Indiana District Champs

FIRST General Forum
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We are two weeks away from the FIRST in Indiana District Championship.

Indiana has always been a district where teams really improve over the season and now with no bag or limits on time this event should be special.

Having watched more matches in person than probably anyone else here are my GOM thoughts on the event.

There are two clear favorites for the top spot, 3940 Cybertooth and 7457 suPURDUEper Robotics. I would have to give 7457 the slight edge as favorite but that edge is slim and might just be in my head. Itā€™s a little scarry that these top teams have been given at least three weeks for improvement.

The next group in numerical order starts with 292 Panther Tech. This team is constancy personified and the fast climber they displayed at Tippy was impressive.

829 The Digital Goats has a solid autonomous and climb that helped them seed second at Tippy. Their cycle time needs improvement to deal with the top teams.

1024 Kill-A-Bytes, Iā€™m in love with their sweet (wish I would have done) catapult shot and always crazy climb.

1501 Team Thrust showed improvement at Tippy that puts them at the top of this group.

4272 Maverick Boiler Robotics had difficulties Saturday at Tippy but three weeks to fix these could put them back on top.

Next group

234 Cyber Blue always gets better week after week.

461 Westside Boiler Invasion has had bad luck this season and a ridiculously hard schedule at Tippy so look for them to seed better than their first two events.

5484 Career Academy Wolfpack already have punched their ticket to worlds with a solid regional win.

6946 SHAM-ROCK-BOTICS, a breakout year for this team

A group to watch

447 Team Robotos PVC ejecting climb is always exciting.

3176 Purple Precision, always good at state.

3487 Red Pride, can the Refrigerator show us some new tricks?

3494 Quadrangles, 4926 Galac Tech and 5010 Tiger Dynasty are solid.

Two teams that had problems that also deserve a closer look:

135 Penn Robotics had massive electrical problems at Columbus that caused them to miss most of their matches but came back with a solid performance at Tippy. Now with three more weeks to improve.

1741 Red Alert, the heavyweight champ at Columbus who had to remove a lot of systems, has also had three weeks to improve, what will we see?

Itā€™s a shame that our hosts 5188 Area 5188 missed the champs by one point and because 135 won DCA.

Disclaimer: These are my grumpy old man thoughts and in no way reflect on my team (who donā€™t listen too me) my family (who also donā€™t listen too me) or most reasonable people (who shouldnā€™t listen to me.)

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As someone who has analyzed these teams for the season, I fully agree with this analysis. Seems pretty spot on.

Andā€¦ With the dominance on the 1 seed, itā€™ll be interesting to see who ranks 1. 7457 has ranked 1 at both their events, and 3940 has ranked 2 at both their events. Can the luck of the schedule see a mix-up? Who knows?

But, Indiana can always be crazy. Cue 2017 state where alliance 5 won. I think this year is slightly more predictable, but we will see how all the teams have improved orā€¦ Notā€¦

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4926 is stoked to play! The 110lb robot we had for the District Events has ā€˜climbedā€™ up closer to the max! :slight_smile: Letā€™s Go Indiana!

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1720 is ready to see our robot friends again!

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I definitely think you need to watch out for 7198. They have been doing some massive drive practice, controls overhaul, and intake modification. They currently have one of the most accurate shooters in Indiana. I could see they being a very ā€œFierceā€ opponent.

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Something should be said about 7617 (In my very amatuer opinion, the most underrated team at tippy). They struggled a little bit at columbus but really started to dial it in at tippy. According to Strength of Schedule, had the hardest schedule at Tippy, and still managed to be the second best ball scorer at the event (according to our scouting). While being held back by not having a transverse climber at their last two events, Iā€™m excited to see what they will produce.

Another team to look out for. They improved so much from Columbus to Tippy, and really started to hit their stride. Expect them to be hot.

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Over/under on the percentage of matches that are :unicorn: at this event?

I think it will be over half the matches.

Sounds like everyone is getting better. :poop:

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In terms of teams to improve by state it can not be understated how much 4926 and 3176 would benefit if they managed to add a traversal climb. Their shooting was on par if not better than teams like 292 and 1501. We saw 1501 and 6956 add theirs at their second event which gave them a huge competitive edge.

It seems from 4926 public CAD and the comment made by @sgeckler that theyve probably got this down!

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Tippe had just north of 40% so Iā€™ll put my line at 55% and still take the over.

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FRC Team 1501 has another surprise for State Championships.

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Open Book ā€¦ā€¦ Open Alliance. CAD LINK IS REAL AND LIVE AND 98% like the actual bot! :grinning:

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I would like to agree with the general consensus here that there is a very wide competitive pool at the district champs. Even though Cybertooth and SuPURDUEper are the obvious top teams, the other robots here are great. I, personally, would like to put in some love for 1024 for their incredibly cool catapult and climb. Also, I agree that the Fearsome Gearsome are definitely a great robot to watch.

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2017 was different in that the climb could make or break a match, and the higher alliances were less likely to have 3 reliable climbers

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Iā€™m going to be cheering on Tiger Dynasty. Though Iā€™ll always be a TechHOUND, I was excited to see their sponsorship request come through and get approved at my company this year.

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3940 and 7457 are most definitely the top two teams in Indiana.

Iā€™m extremely pleased with our performance at Tippecanoe. The improvements and practice we had between Kokomo and Tippecanoe made us considerably more competitive, specifically in our ability to score cargo. Weā€™ve since changed our climber and intake to be actuated by pneumatics, and weā€™ve also redesigned our intake to be full-width.

Weā€™re [most likely] abandoning our plan for a five ball auto due to time, but are instead pursuing a four ball auto from the middle position to enable eight ball autos as an alliance. A five ball, non-swerve, non-turret auto wouldā€™ve been pretty sick though :thinking:

With our previous, narrow intake design, I had a lot of trouble collecting cargo from against the wall. I had to either push it to a corner or swing out and hit perpendicular to the wall. Hopefully the new design will allow for a few more cargo to be scored each match from faster cycle times.

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That was my point. In the next line, I say that this year has been way more predictable. Crazy stuff happens, but this year, crazy stuff has not really happenedā€¦ yetā€¦

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2017 was a case of three robots that just clicked. When 292 picked us and then 3176 I was depressed thinking about an early exit from the tournament and packing up.
When we played that 1st QF match the three robots just flowed. I turned to my drive team and said ā€œholy $$$$ weā€™re gonna win this thingā€

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Thanks for the vote of confidence and for your sponsorship! Tippe did not go as weā€™d hoped at first due to a very interesting issue with our Lime Light cover resetting the IP and knocking out our 5-ball auto and distance shooting. Also lost our climb in the practice matches and were rebuilding the whole first day to get it back. We switched to being a bit more defense oriented in finals after picking up some good shooters in 7617 and 3494, which made the finals run from 7th seed a much needed boost in team morale! Weā€™ve been reworking shooting and autos over our schoolā€™s spring break and should have just enough time to run some additional practice next week.

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Iā€™m very excited to see all the improvements from teams all around Indiana that are going to DCMP. I can agree that there will be some dark horses looming around state. Iā€™m looking forward to this event and good luck to all the teams!

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6328ā€™s five ball has been an inspiration for us. We think we might pull it off.

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