What are some strategies we’ve seen effective in week 2 that we missed in week 1?
Well, triple balancing was a fair bit more common.
I’d have to agree. Used twice in Portland QF1 to win the match and advance to the semis.
One that I hope never happens again, which is sabotaging the co-op bridge. Either you participate or you leave it alone.
We just scored as much as we could in quals and then balanced 1 or 2, whatever was need for the win. At some point, we gave up on coopertition and focused on being a desirable 1st round pick. In eliminations we sent 1 bot to play defense as safely as possible and then balance at the end. We first hit defense in the finals which was pretty effective against our fender bots. We played some 1 on 1 with them so our teammates could score. When it came to balancing, a bot parked near the bridge was really close to preventing us from balancing, but I’m not sure where the line between clean defense and a massive technical foul is. If nothing else, it can induce a panic attack into a drive team when they see no way onto the bridge and 2 bots balancing their bridge.
By the 8 seed alliance too.
It just took them to the finals. Stay tuned…
That’s a really fast triple balance.
And tied the finals at one match apiece…
If you’re not already watching: http://www.oregonfirst.org/go/streaming-video/
Match 3 is about to start.
And that’s 6 triple balances, 6 match wins, 1 regional win in Portland for the #8 alliance.
In a major upset, the number 8 seed plowed through Oregon eliminations by relying almost entirely on the triple balance. Congrats to those 956, 3711, and 360!
I have a huge feeling that the teams that thought the three robot balance wont be to much of a factor would have a hard time if they couldn’t do it because as shown in oregon shooting hybrid and then triple balancing could win the match, also in the waterford district they shot hybrid shot some teleoperated points and got on the bridge within the last 30 secounds to a final score of 103, Triple balancing is going to be huge for all the rest of the events
Triple Balancing is HUGE. I think a major factor at alliance selection is going to be triple balancing.
We (68, 226, and 1) scraped off a victory at Waterford in QF 3 Match 2 because team 1’s robot died on the other side of the field, keeping the other team (3098, 573, and 3601) from balancing any robots on their bridge.
While triple balancing is undoubtedly an incredible point getting maneuver, don’t over estimate it. In Oregon, 360, 3711, and 956 won partially because 1983 and 2046 missed some of their shots. If they had made just nine more points- only 3 shots- they would have won. Triple balancing is obviously a necessity, but devoting as much time as 3711’s team did is probably a bad idea. A last minute rush to triple balance, while riskier, is probably the best strategy.
We did actually get blocked from our bridge at Gull Lake in our final match. We didn’t notice until too late but managed to win with balls. Alliances will have to have a human player or coach to watch out for this block. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZazWS2kl3Ho#t=116s
The Coopertition bridge, now more than ever, rewards teams that know how to play the game, leaving in the dust teams who disregard it. However, it rewards teams with mediocre robots that know how to play the game and can take advantage of it. If you take it every match, you can seed quite high and be guaranteed a pick. It also lowers the seeds of good teams that miss it a time or two, making eliminations incredibly exciting to watch because finally, the blue alliance can win. We beat the 3rd alliance at FLR as the 6th, and it was without doubt due to the seeding system. I will write more in depth about impressions for Week 2 Regional tomorrow, when I have more than 12 hours of sleep in the past three days.
Perhaps the best demonstration of this would be at the Chesapeake Regional.
The red alliance won only three times at Chesapeake- the first seed won its first pairing, then lost to the fifth seed, the 7th seed beat the 6th seed, (7th was red because it was the survivor of the 2v7 match, while 6th won the 3v6 match), and the fifth seed finally won overall.
To phrase that in a slightly more readable manner, the blue alliance won slightly more than half the games, and I think you hit the nail on the head when you said it was because of the new seeding system. Several teams on the top 4 seeded alliances had significantly higher standings because of CP, and were actually weaker than many others in terms of strength.
From TBA, it looks like the red alliance won/advanced 4 times.
Also, I would say that in some events it was the case that the blue alliances won (Chesapeake, Oregon, WPI) but for other events it seems like the top seeds are winning as normal. Kettering, Hatboro-Horsham, Chestnut Hill, and especially Waterford (All red alliances won/advanced) are examples of this.
To be fair, they got two robots at the bridge, they just never balanced.