While there may be enough tubes to fill up the entire field, there is certainly no need to gift easy tubes to the opposing alliance or needlessly clutter your own side of the field. Many HPs I saw this weekend seemed to be throwing tubes over the wall without any real strategy or thought of where they might end up.
Keep in mind, this is all from what I experienced from my regional, Seattle Cascade:
- Most of the dispenser-loaders got left in the dust. This wasn’t always the case if the robot was fast and maneuverable, however: 488’s robot was primarily fed (could do both however), but was so fast that it didn’t really matter, and was what helped their team get to the finals.
-tubes getting stuck in the lanes would Really hinder robots loading from the dispenser. If you can at least move the tubes out of the way with a simple mechanism that can drag tubes on the floor, it can save the day
-Actually getting tubes onto the peg was a huge problem for a lot of teams… they could pick them up easily enough, but spent a whole lot of valuable time trying to actually drop the tube. Robots that could propel the tube or drop it with an articulated mechanism excelled at scoring, and winning games.
-Minibots literally make or break the game. nearly every game that would have won from scoring was lost when the other was the only one to deploy the minibot. In fact, there was a game that was 33 to 4, except the latter deployed, which would have won them the match with 34 if not for a penalty. Also, if you are the only team that deploys the minibot, it almost always means a win for you, and that actually happened more often than not.
-The penalty I hear most often is teams breaking the lanes, and when I was watching, I noticed a lot of teams moving almost intentionally moving into the lanes to navigate around blocking robots. This actually cost those teams a lot of games. Be sure to be read up on the rules, and don’t break those lanes.
-For alliance pickers, if you are worried about picking your 3rd alliance, choosing one with that doesn’t score well or at all can still be advisable if they have a working mini-bot. This actually got us into the semis.
And of course, have fun!
General stuff in no particular order:
- Good HP’s are faster than feeder bots and free them to play defense without affecting your score significantly. HP skill is more critical than any other game, with the possible exception of Lunacy.
- Struggling or untrained HP’s are faster - for your opponents - than their own feeder bots. I’ve seen HP’s empty throw their entire supply and never get one past midfield or wait for one to be collected by their own alliance. Baffling.
- Floor pickup is good. Fast floor pickup is great.
- A lot of teams have more trouble releasing the tube onto the peg than they do aligning it to the peg.
- There’s only room for two hanger bots. The other should feed or defend, depending on the situation.
- Defense can’t win unless somebody on your alliance is scoring.
- An ubertube in a top row logo is worth as much as an entire mid row logo. That took some time to sink in. Take the time to do it reliably.
- Minibot deployment reliability is much more important than minibot speed - especially at the regional level. Give it the attention it needs.
- Few successful teams will finish the season with the same minibot they started with.
- A single strong team can carry an alliance in most qual matches. Not true in elims.
- There really isn’t much contact between the alliances. In many cases, you could put each alliance on the field by itself at different times and just compare scores/minibot times to determine the winner. If you ran staggered 2 vs. 1 matches it would be almost completely true.
It’s been said before and I’ll say it again. If you keep throwing the tubes into the tower, don’t throw the tubes! You could potentially knock down the tower lights as what happened at West Michigan, You could ring the tower which happened multiple times at West Michigan, you could descore the opponent and cause a red card, or you could simply throw the tube into the opponent’s zone. So make sure your team’s HP knows what they are doing.
At the Seattle Cascade regional, the HP for FIRST Team 1510 was on the field all Thursday throwing tubes during the practice matches whenever there was an open slot. It paid off as the Wildcats were part of the winning alliance.
Do not underestimate the role and importance of the Analyst. During the match, this person sees the entire field and moves around from team to team and advises them as needed. This becomes especially important during Eliminations: the Analyst must maintain the strategy set forth by the alliance…this person is the Field General, if you will. While the Coach is concentrating on his/her own team and watching the clock, the Analyst needs to coordinate the entire alliance and sees things that the Coaches do not.
From playing at the Peachtree Regional and making it all the way to being an alternate for the elmination rounds (we are only a second year team), having a bot that is EASY TO CONTROL is important. there were many times where we had a tube but we had a lot of trouble either putting the tube on the peg or orienting the bot on the field due to confusing controls. DO NOT CHANGE YOUR CONTROLS AFTER SHIP DATE UNLESS YOU HAVE TESTED IT IN THE OFF SEASO AND YOUR DRIVER IS PARTICULARLY GOOD WITH THEM! It cost us a regional. And make sure your bot can pick up off the floor quickly. if you can, but it takes forever, go to the feeder station. it is better to go to the station and get a tube than spend the entire match attempting to pick the same tube from the floor. CHECK YOUR BATTERIES! there were two matches where we sat there dead n the water because we hadn’t bothered to check our batteries in the pit. Learn to use the kit parts as well. All of them. well. learn their features, how to use them, when, and learn to get creative.
MOST OF ALL, HAVE FUN!!!
The key is to be versatile. You will need to be able to pick from the floor and the feeder station. At Pittsburgh Simbotics was quick to make rows from floor loading in the mid field. During the elims, when we played them, we were able to stop their floor loading by getting to the tubes quicker, so they immediately switched to the feeder stations. Althought our strategy did not win us the round, we were able to keep their scores a little lower than others.
Penalties make all the difference.
We would have been the 1st overall seed, had one of our alliance partners not been called for pinning.
During elims, a double red card in the semis meant a replay of the third semi-final match. The important issue became that we now carried a yellow card.
In the finals, we won the first match and dominated the second match, but there was a penalty on one of our alliance partners that resulted in another yellow, so a red card was given again. We went on to lose the regional, but this is how important penalties are.
[Disclaimer] We are not mad at any of the teams mentioned above. I just wanted to put this out there as a learning experience for all teams.[/Disclaimer]
Hope this helps people, and good luck for the rest of the season!
I believe 175 human loads as well…
They human load but they can pick up off the ground, just it isn’t worth it according to a member I spoke to.
just my $0.02:
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As previously stated, minibots are a game changer
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Be careful if there is a defender on your end. If you get pushed into the opposing alliance’s lane, it is a penalty on you and the defending bot only gets one if the action is deemed intentional. My strategy for this is to not come out of your home zone unless you know you’ve got the defending robot beat.
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There are many strategies to Logomotion. If it seems the team you’re going up against can outscore you, or has only one minibot when you have two, try starving the field. It will produce lower scores for both teams, but if you get more minibots scored than the other alliance (and have successfully starved the field), it is likely you will win.
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Don’t underestimate the third alliance pick. They have to be a good at defending and herding tubes for your alliance to be successful.
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Lastly, beware of over inflated tubes. The rules about tubes changed after the build season and they are now inflated to 7-8 inches instead of just being 7. My team had to cut off some of our claw to fit in the boundaries at the beginning of the match, but it seemed the inflated tubes (especially the squares) were easier to pick up, so it was a blessing in disguise.
Teams have to learn not to set up at the min i bot tower with 30 some seconds left. Complete a logo or just place a piece on the rack you will get back to the tower in time for most team.
Defense. If you place that piece, your opponent will get between you and the tower, and then you won’t get to the tower. If you’re on the tower at 30 seconds, they can hit you for 15 seconds, debate whether to back off for 5 seconds, but if they hit you after that, they get a red card. If you’re placing a tube before running back, they get between you and the tower, and you can get a pinning penalty. Worse, if you try to ram your way through, you need to be careful not to hit your opponent at their tower, because then you get the red card.
330 learned that the hard way in Arizona last weekend.
The sum of the parts do NOT equal the whole.
In alliance selection taking critical points away from other alliance can equal big points for you.
This means minibot and autonomous monopolies can determine wins and losses.
Come Einstein though, I expect that minibot and autonomous monopolies won’t exist. What will be critical on Einstein is being able to leave your best robot (not robot + minibot) at the rack to finish capping those last critical tubes. I predict that unless there are huge upsets in the elims, the 6 points captured from each of the lower level rack will differentiate the winners from the losers.
but for now minibot and autonomous makes the difference. You have to have a monster of a robot to offset not having a minibot (148 being one of the only teams able to accomplish this), so if you don’t have a minibot, unless you are one of the best, you are in trouble.
same is true for autonomous. Having a consistent autonomous is very valuable.
reliability > potential for everything (IMO)
Autonomous and MiniBot very important.
Autonomous that doesnt go backwards!!! LOL
Grab tubes in mid-air? I’ve never seen a team do that. How would that be possible?
Something very important: At our regional, at least, tower bases got dented. They’re made up of about 12 different pieces with radial support structures between each piece (look at the field drawings), and by the end of our regional every single one of them (on all four towers) was dented inward. This made our deployment lining up mechanism mess up. Make sure you account for some denting, especially in the bottom half (the top part of the pieces weren’t so bad).