a whopping 18 people -- do at least that level of scouting so that you are aware not just of how well a robot has done, but how it is currently doing, I'm most certain that other teams are doing exactly the same thing.

[efoote868]

We're pretty good at clearing the middle zone, and our driver is amazing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2jZz0r0wbk

I might be biased tho.

[robodude03]

I have to mirror what everyone has been saying about the robots on Newton. Finals are going to be a lot of fun looking at the teams that are on this division. As for the scouting it always surprises me how much video helps in targeting robots that you would otherwise have missed until you get to Atlanta. Numbers and statistics always help in organizing a list of bots you want to scout, but videos are so much more exciting to see.

So, in the same manner I will place a video of some highlights of our robot this year. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/user/cevTV399.../0/o8Y9k2auxl8

[Craig Roys]

Originally Posted by JABot67

Semis were so close. I think in the first match the scores were never more than a point away from each other. If it weren't for that 2 point penalty (don't carry the ball!) it would have been a tie game.

Ugh! Don't remind me...we work hard not to get the carry the ball penalties; we didn't get one all weekend long and it decided to pop up at the worst time! Those were definitely a couple of fun, closely played matches - I wish we could have extended the series another game or two.

[cziggy343]

well... since everyone else is posting videos... ive posted these before... but i will post them again

hanging:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHmRrZ9asEo
-it hangs in a little less than ten seconds once we clamp (its faster in real life than it is in this practice

kicking:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPYW0VbjSRM
-it kicks about 30 feet at the moment, but we are contemplating changing the springs to make it kick a little farther.

and both of these videos are from before ship... i dont have any high quality videos of our robot separately... but there is the matches from palmetto that we won

http://www.clemson.edu/tlt/stream/frc/video.html

and bear in mind that we built the robot mainly for defense, but we are a competent offensive robot as well. not the best, but at least competitive scoring

[DarkFlame145]

Vid of robots outside of competition is nice, but what I have noticed is that sometimes a robot works really well in the vid, but when it gets to competition being knocked around and having other robots get in the way, they don't seam to be as effective. I love to see what other teams have done with their bot on vids, but if it's not a competition vid, I take it with a grain of salt for efficiency. Just because it might work great in competition or it might not work at all.

Also 1551 I know you guys will do well, winning FLR is no small feat, lots of talent go to FLR. But I have to admit I was screaming bloody murder at my desk when I saw you guys knocked my Alumi (145) out of the number 1 seed =P. But you guys have one heck of a hanger and a great bot all the way around.

[falconmaster]

Here are some vids of our robots capabilities

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZC_RMekDaM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5ZzeRPiwOs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QeLfLC8Pok

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hgKnrVnlg4

Looking for robots to "dance" with at the championships!

[pfreivald]

Originally Posted by DarkFlame145

But I have to admit I was screaming bloody murder at my desk when I saw you guys knocked my Alumi (145) out of the number 1 seed =P.

I, too, was screaming... but not bloody murder.

The announcer had said the previous match that 145 was definitely the #1 seed because nobody in the last match was close enough to them to take it away. 25 QPs looked awfully far away, but when you win a game 10-8...

145 has a great 'bot, and have a lot to be proud of with their FLR performance.