Hope everyone’s having a good start to their build season, it’s about time to survey what’s going on in everyone’s busy minds. What are your predictions for this year’s competitions and teams’ capabilities? Thoughts on scoring cones, cubes, auto, and cycle times? Numbers by rookie teams, #1 seed, and Einstein?
My predictions
Rookie: 2-3 cubes and mostly transporting to others to score, average time 30-35 seconds with a docking auto and mobility
#1 seed: 7-10 cumulative cubes and cones, average time 15-20 seconds with a 2 cone/cube auto with engaging and mobility
Einstein: 11-15 cumulative cubes and cones, average time 8-11 seconds, with a 3 cone/cube auto with engaging and mobility.
I dont think a consistent sub-10 second or 10 second cycle is possible at all - even einstein teams will need to maneuver around defense. Sub 15 is definitely possible, but I’d expect einstein teams to be in the 12-20 second range and 1 seed to be closer to 20-25.
For auto, I think these are fair estimates, although they do ignore the inevitable 4 piece auto from 1678 / 254
Strong software teams could reduce the cognitive driver load with scoring by automating much of the process, I see a lot of room for software capabilities, but I agree sub ten could be a one-time occurrence, if at all.
When we did cycle time analysis, we bucketed teams at our event as:
Defense bot (what we call “Roombas”)
Functional scoring mechanism. Will be able to score, though not particularly effectively
First pick material
Finalist contender.
Assuming a 5 FPS drive speed (I know that sounds low, but we’re also not modeling defense in here so I’m hoping it’s a wash), we’re figuring cycles are 30~ seconds on average.
We assume that teams in the first two buckets (roombas and functionals) will be scoring 0-2 game pieces per match. We think first pick material is 2-4 pieces per match, and finalist contenders are in the 5-6 pieces per match range. Based on this, we’re not really prioritizing the sustainability RP, as we don’t think we’re gonna see it all that often. All of this analysis is done through the framing of a week one regional though, so your mileage may vary a bit.