Week 1 Impressions of Rack 'N Roll

[platypus]

Originally Posted by Noah Kleinberg

To the people who think autonomous mode isn't very important this year, don't think of it as two points, scoring is exponential. especially if more than one robot on your alliance scores during autonomous, you're at a pretty big advantage for the human control part of the match.

I have to respectfully disagree here. You've made the general statement that I imagine most justifies autonomous, but at the same time, you've missed the point that I've tried to make.

Yes, autonomous is a good thing to have -- after all, it does score points, and when is scoring points a bad thing. The point that I have tried to make is that it doesn't score enough points to be worth the effort that most teams would have to put into it.

It's a difficult autonomous to code for, and most autonomous modes are not 100% successful, with this year being no different. The reality is that autonomous integration has a serious opportunity cost for all but the most efficient teams, and an unrealiable chance to score an extra ringer (since spoilers aren't used, that's what it is) was hard for most teams to justify when they were being delayed by typical mechanical setbacks and even atypical mechanical setbacks (think Banebots). Even the software teams have better things to do, like program a particularly complex control system.

As a good yardstick for the value of autonomous, compare this year to last year. Last year, the team that won autonomous won the game at least 75% of the time, and that's a conservative estimate. There isn't much data to make similar estimates this year because of the lack of autonomous scoring, but I can say from observation that it really didn't make much difference. Maybe in the national eliminations, alliances will score 3 in a row in automonous and it will matter, but realistically, the GSR eliminations sported an alliance that once scored two keepers, only to lose to the steamroller of the top alliance. Last year, if two teams on an opposing alliance had unloaded their clip of nerf balls for 40+ points + 10 more points for winning autonomous, it would have taken an act of god to beat them (or at least a DQ from one of them for placing a robot part into the side goal).

Autonomous is always nice, but it isn't worth what it needs to be worth this year.

[dangerousdave]

Originally Posted by wilsonmw04

There was a count down during each match. It was posted in the middle team's control area for each alliance. It counted down the two different periods of each match. Now if you are only talking about the big screen, then you are correct.

Yes, I was talking about the big screen being viewed by the vast majority of people. We were unable to see "exactly" how much time was left in a match. We were left to guess by looking at a green line.

[teenmisfit]

he ramps will win championships. Having a ramp/defensive bot will keep the other team trying to score tangled up but at the end those ramps mean 60 point. team 1824 was solely a ramp/defense bot and he won us sooo many round just because of the ramps. everyone gets sooo good at scoring tubes in the finals it comes down to bonus points to win rounds. You need a well rounded alliance to win. not a solid offensive won. I will stick by my word that the two teams i went to finals with at BAE (175 Buzz, and 1824) was the best alliance and teamwork i have seen in four years of first. Nothing equates to how we all did our job flawlessly everytime and us mere "kids" showed professionalism and sportsmanship both to the opponents and our alliance.
We may not do that good at nationals as we did at the BAE but Buzz and 1824 will. They are valuable, cooperating teammates that just work everytime.

we were the only team i saw at BAE that effectively could put on a spoiler and take it off. we did so with ease (but only in the practice rounds on thurs.)

[+()c|D]

I feel that the idea of getting all 8 around is not that hard.

Also, rampbots are a HUGE deal in this game... you could not score any ringers and still win with a good rampbot on your team!!

[wolfj]

I think that too many points are given for robot elevation. It seems as though an alliance that gets any bonus is a winning alliance. This seems to be a common opinion. It takes six in a row to cancel out a good rampbot's lead. But, I hate to criticize, since the FIRST game designers are doing an amazing job, and probably have creative capabilities we could only dream of. (But then again, we do build robots.