Hi, I’m the human player on 121 and I thought it would be fun if all the human players would voice their opinions here. In some teams your the target of every joke and are not considered a real part of the drive team. My team has realized just how valuable I am to our succes. I not only shoot balls in but I am one of the head scouts and head strategy gurus on the team. When we made it to the finals I was alliance captain twice. All of the big decisions were left up to me. During each match i count up the score and tell our mentor and the other teams mentor exactly what our alliance should do. thats my piece.
now i want all you other hp’s to tell stories, complaints, compliments, opinions, etc in this post.
Human Players make the difference, because one ball can make the difference. Here’s the proof:
I’m a freshman at Clarkson U, and on team 229, but last year I was human player for team 250. In the semi-finals in Long Island last year, 250 was chosen to be on the WPI alliance. We were playing against the Clarkson Alliance… They put up a score of 180, and we knew that we needed 9 balls in the goal, with our usual strategy to win. This meant that the robot could only stay at the HP station for a certain amount of time. We managed to get 8 balls into the goal before the 250 bot pulled away. We (the HPs) knew we needed 9 balls, and so we were counting frantically. When we realized we were 1 ball short, a flurry of shooting was begun. Balls flying everywhere through the air. Everyone was getting a little nervous, because in last years game, stray balls could unbalance the ramp, or jam it, or worse… We had 1 ball left, and the 250 bot was up on the ramp balancing (with 190s aid) and I made a hail mary… man I couldn’t make that shot again if I tried…
Ask anyone who was there… it was crazy. I think that’s the most exciting moment I’ve experienced at a FIRST competition.
The best part is I ended up being the one who beat the Clarkson team, which I would go on to join haha… Every so often I hear “Wait a minute, YOUR THE ONE WHO MADE THAT SHOT???” from a current team mate…
Anyways, if you want to watch the video, it’s on my website
But… trying to get ego in check I also believe that Human Players are a seriously underused Strategy Tool. Once the balls have been thrown, the HPs can be utilized to help keep score, and plan strategy. When chosing a HP I believe it’s important to consider knowledge of the game. IMHO In the long run, choosing a strategist is better than picking a Varsity Basketball star (unless you can get both). Ricksta is a perfect example of what I look for in a HP…
~JVN
Strategy Head
Team 229 - Clarkson U
“Former HP & Former Driver… who thinks coaching is sooo much more fun”
Human players are normaly important, but not always.
For our team, we didn’t bother with the player station balls 90% of the time. It just wasn’t worth it. If we could pick up 40 balls and score them reliably why waste our time cluttering up the field for maybe an extra 8 points? Our human players time was better spent keeping an eye on the clock, the other bots and our score. This freed up our other coach to just focus on telling the drivers what to be doing and the other team what was going on. Being that extra brain keeping track of things and relaying that info is something I suspect all human players do to some degree. Ours just had that as his first job and ball play as his second. It takes some of the pressure off the coach and drivers, which is always a good thing.
Now, if your in a match with no ball handlers, then yes, your human player is as critical as your drivers. I saw plenty of matchs won by the player balls. But, if you have a good ball 'bot on your team, consider putting your human player to work as an extra coach and see how things work out.
Hey Rick what you said all about your huma nplayer abilities is completly true, without you our team would be in tough shape! Luckily you have plenty of other team members to help you with scouting and crucial descion making! I hope other teams value their human players as much as we do.
I’m the human player on team 343, and I think that I’m valued as much as the driver and operator. I mostly find myself keeping score and repeating it to both our team and our alliance partner. At times I’ll see a way to get around things or make the score better and I’ll tell someone to do something, unfortunately there’s a lot going through the drivers head and they don’t always hear me, but hey…at least I try! Well I know that a human player can be very helpful most of the time. I know that at the Kennedy Space Center, the first regional that my team went to, during our first match we wouldn’t have known if we won or not if I hadn’t been keeping score (34, 36). The only bad thing is that it’s hard to count balls if the bot dumps a bunch at the same time (any suggestions on a good way to keep up with this??). At the St. Louis regional that happened to me…during the final matches our alliance and the opposing alliance had ball bots and I couldn’t count as fast as they were dumping, therefore nobody in the arena knew who won…lol…all but the driver of our alliance (team 16), he was jumping around yelling “I know we got it!!!” but none of us were really sure about it, except Lance (team 16) we couldn’t change his mind. Well that’s my view on it! I’ll see ya’ll at the nats!! :o)
Jessica L
Team 343 Metal in Motion (MiM) metalinmotion.com
^^Post on our message board!!
Wow…i’m only the second person to vote “The most vital key to us winning”. Wonder who the other one was, and if they meant it any more seriously than i did? No, i guess our HP isn’t all that important to the team, but she keeps our spirits up and she happens to be one of my best friends, so i am happy to say that she is vital.
We actually have two human players who alternate…one’s a girl and it’s the first time our team has ever had a female HP.
honestly I would love to the most important person on our drive team, but i’m not, our driver is. Although i have been the Human player on the Gilas for three years now, so i am pretty good. But I can say that I am not overlooked. My girlfriend is the leader of our cheer section, so I usually get more people screaming my name then the drivers do. Take that drivers!
Our human player is insane. I’m sure anyone at Rutgers remembers. He makes 70 - 80 % into any goal that’s in the second zone (opponent’s scoring zone) and 40-50% into a goal across the field. In one match, he gave our opponents 8 pts to increase our QP’s.We ended up winning on a tiebreaker. Not only does he score points consistently, he also coaches the drivers during the match along with our mentor. His consistent scoring and excellent coaching definetly gives our team an edge. Its like being guaranteed half of a goal (at a minimum) just by sitting in the end zone.
Our human player is insane. I’m sure anyone at Rutgers remembers. He makes 70 - 80 % into any goal that’s in the second zone (opponent’s scoring zone) and 40-50% into a goal across the field. In one match, he gave our opponents 8 pts to increase our QP’s.We ended up winning on a tiebreaker. Not only does he score points consistently, he also coaches the drivers during the match along with our mentor. His consistent scoring and excellent coaching definetly gives our team an edge. Its like being guaranteed half of a goal (at a minimum) just by sitting in the end zone.
I was the human player in 2001 (maybe cause I am 6’5’’ tall) and in some matches in 2000. I think I was very useful last year cause I filled the goals in almost every match.
It’s really a great experience to be one of those in the playing field.
Last year in the Nationals I threw a ball when the robot was already pulling the goal back, so I missed it, and that ball gave me a serious headache: it went to the right, stopped a bit, came to the center, went over the bridge, touched a robot, rolled to the top of the wood field divisor, fell down to the other side and when the robot was about to balanced the bridge, the ball went under the bridge!! That was one chance in one billion!!
I’m sure it was Murphy’s ghost leading the ball under the bridge to make sure that “if a bad thing may happen, it WILL happen” (“Murphy’s Law”).
This year Manoel is our “human player”, but what he does is to operate one part of the robot and help the team with his endless knowledge. The official robot operator (Luiza) has scored more balls than him this year, but in 2000 he won a game for us by shooting balls.
I think human players are really important, but I voted for “we need 3 operators”.
I am the Human player for team 66, the penguins. Its my second year in this role and I find that this year alows for more use of the Human players.
When I am not shooting I am the head pit scout and strategist. We are a very small team so i do many of these things on my own. I was activated when our team was loosing continually in grand rapids, and after a bad showing at Great Lakes we were desperate for a win. My stradegies and assistance to our coach allowed for us to have a streak of 6 wins after three straight losses.
We made it third seed and won our quarterfinal easily. I received great praise when we beat beatty (71) by a point (the last ball I threw) in our second semifinal match. But glory is fleeting as we lost our final against Chief (47) by a point.
Human players are often blamed when matches are lost by a close margin, but rarely praised when the are won by a similar margin.
I;m not the best shot out there ( 90% zone 1, 70% zone 2, 50 zone 3, hit or miss after that ). But I am valuable to my team in other ways. While Human players are the most overlooked member of the drive team we share equal importance.
The chances weren’t one in a billion, those black balls just loved to roll under the ramp and mess us up. They were always off center and rolled in odd ways. These smaller balls are alot nicer and easier to throw. (and I am 6’4" and was chosen for height too)
I was human player for 118 in 2001 and I think I was the sortest one out there. We went to LSR and were in Newton at Nationals, at all those matches I think I was the shortest one in all the alliances. Bieng 5’5", during the pregame meeting I got a quite few “are you really the human player” reactions. I ended up bieng the one of the people who handed the balls to the tallest human player who then dropped them into the goal. Then I ran our team’s e-stop button. I could reach over the glass and drop a ball into the goal, but in competion i never returned a ball to the playing field. Still I had fun bieng on stage at the competitions.
The story goes that since I was the only student who woke up really early and showed up at NASA(thats were we work) to pick up stuff to bring to Reliant Arena the Thursday morning of LSR, I was awarded the position. Plus I was on the base sub-system pit crew, so I knew how to fix our drive train. Me and my handy Leatherman, even though it is “the not so perfcet tool for the job”, came in handy for quick, on stage 30 seconds before a match, fixes. Actually I think it was the perfect tool for the job given the time we had sometime between matches. It also was a great tool tightening and clipping the ends off of the millions of cable ties we used on our robot last year.
*Originally posted by sidewinder *
**Human players are often blamed when matches are lost by a close margin, but rarely praised when the are won by a similar margin.
**
or in my case: blamed whenever we lose . and yelled at when not taking shots during a practice round after my beloved MOE stopped working.
when we won second place at midatlantic, the deciding game was won by one point. i am a terrible human player, but i managed to get one in. human players may not be very important when you win by 10 points, but their true value is revealed in close score maches.
Well, our team needed our human players to get the balls in the goal, only when we needed them to. We just said if we want to be up by a point or so, to start throwings (/me puts on flame suite) but they can’t throw!!! LOL! j/k, j/k, our human players where very, very good…
Well that’s my view on it! I’ll see ya’ll at the nats!! :o)
LOL! j/k, j/k, our human players where very, very good…