Each year, my robotics team goes to a week two or three for our competition since the neighboring competitions are after week 1. We also only have enough money to go to one each season, which makes us unprepaired for the competition compaired to the other teams who went to earlier competitions. So, we are asking for the stratigies that have won in the competitions your team has gone to.
Thanks,
Team 2544Historically, the most successful week 1 strategy is to finish your robot on time.
Always start with building a good drive train. On a open field game a properly executed zippy two speed can put you in a happy place for eliminations. This year a well driven bot can play defense and shut down a prolific scorer.
Take a look at the MMC concept from Vex.
*MCC - Minimum Competitive Concept
I believe most teams strategy for week 1 will be to score more points than the other alliance. Also the team that has the most points at the end of the match has the best chance of winning!!
To actually answer, gears. This wont change for most events till about week 4-5 when ball shooters actually work for most teams.
LOL. Agreed!
Seriously, as a mentor of mine advised, “Do your chores.” That is, do what you designed your machine to do.
Figure out what you do well and focus on perfecting it.
Ah yes, the old John Madden approach to winning.
Though, any successful climb [50pts] is more valuable than any turning rotor [40pts] (except the 4th one at 40pts+1RP / 140pts). Obviously there is a risk/reward situation there depending on your climber speed/effectiveness.
I think this thread was started a few days early. Last year week 1 being a great breaching won several regionals and districts, and a couples weeks later that was not the case (to the same extent that it was week 1). According to TBA your team plays in two weeks, there is no need to fret about strategy before any matches have been played. I recommend watching some of the amazing robots playing this week and getting a feel for the game in general.
To channel Yoda, there is another. At least for getting to Sun afternoon.
Hang your robot. Hang gears.
This has been a long time coming, but the season is starting and I have to get this off my chest.
The way the game is structured, fuel is just not going to matter for 90-95% of teams. Yes, on Einstein it will matter but it even then, the best path to getting to Einstein for 90-95% of teams is going to be by
TOP PRIORITY: hang EVERY TIME, no mistakes, never missing, no kidding, I don’t care what else is going on in a match, you get to that touch pad and make that thing light up. Lose a match before you fail to climb.
SECOND PRIORITY: hang as many gears on pegs as you can as fast as you can, don’t drop gears.
THIRD PRIORITY: reliably deliver a gear in auto to any of the three possible pegs with over 95% confidence (that means hopefully missing 0 but at most missing 1 per tournament – again, no excuses, make it work every time and you’ll be on the all the best draft lists, drop multiple gears and you get on another list, and you don’t want to be on that list)
That’s it. Let the top 10-percenters fight the fuel fight. In my view, you should be either running gears or slowing down the other teams robots as they try to run gears.
How do I come to this conclusion? More on that in another message.
Dr. Joe J.
I am so with you on this. I do not want to knock all the (many) teams who have worked so hard on their fuel shooters, but it doesn’t look to me like fuel is going to work out well for most robots. Gears and climbing. Gears and climbing.
Thirded. For so many teams, this game can be won in the first fifteen seconds and the last fifteen seconds. Get yourself a reliable auto gear, get your climb, and your 110ish point contribution will carry your Alliance far.
It would actually be a 115 point contribution, and I would imagine if you can get a gear in auto you can get at least one more in teleop raising your individual total to 155 which is higher than many overall match scores in week 1 so far.
I agree with everything said here after a full day of matches. However, fuel will matter in elims and provide teams an advantage.
As we say in the Netherlands: ‘Klimmen is Winnen!’ (climbing is winning)
i dont think it’s going to happen in south florida that an alliance that can go for the 4 rotor bonus.
I agree, most teams will stop at the third rotor. The closest I’ve seen was Q44 with 118 and 3366, the two top ranked teams at Hub City and they were still a few gears away from getting it spinning.
Looking back in the Lake Superior Regional elimination matches.
I think the secret to making fuel worth it is making the shots in auto where the effect of fuel is tripled.