The 2017 FIRST Robotics Season is over but there is a plethora to cover and much more to come.
Join us on Tuesday 5/2 starting at 8:30pm Eastern for Recap with the FRCTop25. We have an action packed episode that I think many of you will want to tune-in right at 8:30pm for.
Show Schedule:
Interview with Frank Merrick about 2017 with short AMAA
Recap of St. Louis Divisions and Einsteins
Round up 2017 Season
FRCTop25 with Looking Forward Results.
If you have any questions for Frank or the FUN crew to answer, please post below and we will get to as many as possible.
Looking Forward to seeing you all tomorrow!
Edit: Kristine will be on to draw the World Champion FRC2747’s Robot!
Edit: No Looking Forward will not be on the show. It/Their Top25 will be though.
St. Louis win undoubtedly win. While the 973 alliance was a great alliance, the 118 1678 alliance was stronger due to the fact that they could put up 80+ Kpa, and the matches came down to fouls. The full, brute force shooting ability of 2767’s alliance would shut out 973’s. I would like to see the top 8 alliances play, though.
That being said, I would like to see what would happen if we put any 3 of the uber-tier shooters on an alliance against no defence just to see how high they could score. I can imagine a robot just sitting at the feeder station shooting overflow balls constantly the whole match while the others. I bet they could most likely get to 200+ Kpa.
Well this just ain’t true. In the match with 175 foul points, 118 and 1678 still would have won if they had nailed their auto or gotten to 40 kPa. Roebling scored more kPa than Newton in both finals matches. How can you say Newton was stronger? History says otherwise.
This does not guarantee a victory either. 1058’s Archimedes alliance showed that it’s possible to slow down the Daly champions to the point where they don’t get 4 rotors. At this point, all fuel bets are off. 973 has said that they chose 2928 because they are a “bruiser”: a tough defensive bot that can ram and disrupt the opposing gear game while contributing gears of its own. It’s not about what your theoretical high score is, or how cool your robots look when everything is working perfectly. It’s all about whether you can win the matches.
Can you guys talk about if Hall of Fame teams should be allowed to receive the Engineering Inspiration award? Team 27 won the EI award in the Daly dvision, and I want to know how Frank and the FUN team feel about that. I personally think it’s unfair as they are already qualified and had already earned the honor of being recognized for their inspiration, impact, and outreach. No disrespect intended for 27, but I think that the EI award at champs should go to a team who hasn’t had the opportunity to be recognized at that level before.
Personally, I’d like to here opinions on why some really strong robots (33, 2834, 2337, etc.) couldn’t make it out of their divisions, and why some others (Greengineerz 3452 specifically) surprised us. Is it just the way the cookie crumbles, or was it all strategy? How did slower captains get into high positions, and how did alliance selections impact teams? This was a game where a single robot could not carry the whole alliance, and I feel like that’s over looked, especially when talking about 2767’s alliance. Those 2nd and 3rd picks could make or break an alliance, so how did that play out?
The issue of “weaker” robots ranking high at Champs has always been a topic of discussion and schedule difficulty is always a major factor. Districts have worked to overcome this with the addition of more matches which statistically allows stronger teams to rise to the top. Combine only having 10 matches, schedule difficulties, with the fact that climbing had such a large impact on match outcome and its easy to see how it happened.
At least in our division, during selection meeting, even the #32 spot on our list was consistently averaging 4-5 gears, 80-90% hang and a pretty consistent auto gear. Again, its not hard to see why these other threads of “why didn’t I get picked” are popping up, simply due to the fact that there were a LOT of middle ground robots that were statistically equivalent.
I’m more interested in hearing what unexpected outcomes came from robots that were picked. Less of “why were/weren’t these bots chosen” and more of “how did these teams end up pairing with each other?” Was there a weak link, a mechanical failure, or simply a tougher better opponent that knocked out alliances led by teams like Killer Bees?
I am pretty sure that if not outright disallowed in the manual there is an unspoken rule that this should not have happened. Particularly 3 years after winning CCA. It just adds to the confusion about whether EI is a Chairman’s runner up (it allegedly isn’t) or it’s own award with separate criteria (which nobody really seems to be able to define).
Same as in our division. There were more than twenty robots on our pick list (in Daly) who could run 3.5 to 4 gears in tele plus auto. That left enough teams to carry into our third round of picks, and still some great gear-runners were left un-picked.
SteamWorks was the most levelling game we’ve had in 10 years, for better or for worse. The thresholds made for exciting close scores, and unprecedented success for some teams with fewer resources. But it was frustrating to not have reduced control over your destiny. If you wanted to break out of the average, there was an enormous difficulty and cost cliff (fuel) in your way. I’m still undecided about whether the cons outweighed the pros.
I’m definitely anti-endgame though. If your main game mechanic isn’t exciting enough to carry to the buzzer, you should fix that, not tack on a mandatory dance trick that can undo everything.
