Best Strategies

[Rick Gibbs]

What were the winning strategies and designs? I'm dying to know!

[Tom Fairchild]

We were top seed at VCU. Basically, always get two goals in your scoring zone and one in the opposing team's, at the very least. Go from there after that with balls and bots in the end zones. As for winning in the finals, couldn't help ya. We all broke!!

~Tom Fairchild~

[Joe Matt]

We broke too. That was great. Thanks for picking us. It seems odd that you guyes choose a monopolie over everyone else by sucking up the two three goal grabbers first and then loosing.

Thanks again for picking us and see you in EPCOT!

[gniticxe]

MOE has really deemed VCU as a great learning experience. We started out in the practice rounds looking, well, like crap. Progressively through the competition though, each match got better and better - as the timing for the drivers got better, and as the robot was fixed as well. In our final qualifying match, we performed the best we ever did. Our strategy was nearly flawlessly executed - and it worked.
As for the best strategy I saw - it obviously depends on the capabilities of the robots in the alliance. Even though our alliance lost our second elim match because of it - balls become trivial to the placement of goals. In many cases, torque and traction we able to control the ball controlling robots(which were mostly speedy)'s goals. If we hadn't fallen apart, controlling three goals would have done a nice job over at VCU. Needless to say, improvements are being made and we'll be ready for Drexel!

[Simon]

Originally posted by Team384:JosephM
It seems odd that you guyes choose a monopolie over everyone else by sucking up the two three goal grabbers first and then loosing.

I think it was an excellent strategy to get the three goal grabbers. strategy in the finals are definitely different from that in qualifying. that's what MOEHawk and Sparky were built to do (as well as any other three goal grabbing robot). I will say this for our team; we were seeded fourty first in qualifying matches and were still picked by the number one seed. personally I thought that some of the lower ranking teams had better matches than the higher ranking ones. also, of what I saw, a decent number of lower seeded teams got picked for elimination rounds. as a note for teams that have yet to go to their first regionals, don't rule out any robot because they're low in the seedings, sometimes they cash in big time when it comes to shut out matches. anything can happen in elimination rounds, so look at all the robots at a given regional and consider everyone for picking.

p.s. we did find out why spare parts are important

[Tom Fairchild]

Originally posted by Simon

as a note for teams that have yet to go to their first regionals, don't rule out any robot because they're low in the seedings, sometimes they cash in big time when it comes to shut out matches

LoL, to play the Devil's advocate, we still lost in the quarter finals!! Doh!!

~Tom Fairchild~

[katie86]

Let the other teams have two goals.

We'd take one goal, fill it with 40 balls, and have it and a robot to guard it sit in the goal zone and then we'd hit the end zone. If it didn't turn into a pushing match, the goalbot could go to the endzone to give us some extra point-padding.

1 goal + 40 balls + 1 bot = 60 pts. Their side would get 2 goals and 2 bots for 40 pts, plus if they are extremely good 10 pts for human player balls.

Of course, this rules out crazy extension and all that... craziness.

Now we just need to get it to work perfectly at nats so we can get that 120-150 qp.

Works pretty well since most everyone has a goal handling device.

[Jan Olligs]

Originally posted by katie86
1 goal + 40 balls + 1 bot = 60 pts.

I don't exactly know your robot (sorry), but at the Langley regional, most teams had difficulties with picking up more than 10 yellow balls. And there are ways that other teams can avoid you getting either the goal or all the balls. Furthermore, if one robot from your opposing alliance has a working ball grabber, you will probably not be able to score 40 points any more.
Just my opinion, though.

[Tom Fairchild]

Katie - I'd love to play with you guys sometime. At VCU, picking up balls off the field did not become very important ; I'm sure that will be different elsewhere. While in theory we could pick up balls off the floor, we found that time could be better spent keeping goals and robots where we wanted them to be.

~Tom Fairchild~

[katie86]

quite honestly, this strategy didn't hit it off very well at KSC either, mainly because there was a lack of ball bots that could "do the job." we've got one of the few bots that such a strategy will work with, which is great in that it's simply not expected. they have two goals and whoa!, they think they've won based on the way all the matches have been running.

tom - hopefully we'll get paired at nats and have a chance to blow everyone's minds with an absolutely huge non-goal based score.

[Joe Johnson]

I was VERY impressed with what I saw of Team 86's ability to get balls fast. They had a little difficulty not falling early in the competition but seemed to work it out in the later rounds.

I think that a one goal strategy can be effective with a team that can reliably and quickly pick up 20 or more balls off the floor.

From what I see on the web, there should be several such machines in Cleveland.

Perhaps this strategy will be put to the test.

Joe J.

[gniticxe]

I feel really bad for not remembering the team number, but from the matches I saw one ball gathering robot stood out. It latched a goal behind and simply drove into the waiting balls on the side of the playing field. Nearly instantaneously, the ball was passed through the robot and ejected with back spin into the goal. I didn't see it miss a single ball. Its speed and good grasp on the goal did a great job of positioning it later in the game too. If anyone remembers this robot number, post it -- they really deserve credit for such a great machine.

[Jeremy Davis]

Team 643 was the team at VCU that grabbed a goal and drove along shooting balls back into the goal. They were on the winning alliance with 422 and 316.

[Ryan Curry]

Originally posted by gniticxe
It latched a goal behind and simply drove into the waiting balls on the side of the playing field. Nearly instantaneously, the ball was passed through the robot and ejected with back spin into the goal. I didn't see it miss a single ball.

This is exactly what our robot is designed to do, roller ramp from front to back, and a goal grasping mechanism on the front. We consistently pick up balls everytime we touch one, and deposit it directly in the goal. Chech us out at the Long Island Regional or the J&J Mid Atlantic, #30 the FURY. Cya There.
-Rc

[Andy Baker]

Originally posted by Joe Johnson

From what I see on the web, there should be several such machines in Cleveland.

Perhaps this strategy will be put to the test.

Joe J.

It's amazing to see that many of the veteran teams attending the upcoming Buckeye Regional have the same approximate design: grab alot of balls and grab one goal.

Sure, there looks to be some excellent bots who are 2 goal grabbers, but an overabundance of "combo" bots... like...

27, 45, 47, 67, 144, 191, 234, 240, 254, 642, & 808

... and these are the ones who are showing robot pics on the web. There will surely be more.

Comparing the amount of robots at KSC and VCU who had this design to the number who will be at Buckeye means that the game will be played very differently in Cleveland.

oooooo... I can't wait!

Andy B.