With the beginning of the 2-Champs era starting with STEAMWorks, it’s also the first time that FIRST is hosting a Festival of Champions in FIRST’s home city of Manchester, NH. This article is a look into the matchup of the two FRC champion alliances that were crowned in Houston and St. Louis just a few months ago. We’ll take a look into each of the teams on the two alliances and how they might play against each other in the best of five matchup.
You mention the 2 rotor autonomous, but im curious as to the possibility of one of the roebling alliance members pulling off a 2 gear autonomous. To my knowledge this has never been done this year but given the parameters surrounding the event and the 3 robots that arent shooting on the roebling alliances capabilities I think this may be the time.
Both 2848 and 5818 have proven on the field that its possible, although neithers was ever really perfected/truly consistent.
A 2 gear auto takes a lot of coordination that is probablh difficult, but 1011’s super wide and autocentering gear mechanism may make it easier than most teams. Not sure if adding a camera there or just tilting a potential preexisting camera is legal for FOC, but it probably isn’t necessary to vision track the gear with 1011’s wide intake and semi-precise dropping by 973 on the way to the hopper. That also forces 5499 or 4188 to take the side, and I don’t have concrete data to make a claim to their consistensy there but maybe someone else does?
Not saying its easy, nor that its smart, but its definetly doable given some practice field time and luck.
188 had the best two gear auto that I saw all season long. Although not as consistent as they would have liked, it worked often enough to make it important strategic consideration in their matches.
Huh, I never noticed that. They would definitely need to make it faster if they want to get that second gear up on time (and obviously not miss that first gear )
After watching all of the playoff matches for both alliances, is the STL alliance’s 2 rotor auto worth it?
I haven’t done the math, but ti seems like 254 is sacrificing some auto kPa in order to get the second rotor and I wonder if the points bonus is worth it. They can clearly get the 4 rotors otherwise.
Related: No matter how many times I see it, I’m still amazed by how many kPa 973 gets considering how late in auto they start shooting.
For any of those three machines on the St. Louis alliance it could come down to the quality of the pegs they receive. By the end eliminations on Archimedes our alliance found our groove of placing three gears in auto but struggled with the timing of the last gear for the second rotor. When we played on Einstein the left peg on the red Airship we used was lower than what we typically saw so it hit the center of the gear preventing four of our five autonomous gears.
Should be quite the showdown and I can’t wait to see what strategic decisions these alliances may have come up with since they last played.
In Einstein Final 2, they got 2 rotors in auto. They only had 5 Fuel counted after auto from their auto fuel. So 20 points vs 5 points. Its 100% worth it lol.
If you’re getting ~30KP in auto, the 20pts from 2 rotors is better, since basically nobody consistently gets 50+ KP in auto from 1 robot.
Stl champs are definitely coming in with the advantage. But what isnt mentioned here 4 rotor rate. the Roebling alliance was getting 4 rotors at about 50 seconds, whereas the Daly alliance was getting it at around 30 seconds. That is an extra 20 seconds of shooting for 973, while the Daly alliance will have two robots playing defense on them. If 973 made a gear+hopper auto than it will be even closer.
Personally, I love 973’s robot this year. The dual feeders for their shooters is so cool, and their gear mechanism is pretty slick as well. Definitely my favorite this year.
But I also love 2767’s robot this year… They actually showed the swerves can be viable at the highest levels of play. 2767’s robot will be the poster child for swerves in the years to come. Plus I love how they took a disadvantage of swerves (their height) and used it to be an awesome gear intake.
If they can be reasonably sure that the auton will hit 2 rotors, it is probably worth it. 254 isn’t likely to score 20 more balls in 2 seconds - it’s not like 254 is ending autonomous mode holding half of a hopper load in their robot. The only reason it would not be worth it is if the gear placement step compromised the autonomous mode’s accuracy, I think.
Generally speaking, making the second rotor in autonomous was more valuable than even adding an additional shooting partner (and 254’s alliance ended up doing both). Even at IRI, when 2451 and 33 ran a double hopper auton, it did not seem like they were getting more than 20 additional kPa out of that. Perhaps with a bit better ball-luck they would have.
I agree with most that the matches will slightly favor Daly but that it will be close matches that can go either way. I think the closest preview of what we will see is match three of Einstein featuring Curie vs Daly. The match was pretty close considering 2056 had a relatively bad auto(though Daly missed their two rotor auto). It’s probably going to come down to if Roebling can score gears fast enough that they have plenty of time to slow down Daly and thus not give them time to shoot. The Daly end of match shooting will probably be inevitable but if Roebling can stop the mid game shooting, they can take it.
I’ll be curious to see who Roebling decides to focus the majority of their defense on. I’d pick 254 since they have greatest shooting potential and is probably easier to slow down than 2767’s swerve.
I think there is a good chance 1676 uses their new(?)* side gear auto, allowing 2767 to do their middle gear and shoot 10 balls.
*At the Championship they ran middle gear every match but one, where they shot some fuel over attempting the side gear. At IRI, they successfully scored the side gear several times.
Secondly, for Houston to pull this off my guess is two things need to happen. 2 rotor auto every time, and extreme defense on 254 and 2767. 4188 has a super strong drive train. Despite what happened on Einstein, they can both pack and take some serious hits. If they get 4 rotors before 2 minutes are up or sooner, they can hopefully make sure Daly doesn’t get above 50 kPa.
Also 254’s driving pattern is pretty easy to discern. They can be ball starved by being knocked around and driving in front of them on the way to the peg to block that killer intake. Heck, spreading the balls around the field so they can’t collect as efficiently might help.
4188 has been quick on the peg all year, but with a few weeks of practice, and IRI for a nice drill, they will likely score faster than ever.
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