What did we learn from week 2 of the 2013 season?

[DsRandhawa3244]

Originally Posted by MisterG

This!

Besides, since they (2169, 525, 3061) :

• were *crowned* tournament champions
• went undefeated in elims *and*
• scored in the triple digits in all elim matches (high score 147)

I guess they were not overly upset by improvised blockers.

Oh, not at all. They had a very solid anti-defense against our alliance in the finals. I was one of the drivers and they almost entirely shut us down(We were the defensive bot in the alliance). We had played against a team earlier in finals that also full court shot, but they didn't play a strong anti-defense like KingTec's alliance did.

[brrian27]

Aim high!

We planned to score 62 points every match. 12 in autonomous, 30 hang, 20 dump on top.

We never actually achieved this goal.

But we aimed high and stuck it out, doing what we could each match and ended up placing 7th in the competitive Orlando regional, and competed for the 4th alliance in eliminations.

We learned a lot and sure are ready for the South Florida Regional!

[Jay O'Donnell]

Originally Posted by Kusha

What do you mean?

He means that bumpers ruining a hang can change the outcome of a match.

[connor.worley]

Full court shooters are vulnerable to defense (see 1138 and 2339 at SD) and the double defense strategy beats teams with no ground pickup.

[hammerhead_399]

1. Like a broken record... Autonomous, autonomous, autonomous, autonomous.

2. By week 4-6, every full court shooter is going to be ineffective. It is too easy to block them. One trick pony.

3. Refs are not aware of the absence of a starting configuration height rule. Our match start was delayed because we attached tall plastic straws to our 2nd alliance partner. The head ref argued with us for a good 5 minutes before someone would do a rule check. If you plan on attaching pool noodles last second, be ready to explain why it is legal.

[Koko Ed]

We learned that no matter the outcome when you don't give up you will always win.

[nikeairmancurry]

That the FIRST community will always step up in times of need (Robodawgs trailer getting stolen, along with 1592 and 801 robots being tore up in a accident).

[Wayne TenBrink]

Didn't learn much that I didn't already see in Week 1. In no particular order:

Climbing for 30 is not a ticket to victory.

Full court shooting is like fender shooting in 2012 - its great until a defender comes along. To be effective, you need to set up quick, be accurate, and be prepared to leave and shoot from the pyramid when needed.

Variable elevation shooters are the biggest cause of missed shots/reduced cycles for so many teams. First, because teams just miss. Second, because it slows the whole cycle down (position robot, adjust shooter, shoot, adjust, shoot, adjust, shoot, shoot).

Time at the feeder station is just as import as time spent anywhere else. Practice lining up, practice feeding discs. Practice, practice, practice.

Floor pickup is a good thing, even if you don't use it all the time. Every alliance should have one.

Reduce cycle time.

Autonomous.

[IKE]

Originally Posted by Wayne TenBrink

....
Time at the feeder station is just as import as time spent anywhere else. Practice lining up, practice feeding discs. Practice, practice, practice.

....

This was a huge variable for a lot of teams. Time at the feeder station often exceeded the time to run down the field, set up, and shoot for many teams.

With median OPR last week being at 13, every cycle at the feeder station and making the shots is worth about 1x the median OPR. Thus, every extra cycle puts you way above the rest of the competition.
************************************
I saw a handful of teams this weekend capable of putting up 70+ points per match, but a consistent 50+ seemed to get you ranked higher than a 30-70 range machine.

Originally Posted by Wayne TenBrink

Full court shooting is like fender shooting in 2012 - its great until a defender comes along. To be effective, you need to set up quick, be accurate, and be prepared to leave and shoot from the pyramid when needed.

^ This

Stay and play full-court shooting can easily be taken down, but if you have a robot that can set up quickly, fire of a few accurate shots, and get the heck out of there and pyramid shoot when under defense, then go back to full-court when there's no defense, you've got yourself a strategically successful machine that can't be stopped.

[Wayne TenBrink]

Originally Posted by Andrew Lawrence

^ This

Stay and play full-court shooting can easily be taken down, but if you have a robot that can set up quickly, fire of a few accurate shots, and get the heck out of there and pyramid shoot when under defense, then go back to full-court when there's no defense, you've got yourself a strategically successful machine that can't be stopped.

Or even if you are "stopped", you have succeeded in tying up one opponent defense-bot for the entire match, leaving your other scoring bot wide open or forcing your opponent to devote two bots to defense. The problem with most full-court shooters is that it takes so long to get them dialed in and they still miss so many shots. You can afford to just leave them alone for a while.

[Hjelstrom]

Originally Posted by Wayne TenBrink

Or even if you are "stopped", you have succeeded in tying up one opponent defense-bot for the entire match, leaving your other scoring bot wide open or forcing your opponent to devote two bots to defense. The problem with most full-court shooters is that it takes so long to get them dialed in and they still miss so many shots. You can afford to just leave them alone for a while.

2845 "The Warlords" were very accurate in San Diego. It took a little time to get set up but in some matches I saw them on target with their very first shot. Some bounce out too simply due to the power behind the shots. They forced us to devote a defender to blocking them.

[stuart2054]

Originally Posted by Andrew Lawrence

^ This

Stay and play full-court shooting can easily be taken down, but if you have a robot that can set up quickly, fire of a few accurate shots, and get the heck out of there and pyramid shoot when under defense, then go back to full-court when there's no defense, you've got yourself a strategically successful machine that can't be stopped.

I think after playing our first competion in week 2 but scouting week one that being flexible and relatively good at scoring from alternate positions will be important. Full court shooting when even 50% accurate cannot be left unchallenged unless there are no other effective shooters on the alliance of the full court team and two good shooters on the other alliance but the full court team can be shut down fairly easy with a defender with an 84 inch appendange. this ties up a robot to block but is preferable to unanswerewd points for the other alliance. if the full court shooter is effective at other positins it will keep the other allianc e guessing and be that much harder to defend.

We are not a full court shooter bur our experince was you have to keep the other alliance guessing. In early matches we went to midcourt and sucked up the extra discs in that area with our floor pick up. When that was defended more we went into the opposite side to get the discs there and used our speed to quickly get back to our position under the pyramid to shoot and go look for other discs and so on.

When a partner was shooting from our normal position we would shoot from outside the pyramid or work in beside them if there was room to shoot but do whatever you are doing fast and keep the other alliance guessing.

We have a pretty strong drive train so sometimes we would block a opponent from their feed station on our way to collect discs. It slowed us down but it also aggrevated the other team and put them off their strategy.

Adapt and over come.

[Libby K]

Originally Posted by nikeairmancurry

That the FIRST community will always step up in times of need (Robodawgs trailer getting stolen, along with 1592 and 801 robots being tore up in a accident).

I was at GTRE and arrived at my hotel around the time the RoboDawgs trailer was stolen. I felt horrible. Then I went to setup at the venue, and the FIRST Robotics Canada people were already thinking of ways to get them things - parts from IFI Canada, shirts from the regional t-shirt sale (since their suitcases were in the stolen trailer), laptops... It was an amazing thing to see everyone coming together.

I read on twitter than when 801 made it to the field the whole venue stood up and cheered for them, and I nearly cried with joy.

The FIRST community can truly be a beautiful thing.

[rponmalai]

Originally Posted by Kusha

What do you mean?

1138 Eagle Engineering(also one the 254/987 alliance) had pool noodles on their robot for blocking and blocked team 2485, the Warlords, from using their awesome full court 3 point shooter, which is one of the reason that the Warlords lost