What high scores are team seeing out there?
What competitive advantages are teams seeing?
At the Montana qualifier there was a team score of 266.
Competitive advantage thoughts:
Baseline:
Was that without penalties?
Penalty free I think we were in the 150s 2 weeks ago.
Without penalties.
We scored 284 at the Hartland competition. it was the semi-finals and no penalties.
We are the red robot (Team 7031)
289 done today at the Qualifiers.
Austin Qualifier on 12/7 - the two high scores of the tournament both came in the same game in the semifinals: 317-288. No penalties for either team, so it was a rockin’ match! Interestingly enough, to the point of the poster above, in a later finals match one of the alliances did pull off a double hang in endgame - saved them from elimination.
The highest scores I’ve seen so far are from the Oxford PA qualifier we went to.
Q24 with 356 points and SF1-1 where our alliance scored 322
Team 6433 and 4997 scored 396 yesterday at the Tampa, FL league championship:
The highest score I have heard of was 420 points scored at a Pennsylvania qualifier two weeks ago. 
Do you know which event this was at? I don’t remember anything that high from the 2 we went to.
What was the alliances strategy? Double lift?
We’re not seeing any scores over 300 in VA but we’re seeing close scores with both teams in the 200s.
We were practicing at a competition before the matches started and we were able to get 212, and we were practicing by ourselves too!
We had a match at the FL Championship where we scored 385, but it should’ve been 435. Our double hang cut slightly into the other alliances zone - although it didn’t count as blocking their hang, one of our two robots was not credited with the hang leaving us with 385 instead of 435.
I think a team made up with a strong defensive bot and a strong block scorer will do very well against a team with 2 block scoring bots.
We think a defensive bot can disrupt the opposing alliance from scoring enough that our alliance can leave block scoring period in the lead (all things being equal). Also a flexible defensive autonomous strategy can ensure that an alliance leaves auto mode ahead (maybe not with MAX points).
A sophisticated defensive strategy can be very disruptive. With the key feature of a defensive bot being high traction.
With my 2010 season in mind. Defense wins world championships.
My team had the highest scoring percentage at the world championship in 2010 and we decided it was more to our advantage to score less points as an alliance to make sure the opposing alliance scored even less. This game more than others in recent FTC history relies on a very similar OPR calculation to 2010. I hope teams know this and will scout the data accordingly to employ the most effective offense and defensive strategies.
On Sunday we were hitting well over 300 at a pre-State scrimmage here in MN.
As we move towards a point in the season where most good robots can complete all game tasks, defense is quickly becoming the deciding factor in matches.
In Hudson Valley Championship, NY, the top score was 346.
Perfect autonomous (both robots in the alliance)=120 pts
Flag+hang in endgame=85 pts
Remaining 141 pts were for the blocks.
Here is the video:
This year we are not seeing much defense. As bots get better at scoring each alliance is trying to outdo the other by scoring, not defense. Remember a defense robot scores zero block score. But the offensive robot being defended on one side can cross the ramp and pick up blocks or score on the other side. Another strategy is to push the defence robot on the pendulum/baskets. Although this is not a penalty it scares the defence robot away. At the Florida state championship we were the highest scoring robot (average score 324 in 10 matches and unbeaten in 10 matches) and we had defense played on us only once and in spite of this we scored more than 300 points in that match.
Defense for us was a part of our strategy this year because we really didn’t have the time to focus on blocks.(We do FTC and FRC) This past weekend was the Illinois state championship where we were in 2nd place with a Ranking Points over 850 31 RP behind first. Due to some other things (robot problems) we didn’t win but defense did play a large role in making it to where we got. I recognize the fact that blocks are very important this year and had we made it to the super regional we were planning to add a block manipulator.