CHS Platter - Week 3 - Stuffed Crust

FIRST General Forum
#1

Week 2 Recap - Burnt Pizza

After an otherwise normal set of qualification matches (including CHS’s first double HAB 3 climb), 1123’s climb was reliable enough to lock up the 1 seed. Yet when it came time for alliance selection 1123 was declined five times: 3793 (2 seed), 1885 (3 seed), 1727 (5 seed), 686 (7 seed), and 4456 (4 seed). This was only two teams short of a complete scorch, and there is audio evidence that suggests two of the declines were unexpected…

Close matches in the finals consisted of the 3 seed (1885, 449, 2849) and 5 seed (1727, 4472, 2537) alliances. Heading into Final 3 the previous two matches had been decided by no more than 2 points, with both alliances missing just 1 bot on the Level 1 HAB in the match they lost. Unfortunately 1727 suffered two reboots and sat idle for much of Finals 3, sealing the 5 seed’s fate. 449 picked up their first event win since 2004 and 2849 their first ever blue banner.

Interesting CHSy Facts:

  • Alliance selection in Bethesda experienced the most ever declines in the history of the CHS district with 5.
  • Week 2’s double banner performance for 1885 puts iLITE at 15 blue banners since beginning of the 2016 season.

CHS Platter - Week 3 - Stuffed Crust

Only 3 of the top 10 CHSyness teams are competing this week, with both events falling in the middle of CHSyness power rankings for the season. As regional events pick up the pace we expect CHS events to continue being about average with the rest of the nation. After three events we have still only seen one full Rocket in the district. With the 4th RP continuing to be hard to acquire due to the lack of Level 3 Rocket bots, the Hab 3 climbers will stay on top of the rankings.

Up in Owing Mills, 836 makes their season debut. Most teams enter their second event with some match experience: these include 4638, several Haymarket elims participants, and several notable teams that were honored to be scorched last week. Look for this event to surpass expectations as its participants have already outdone their prior CHSy scores.

The story is similar down south in Portsmouth where about ⅔ of the teams competing played together Week 1 in Deep Run, but this event is missing quite a bit of offensive power that opted to compete at Blacksburg in Week 5. While we expect the teams at Owing Mills to outperform their average CHSyness score this week we expect the opposite at Portsmouth. Several high performing teams are having rough seasons this year and will be looking to bounce back and prove that their first performance of the season was just a fluke.

Owing Mills:

Number of Registered Teams: 38

TBA page: https://www.thebluealliance.com/event/2019mdowi

PeachPits: http://2019mdbet.firstchesapeake.org

Livestream: Primary, Full field view with corner insets

CHSyness: 7.48

Extra Sharp Prediction:
Winning alliance of 836, 614, and 3389

The Favorites:

836 (17.17) - Making their 2019 debut this weekend, the RoboBees just released their robot reveal earlier this week. Their very interesting pneumatic popper for Cargo looks to actually be gentle enough to work well on the Cargo Ship. If 836 can keep their Hab 3 climb working they’ll find themselves at the top of the rankings.

614 (15.78) - With the highest OPR Week 1 at Haymarket, the Night Hawks have proven themselves as an offensive powerhouse. With so many other cargo-centric teams at this event, they will want to either hatch the Rockets themselves, or find a partner who can.

Others to watch for:

1629 (16.22) - The Platter is looking forward to GaCo’s manipulator redesign, after a fundamental flaw slowed their cycles to a crawl in Haymarket. We do not expect their early elims exit in Haymarket to hold back the Gecko from going far in Owing Mills.

5338 (15.20) - One of the only teams in the district with both a Hab 3 climb and the ability to reach the top of the rocket, RoboLoCo rode the former to the 4 seed at Haymarket. They will need to improve cycle times to go deeper than their previous semifinals exit.

2377 (15.00) - After multiple trips into the semis over their District career, C Company is looking to finally break into the finals. Sporting a pneumatic elevator, some beefy lift cylinders, and a duck bill, they’ll attempt to seed high by grabbing the extra Hab RP.

4541 (13.33) - After failing to make the finals at any CHS events in 2018, few would have projected the CAV-ineers to see the floor on Einstein. But that’s exactly what they did, playing every match as the 2nd pick of 868’s Archimedes-winning alliance. They haven’t posted much about their bot this season, but do not overlook them as contenders.

Hot takes from reveal videos and other inside info:
This data was gathered from social media, ChiefDelphi, and other publicly-available means. The Platter appreciates that these videos were mostly business and some fun - without all of the fluff from shaky-cam ‘highlight’ nonsense that plagues reveal videos these days. These are in numerical order.

686 (7.33) - Bovine’s reveal video was spot on, and their performance in Bethesda proved it. Not only did they hatch the hatches, but also cargo’ed the cargo better than most teams at the event. Their Level 3 climber worked most of the time. Expect them to be in the top 8, and go far with good scouting.

4638 (9.55) - The Jagbots dusted off their laterally-moving gear placer from Steamworks and adapted it into a speedy Hatch placer, fast enough to be the 5th overall pick at Westtown.

Portsmouth:

Number of Registered Teams: 38

TBA page: https://www.thebluealliance.com/event/2019vapor

PeachPits: http://2019mdbet.firstchesapeake.org

Livestream: Primary, Full field view with corner insets

CHSyness: 7.16

Extra Sharp Prediction:
Winning alliance of 2363, 1610, and 1793 (repeat of 2017)

The Favorites:

2363 (20.78) - Week 1 winners as the #1 overall pick at Haymarket, Triple Helix will again rocket to the top of the rankings with their Hab 3 climber. Look for their Hatch game to be top notch, and their Cargo game to improve significantly since their last event. If they rank 1st, expect them to pick their friends 1610 and repeat the couple’s domination of this event from 2017.

1610 (17.56) - Week 1 finalists at Deep Run, Blackwater Robotics scored the most Hatch points at Deep Run with a 3D printed hatch mechanism but seemed to ignore higher point value Cargo. Known for using their unbag time wisely, improvements should be ready for another run to the Finals this week.

Others to watch for:

401 (16.00) - Known for out of the box designs, we’re not sure what Copperhead Robotics has in store this week but they have been a consistent playoff contender in recent years. They are sure to be in the mix Sunday afternoon.

1599 (15.33) - 6th rank and 4th alliance captain in Deep Run, CircuiTree made many improvements during the event and ended with a quite scary looking but reliable Cargo scoring mechanism and Hab 3 climber. If they can keep their balance 1599 will seed high again.

422 (13.56) - The Mech Tech Dragons were knocked out in the quarterfinals at Deep Run after playing defense as the alliance captain. They have the potential to be a reliable Cargo scoring team.

2106 (13.11) - Highly seeded for most of Saturday at Deep Run, The Junkyard Dogs gained extra RP from Hab 3 climbs but had trouble staying vertical on Sunday. They are one of the few robots at this event that has demonstrated Hatch placement above level 1, though slowly.

Hot takes from reveal videos and other inside info:
This data was gathered from social media, ChiefDelphi, and other publicly-available means. The Platter appreciates that these videos were mostly business and some fun - without all of the fluff from shaky-cam ‘highlight’ nonsense that plagues reveal videos these days. These are in numerical order.

190 (11.33) - For their first event of the season Gompei and the Herd is visiting from Massachusetts on the first week of a four weekend straight competition stretch. 190 has demonstrated full rocket range Hatch and Cargo placement, but didn’t show off any Hab abilities.

Season Platter Prediction Results:

  • There will be an average of 73 pizza boxes brought into events each week. (Current average: 74.011899889991197253 PB/Event/Week)
  • There will be 3 new CHS District prediction accounts this season, and a corresponding increase in cheese puns. (One down, two to go)
  • VAHAY - 1731, 2363, and 339
  • VAGLE - 384, 1262, and 1793
  • MDBET - 1885, 4472, and 2912

–

Want to see your team mentioned in the coming weeks? Make sure to upload a robot photo to TBA so we can check you out!

2 Likes
#2

Surprised at the lack of mentions for these few teams at Portsmouth:

  • 977 - Were quietly one of the best rocket hatch placers at Deep Run, placing upwards of seven per match towards the end of their run. I suspect that they could earn a rocket ranking point when paired with the right partner.
  • 6334 - Historically, this team has had a tendency to start slowly, then improve drastically throughout the season. I think that’ll apply to them this year, as they were pretty slow off the gate at Richmond, but were placing 6+ panels on the rocket by the time of eliminations. They should improve upon their QF exit from week 1.
  • 122 - They’ve won this event every year they’ve competed in it, so they seem worthy of at least a mention. They too have a tendency to improve down the stretch, so I think they’ll do a bit better than last time.

My blindfolded prediction: 2363/190 over 122/401

1 Like
#3

Come on guys, how many times do I have to show our robot??? Here you go.

Also your PeachPits link for VAPOR is wrong.

#4

I grabbed the correct link for them

#5

thanks Matt for cleaning up CHS platter’s mess

4 Likes
#6

Does that mean it’s time for a new prediction account?

#7

Although the pastures around Portsmouth are not know to attract unicorns, Team 1610 may be able to conjure one up. The hills around Blacksburg are much more desirable for unicorns and there may be multiple sightings later this month.

#8

Cheesy poofs just call those “par”.

4 Likes
#9

Cheesy poofs reveal video was mesmerizing

#10

¯_(ツ)_/¯ One day they’ll learn, this is about as much robot as one can expect from VT :roll_eyes:.

1 Like
#11

Good news, there are some VT senior design projects to help people with missing limbs.

6 Likes
#12

2998

#13

Close on the Owings Mills prediction! 836-614-3748!

#14

Well, you did get this right!

#15

Why are some of the winner predictions actually right? It’s creepy that they are really close.

#16

What you’ve heard is true, the competitions are rigged. Required a lot of money to persuade 612 to take 2363 and 1731 and then convince three different alliances to lose rubber matches in gut-wrenching fashion.

(/s, last year should have proven that the CHS is a crapshoot)

1 Like
#17

CHS is probably the most random region too which makes these so much more impressive.

2 Likes
#18

Yes we did use our unbag time wisely and unicorns were also seen…more than once and almost a third time.

#19

You better keep quiet, or next thing we know you’ll let it slip that 1086 writes the platter…

#20

Parked with 25 seconds to go.

To make things more interesting, 3389 wasn’t too much further down on our list.

1 Like