How many batteries does your team use for a competition?
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- 10 plus
0 voters
I would love to hear from the 10+ crowd and why you use so many.
2 Likes
We play in districts where we get typically 12 plays per event.
Our logic is one match = one battery, no reusing until play-offs.
12 Likes
[obligatory reminder of CD-bias]
4-6 is/was definitely the norm for many regional teams, much to my surprise while pit scouting. The less time you’re on the practice field, the fewer batteries you need.
9 Likes
We use 10+ for similar reasons as listed above, we like to practice a lot so more batteries means more time between when they have to be used again.
We also used to be 6 battery team then we had a competition when we selected another 4-6 team and a team who only had 4 batteries. We realized before finals that we were going to need to loan a battery to our 3rd partner for finals match 2. If we went to 3 matches we would have 1 battery from our first quarters match that would now be fully charged, our first selection would be in the same boat and we would have to hope one of us had a battery charged enough to loan out, or we would need to hope someone could loan us one for the third member.
We had a meeting afterwards about whether we wanted to make “How many batteries do they have” a determining factor during alliance selection or just invest in more batteries each year so we knew we could support whoever we selected.
We opted to go with buying more batteries so we could select whoever we wanted regardless of their quantity of batteries. This also allows us to have enough extra batteries that we have typically been able to loan them out to international teams who can’t transport batteries in their crates, and to any other teams who need an extra battery.
7 Likes
We typically have 8 new batteries at the beginning of a season.
One year we did 9 matches over two days at a regional. Then 9 matches during ~3 hours of the elimination rounds. Having a lot of batteries, and a multibank charger, came in handy.
5 Likes
We used to run 4 new batteries along with 2 of the best previous years batteries but by the end of last season we were running into issues so we revamped our battery management this year and are going with 8 new batteries for competition this year with better organization and charging management.
Edit: counting them up last year at FiM Championship we did 14 matches in one day which had us worried at the end
2 Likes
Each year we test all our batteries to categorize them as “competition” or “outreach” (where outreach really means any besides competition).
We will bring some outreach batteries for testing in the pits or practice field and all of our competition batteries (ideally enough to get through 5-6 quals matches in the morning and (previously) up to 9 playoff matches (looks like 8 is the max under the new double elimination bracket) in the afternoon.
1 Like
last year we did 6 batteries because that’s what we have charging capacity for I believe we’ll be taking 7-8 this year because we got more batteries
We will have “at least” 6 good competition quality batteries for an event, more if we can, along with a number of pit/testing/practice batteries we can use as well.
1 Like
We have a slightly different philosophy. We want to have enough batteries to have a fresh battery for each match in a given day, but we assume that we will be able to recharge any batteries over night. We are recharging during the day as well, but with the quick turn around times, we often end a day with 2 or 3 batteries that are either just used or still recharging. We assume that on day 2, we could have 3 quals (depending on the schedule, there will be 2 or 3 the second day) and then up to 9 playoff matches. So, we would in theory need 12 batteries for the second day. We don’t often have 12 batteries in the rotation, but we tend to have 10-12 batteries that are worthy to be used in a competition. We also bring a couple of practice batteries, but I am not counting those.
I remember one competition, where the students forgot to plug in the battery cart / charging station and we didn’t figure it out until mid-afternoon. We were very thankful that we had enough batteries that day. We also added a large indicator light to the top of the charging station so that you could quickly glance into the pit from the aisle and ensure that the cart was plugged in and capable of charging.
Of course with the new playoff scheme, there will be fewer matches in eliminations. But, at this point, our infrastructure is set up for 10+ batteries, so why wouldn’t we use it.
This.
We usually bring 14 per event. You can see a lot of matches on the last day of a district event and usually need to provide one or both partners batteries if an alliance reaches the semis or beyond in playoffs.
With the way districts have been playing out, We’ve had between 8-10 Matches per Calendar Day, so 10 Batteries usually means the same Battery Doesn’t End up getting used more than once per day - and by the time a given battery has been used a second time, it’s usually spent 12+ hours on the charger. (Charging Overnight)
Also creates some “Overhead” for Practice Field Heavy Events - if we go to the practice field 3-4 times, we know we’re not risking running out of “Charged” Batteries for our next match.
1 Like