As build season comes to a close, I have been spending a lot of time thinking about shooting percentage, especially at events towards the beginning of competition season. What do you think will be the average shooting percentage at a week 1 event and why?
In our early practice rounds we’re hitting about 50% of our shots. Right now we don’t have a camera, or a gyro on our shooter so we’re just eyeballing it from 40 feet away. I’d expect our accuracy to go up dramatically when we have our final sensors.
I’ll predict that the top 3-5 teams at a mid level event will hit over 90% of their high goal shots, and do 3-5 cycles. The mid tier teams will hit less than 70% of their shots and would be better served by going low goal.
With a few exceptions, I’ll just say generally not high enough to get a ranking point for damaging the tower (this will probably be the first couple weeks).
EDITING IN A CAVEAT: With a shots primarily being from high-goal shooting.
I couldn’t think of a percentage as my prediction, but I think that some teams capable of shooting high will opt to not shoot at a week 1 event until elimination matches. At a week 1 event, I think it is certainly possible for a team capable of shooting high to play it safe and consistently score into the low goal to better guarantee tower weakening which leads to a capture for ranking points.
The teams with the most practice and the best vision systems would probably shoot high consistently in qualifications if they choose to not save it for eliminations. Those teams would be the outliers for shooting percentage if we were to consider an average for all teams attempting a high goal.
It may even be possible that there will be enough defense in eliminations to lower the shooting average of teams that did a 75%+ success rate in qualifications.
:eek: :ahh:
Top 1% of teams: 80%
Top 5% of teams :65%
average team: 30%
This statistic wouldn’t completely shock me to be honest. We ran the numbers for our 2012 robot. We found we were 80% shooting our first shot at Queen City, and actually a little bit worse than that for the proceeding shots due to wheel speeds slowing down. We were a good shooter in 2012 (probably among the best in percentages). I think for the most part, teams are getting good at shooter games, which could boost up shot %.
It was much easier to hit the 2012 goals than it will be to hit the Stronghold goals.
I’m basing my estimates off my team’s early practice runs. Hitting the high goal isn’t as hard as I thought it would be. I’m also taking into consideration little to no defense in quals as every alliance will be trying to breach and capture. It’ll take 3 average offensive robots to breach and capture during week 1, I don’t think 2 average robots can do it.
I’m aware this year isn’t that similar to 2014’s shooting challenge, but the best shooter at Central Illinois (with at least 1 make per match) was only 76%. At Wisconsin, the best shooter made 81% of their shots. With a division winner at both of those events, I think most people would assuming the percentage would be higher.
The goal position is similar to what it was in 2006 for Aim High. I thought that was a much easier target than 2012 where you had to incorporate backspin if you were shooting from far away. I think the percentages will be similar to 2006.
Why are people testing from 30ft+ away from the goal again? I think the robots that shoot from either on the edge of the defense and touching the courtyard carpet or the robots that choose the point blank batter shots will be more successful. Because those two positions are defensible I think teams will make more shots.
For certain types of shooters and distances yes. You have more allowable height error this year then 2012, and I would guess that angle error is fairly identical to 2012. I think close shots are going to be easier then close high goal shots in 2012, but far shots will be the same, if not a little harder.
Geometrically, I agree with you, but defense will be much easier in Stronghold than in 2012. The only safe zone is at least 16ft away.
The size of the goal in 2006 was substantially larger than the goals in 2016. Additionally, teams were allowed to possess more than one ball at a time (meaning, they could use any error on the first shot(s) to correct for later shots).
^
This! With the minor exception of shooting in Auto.
…and on batter
You’re not protected there. It’s like in front of the low goal in 2014. Teams could bash away at you while you were there and they can do the same while you’re on the batter.
The batter offers no protection (via rules) until the final 20 seconds. The geometry of the batter may help you avoid defensive measures from steering you off target when shooting, but that same geometry may well also work against you making it off the batter and back to collect more boulders in a timely fashion.
Exactly this.
And a word of advice, hold that ball in tight and make sure the back of your robot (opposite side of shooting) is robust.
I cant stress enough how many times the back of our robot got damaged from appendages coming into our robot from high speed ramming in 2014 as we scored from in front the low goal.
And 99% of them were no penalty calls too.
I think this is probably going to be the case, especially at less-competitive events.