Hey is it just me or are teams REALLY good this year? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Week #1 of regional/district events where there was so much high level play. There’s been a bunch of 4RP matches on day 1 and teams who look Einstein ready in their first practice matches.
I’ve noticed this trend in robot reveals too. Ex: There’s been a bunch of reveal videos with teams pulling off 5 ball autos. We just haven’t seen this many teams competing at this level of play (especially this early) in years past.
Finding COTS hardware that addresses specific game challenges is easier than it has ever been. WPILib contains more functionality than it ever has. I do not think it is unreasonable to say that an 80th percentile team could build a competent swurret with accurate pose estimation this year.
arguably, this has been one of the “easiest” (read: extremely low floor) game in years, along with the fact its extremely similar to 2020/2021 means its not hard to lift designs from the last 2 years with somewhat minimal changes needed.
As Connor also pointed out, COTS also matured a bit during the downtime, giving another leg up.
You could also point to the much less fun fact that COVID did some wiping away of teams who historically struggled. IIRC, we’re down 800 teams from 2020? Theres not a lot of historically top teams in that list that didnt make a return this year.
Not just you. After watching some practice matches yesterday, I was considering making a “Is Rapid React Too Easy?” thread.
I wonder if we are going to miss the blue box under the scoring section about how they can change the thresholds for extra RPs. If teams are consistently hitting them in week 1, likely will be expected by the championship and huge let downs if you fail just once.
I think it’s a combination of brilliant game design from HQ, the COTS revolution, and the end of motor scarcity being the bottleneck on robot performance/functionality
The floor may also be higher, which is equally interesting to me. More robots are not just flat boxes with no superstructure, and even the boxes are at least moving around.
With teams this good this early, 2 months to go until champs, and open robot access rules to allow further improvement, Championship season is going to be like nothing we’ve seen before.
Just speaking for my own team, we have come out of COVID stronger than ever, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this year’s bot is our best of the past five years. For us there’s a couple dynamics at play:
While not all our students were very engaged during the virtual year, our most dedicated students made really good use of the time to try challenging things we normally wouldn’t (like our first-ever swerve) and develop new skills we don’t normally have time to really master (such as making good CAMs)
Our machinists came back from the virtual year very eager to get back in the shop, and we have by far the biggest and most skilled machining team we’ve ever had. Machining has always been a pain point for us, and this year it just isn’t
Kids were really eager for extracurriculars after a year cooped up in their houses, so we had a phenomenal year for recruiting
Coming back after a virtual year allowed us to re-set some team culture and expectations which has improved attitude and productivity in the shop; our new members are contributing far more than is typical for us and many have become essential team members very rapidly
We (mentors included) were all hungry for a challenge this year and set more ambitious robot goals. In 2020 75% of our team was new and we chose to limit our scope to what we knew we could execute well (basically just low-goal); this year we went for more ambitious goals and are holding the team to high expectations. Not everything is going to plan, but overall I still feel confident we’ll meet all or most of our goals, and think we set an appropriate scope
We have also been lucky not to lose any mentors or sponsors during COVID, which plays a big role
Along with the factors others have mentioned, I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of the teams that have survived are experiencing a similar combination of having used the virtual year really productively, returning members being really eager to hit the ground running, and lots of dedicated new members coming aboard.
Edit: Also, surely the end of bag day is playing a role in the raised floor. In 2020 we decided to play out the season as close as possible to the way we did when bag day was in effect, with the only difference being that we’d have two robots after “bag day” instead of one. This year we really built our season around the extra time, and put more time into the design stage
I would add teams had the chance to do the at home challenges to refine auton skills.
It’s also a two challenge game, meaning 2019 and 2020 had three aspects to the game play, where as this year it is two. Less about robot performance, more about how well you play the game with the robot.
Also the game piece is forgiving, power cells are the devils work.
Software was the defining factor separating the good teams from the great ones. Last years challenges were largely an exercise in software. Many of those good teams took a leap forward from that time to learn; and the WPILIB improvements made it even more accessible.
I suspect a lot of new faces could make it Einstein this year. Time will tell.
I think this is a big part of it. After COVID hit, FRC kinda dipped. So now teams want to come back and be even more ambitious and have energy to back it up.
All excellent points, and we had many similar experiences. I’ve heard from lots of teams that suffered under covid and a few that thrived. Looks like the ones who thrived have taken huge leaps forward.
Stopped into a district for a few hours and heard multiple teams bummed they got 3rp instead of 4. Recently, teams were pumped to win and get 3rp. Seems like we will have to raise ball RP threshold or we’re in for lots of 4RP matches.
