As demostrated in the final match of the finals, ball bots can win in the finals. True, if you have 3 goals the game is over, but 1 goal with a good a ball bot can beat almost anyone. When we put all those balls in the goal, and had 66 hold it, we proved this point.
Also, you guys got your 71 vs. 60. What did you think? in the match where 71 dragged them across the field, they only had 1 track, or foot, on the carpet. In the other match, i think they fell wrong, and if that happens its over. So? opinions?
For starters you guys had an awsome bot and so did beatty. but in the second match we found beatty’s weakness. Beatty lifted off of the ground onto a ball we threw over there at the beginning of the match, so they couldn’t get thier feet onto of the ground. And we had you guys beat until we poped our breaker, oh well, you guys earned it. so congrats. I’m just kind of bitter about how good you guys were.
*Originally posted by GilaHumanPlayer *
**For starters you guys had an awsome bot and so did beatty. but in the second match we found beatty’s weakness. Beatty lifted off of the ground onto a ball we threw over there at the beginning of the match, so they couldn’t get thier feet onto of the ground. And we had you guys beat until we poped our breaker, oh well, you guys earned it. so congrats. I’m just kind of bitter about how good you guys were. **
Yeah, about that ball you threw…blah, nevermind the season is over now.
I’m still a little disapointed we didn’t get to go help uphold the honor of ball 'bots to…
Anyways, I think that at first, a lot of ball 'bots had a great time in quals, right up till finals. As soon as finals start, the goal handlers got very aggresive. At least in our case, the other teams knew they could push us around and keep us running the whole match, keeping us from ever scoring many balls. When they started to do this we where caught completly off gaurd and kinda went ‘huh?’. We had been lulled into a fall sense of security the whole time.
In retrospect, I see a lot of things I could have done diffrently to make us more competitive in finals. Ball 'bots are well suited to the game in any phase, it’s a matter of how offensive and willing the drivers are to use their (generaly) higher speed. So, I expect ball 'bots to do very well in off season comps, now that we’ve all gotten a good look at them in Florida.
*Originally posted by Ogre * As demostrated in the final match of the finals, ball bots can win in the finals. True, if you have 3 goals the game is over, but 1 goal with a good a ball bot can beat almost anyone. When we put all those balls in the goal, and had 66 hold it, we proved this point.
After Match 3 of the finals Andy B leaned over and said “See, balls did make a difference…” he was totally right. The 2002 National Championships were won with balls…
*Originally posted by Joel J. *
**Yeah, about that ball you threw…blah, nevermind the season is over now. **
I know if that ball was in a goal we would have won the match.
I wish we could have gone one more match win or loose. We never were able to see who could out push who. In the first match one of our arms broke preventing us from transferring much of the weight of the goals. This makes us an easy push over. In the second match (with a replacment arm installed)
we wern’t so easy to move. However there was a ball on the right side of Beatty which was lifting the right track preventing them from geting full force to the carpet.
I wish Hamond was closer to Kingman so we could have a pull off.
So it looks like we will never know who had the more powerfull robot. I think we would have held our own. But I may be a little predjudice. I would like to here Beatty’s opinion. Regardless Beatty had an awesom Robot, with some real “out of the box thinking” and that is what Engineering is all about.
At the Motorola Midwest Regional, the Wildstangs and Technokats were very close to beating Hammond. Ball pickers definitely have the ability to put up a good fight in the elimination rounds.
I was most suprised by team 201, the FEDS. They were able to spin Hammond around. It would have been very scary if Hammond could side-step. One team tried to throw a ball in Hammond’s way at Chicago too, but failed to do anything. I don’t really think that’s a very dependable strategy. Having 2 powerful robots cooperate to spin Hammond would have been a much better strategy.
Also, team 60 grabbed the goals from Hammond extremely fast, but Hammond still managed to get a hold of the goals. I found that kind of odd. I think if they had a good strategy… like get the goals and then manuever behind Hammond… they could have easily won it. I guess the tether they left behind limited their movement.
Ball robots? Pah… during the semis and finals, we all tried in vain to throw a ball in the way of beatty at the beginning of the match like that. Unfortunately during (and correct me if im wrong) the first match of the Kingman-Beatty semis one of the human players threw the ball across the field a little too far and nailed other team’s driver square in the chest…
It may not have been gracious professionalism, but whoever did that, please stand up for recognition. I’ve barely ever laughed harder in my life.
We came up with that though too, of throwing a ball under them, but never did it cause we wanted to pick them and didn’t want to show a weakness, obviously. And i got a question for you guys(60 & co.) Were you holding the balls before the match started? A few people on our team said you were, and i wasn’t sure. I you were i really don’t care, cause its all over now. And no, as far as i know a ball didn’t hit any of the drivers in the chest, at least not me or the other driver from our team.
And why did u guys die?
*Originally posted by Ogre * And i got a question for you guys(60 & co.) Were you holding the balls before the match started?
I noticed that the timing between the “3… 2… 1… GO!” and the power being supplied to the robots was inconsistent at best. It’s quite possible that they grabbed balls when they thought the match was starting (as announced) but before the robots were moving.
This inconsistency was one of the biggest problems when scouting robots for speed (time to get to the goals).
*Originally posted by Kyle Hill *
**Ball robots? Pah… during the semis and finals, we all tried in vain to throw a ball in the way of beatty at the beginning of the match like that. Unfortunately during (and correct me if im wrong) the first match of the Kingman-Beatty semis one of the human players threw the ball across the field a little too far and nailed other team’s driver square in the chest…
It may not have been gracious professionalism, but whoever did that, please stand up for recognition. I’ve barely ever laughed harder in my life. **
That was me that threw that ball… I wasn’t trying to hit the other team but rather disrupt beatty’s machine. Just a little overthrow thats all
…and also in reply to kevin_308… we grabbed and threw the balls as soon as we heard “Go”, regardless of whether the lights were on or the machines had started moving or not. We were not paying attention to that, just listening for the go.
Yeah we popped our breaker, we still have no idea why. It’s not the first time it’s happened but its been a while. I’m curious, has the ball under beatty ever worked before? because i’m the one who brought i up before our match, i read it on here after beatty’s first regional. We didn’t have our hands on the balls before but i had my hands really close, just waiting for woody to say “GO”. In the first match the human players were way off with the balls, one hit one of the drivers on the other side and the other one dropped straight into the center goal, too bad that’s not what she was aiming for.
The reason Beatty was able to push our robot across the field in the first match was that one of our arms broke due to the tremendous amount of wear it took over the season. Because of this we lost the weight transfer of one of the goals and lost 200 lbs. It the second match Beatty did not have its full pushing power. I wish we could go head to head again and see who could out push who.
**