I am betting that a good portion of the matches will be decided in the first 10 seconds like last year… this makes the programmer for each team very important because that 10 seconds will happen during the autonomous period :yikes:
Of course I may be wrong… but the same teams we watched last year (and a few others coming up!) will prove it :rolleyes:
What are your thoughts?
I cast my vote for the first and last ten seconds.
I say the first 25seconds and last 10. Once all of the automations are done, there will be a new “first move” by a lot of teams. If say the automation doesn’t work right, or didn’t go as far as they wanted to… etc.
I don’t think there will be any perfect autonomous rounds for any team. The autonomous mode will put every one in a new semi-random starting position for a 1:45 match. And by semi-random I mean the teams for the most part will know approximate position of their bot and nobody will know where the bins are all going to be. Once those bins are down the fun will really begin.
Those first 10 seconds will be crucial, ie Stackers getting to the other side before the ramp blockers can isolate teams that can’t get under/over the bar, and the blockers getting set up to block those stackers. Getting from autonomous ending position to the team’s personal goals will be the first 10, and the mad dash for the ramp will be the last 10. Those will be the deciders in almost every match
Well, I actually think this game will take the entire two minutes to decide. I mean, 1:45 is a long time when you come to think of it. And, this year there is no one defining factor of the game. Last year a team (71 comes to mind for me) could grab all three goals and get to their zone, and if that happened, the game was over right when it started. However, unless a robot can span 24 feet to block off an entire scoring zone, there is no way to completely control the game. Sure, controlling the ramp may help, but if a team can stack well enough, it only takes 10 boxes to grab 25 points. I think this game is going to rely more on the strategist and programmer this year, instead of the machine and the driver being the main focus. In many ways this is the hardest game ever, because in previous years a team could focus on the 'bot and the driver, (read: two components) but this year FIRST added the programmer and the strategist (read: 2+2=4) essentially doubling the amount of work needed.
Well, the strategist has always been an important factor of the game. With a robot that drove extremely well last year (and keep in mind that is all we could really do) we seeded first in LA and picked Kingman and the BeachBots to win…
The ONLY reason we seeded first is because as driver, I had 20 strategy cards that I made so I could look at them to determine what we wanted to do. An example would be:
1 Ball picker + 1 goal grabber Vs. 2 goal grabbers
I literally drew out the most common 30 secs for each of the above combinations and with a little bit of luck (and my uber skills :rolleyes: ) we were able to take first.
It is not always the best robot that wins, but always the best strategy 
Oh… and one more thing… yes, there is one strategy that I predict has an %80 chance of winning if executed successfully every time :yikes:
Winning strategy eh? Well as a programmer this year (as well as being my first FIRST year) it is crazy. They are asking a lot from us. I agree with you, I think that most of the matches could very well be decided during autonomous mode, and that is way too much pressure for my crew, but we don’t mind. I mean I could quit if I wanted to, and I’m not masochistic, I just like a good challenge once and a while.
All this means the most competent person on the team, the programmer, controls the first 15 seconds. No pesky humans to ruin the strategy.
MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
The first 10 seconds may not decide the winner but they will decide the tone of the match. Many matches and especailly finals will start as fallows.
Red will have to move the majority of boxes into there zone. Which will be a slow process because boxes CANT go under the bar and difficult to get a ramp-dom. So except for a few bots designed to deal with this then red play a very offensive game.
Meanwhile the Blue ramp-dom will sit around all pretty. While his buddy clears the human player boxes out of scoring position and then goes proactive and starts to harass the Red Bots.
The blue can play a passive game and counter the Red moves. Whle the Reds have to fight an unhill battle.
So in the majority of cases whoever hits the wall first wins and since bots will hit the wall during the autonomode this means the matches will be decide in the first 15 seconds.
I also agree that the competition is more of a race to the top of the ramp. Whoever can get to the top first has the opportunity to knock all the bins into their zone at the outset, which is a HUGE advantage. This puts all hte pressure on the other alliance to move the bins back to their scoring zone. Also, don’t foget the ten seconds of human time, which can be used effectively. (My team has a really cool idea…) But the most time is still during human control which is 1:45. A lot can change during that time, so its really difficult to predict.
As for the strategy making, the idea seems cool, and we tried strategizing last year during the match. We had someone in the driver station keeping score to help guide the driver on how aggressive or defensive we should drive. That got quite confusing, and i think this year would be even worse, especially trying to look over the field and count stacks and multiply and add robots on top and what is a stack and what isnt…
thats why you need to have the math genius as human players, where they are able to see and can keep track of the score at all times. 
fortunate for me i have a math brain that can multiple
I promise you sincerely that there is/are teams out there that will have the capability in programming that will preform a consistant strategy in autonomous mode that will consistantly shut down an opponents strategy. This has happened in the past and will happen again this year.
*Originally posted by Noelle *
**thats why you need to have the math genius as human players, where they are able to see and can keep track of the score at all times.fortunate for me i have a math brain that can multiple **
Not to good with english though. 
Ramp domination will be a one of the largest parts. I have thought of an uber-1337 design today. To late for production thought =( Would control both the ramp and the bars, while making weight. Ahh well.
Hehe, that would be very cool Gadget :ahh:
I agree that matches will be decided in the first 5-10 seconds. the “wall” will make the biggest determination. if a team has a decent stacker it can turn 20 tubs into 100 points, and if you make it up the ramp first it is more likely that you can get 35 or more of the tubs. that would equal a max of 306pts. now it is improbable that a team can stack 17 high, so lets set 10 as a limit that is still 250pts, so who cares about that 25 extra for control of the ramp? as for ramp domination, it will only work if you can knock down the most boxes in the beginning. because it does no good to block a ramp if the boxes are on the opponents side
Whoever hits the wall first will have the advantage.
If a ramp-dom loses the wall he can still push boxes back over the ramp. Or simply out of scoring positon. And he could easily prevent a stacker from going 10 high.
If the stacker loses the wall he has to low ride under the bar to even get to his side. He also has to move the boxes into his side. Unless hes going to stack the 8 from the human players.
The point is the ramp dom can still play an agressive game if he loses the wall but the stacker can’t.
running our robot, you better be able to get there faster than 4 secs. anything short of that you will have to push us out of your way.
I’m gonna have to say the Entire match, it all matters equally. There are a LOT more variables this year, especially when a ramp dom gets thrown in the mix. Even last year the whole match made big difference with some of the best teams in the arena. I remember a specific case between two of the LV teams vs. Team 60 (the guys who could **q*ing lift up two goals in be in scoring position in the first 5 seconds) and the other Vegas team.
Right from the get-go, we made sure to get the other goal, while the other opponent actually BROKE DOWN. Our buddies pushed the hunk of junk into our home zone, moved the team 60 mouse (tent poles) over into our home zone as well. This whole procedure took the entire match.
Now imagine that instead of 3 goals, you have 11 stacks of boxes AND A HUGE OBSTACLE with many ways to get around it. True, these stacks can be knocked over or added to eachother, but the potential for on the fly strategy is still there. It’s going to be a battle the whole way.
*Originally posted by Mike Norton *
**running our robot, you better be able to get there faster than 4 secs. anything short of that you will have to push us out of your way. **
You think you’re fast, but can you prove it??
You stole our gearbox from last year, and you don’t think we improved it??
For that matter is it incredibly bright to say just how capable your robot is? I know it would change our strategy knowing our opponent could get a wall up in 4 vs. say 20 seconds. The four means we spill boxes on you, the 20 means we try to grap and run.
You stole our gearbox from last year, and you don’t think we improved it??
I hate to disagree with you but this is our design that we came up with.
This is the same design as last year. We cut our own gears so for you to say we stole your ideas I would say you do not know what you are taking about.
We been building robots for the past 9 years and we have help a lot of teams out with what we have done. So Please make sure you have the right information before posting a statement that we stole your ideas. Our kids are proud of coming up and making the parts to our robot.
You think you’re fast, but can you prove it??
I will have a video posted soon to show everybody. not only we hit the top at that time but we will have 4 out of 7 stacks over onto our side.
We have been running our robot to make sure everything works well and our program works well. So this is why I know how much time it will take to do our task. We have a stop watch to test it. and we did it many times over.