Alright its the Saturday night after the week 2 competitions and I know that all of the teams that competed are super tired right now, but what did we learn from week 2 in comparison with week 1?
Cool things that I saw;
So what did we see in week 2 and what do we expect to see in the weeks to come?
Upsets. Lots of upsets. I saw a six, seven, and eight seeds win this week, and numerous 1 seeds fell early.
Autonomous, autonomous, autonomous. 125/4451/233 had it in Finals 1, and they won that match. Something got messed up in there, because their Finals 2 shots weren’t nearly as on target and prevented them from sealing the deal.
(On the bright side, 2/3rds of that alliance was already in Championship; 4451 as Palmetto-and-now-Orlando Rookie All-Star, 233 as part of the Einstein 12.)
That a 118/148, 987/254, 610/1986 and 2056/1114 Eisenstein field would be epic.
I also saw alliance strategy play huge in the elimination rounds. The pick play that 233 did for 4451 was something that teams should look at going forward. Technical Fouls were not called as much as week 1 I believe. Alliance selection is very important this year as many lower seeds can pick their way into a championship unlike years previous. A 4 top goal run and 30 point climb can be accomplished in under 30 seconds(1114 :eek: ). Floor pickup in auton. is better than having a semi-reliable full court shooter in most matches. Being able to go under the opponents pyramid in teleop is a key advantage at being able to outmaneuver great defensive play. A middle goal auton can be used very effectively. If your team doesn’t scout this year then you will more than likely lose, even if you have the best robot at the regional(not that that’s anything new but this year it is even more important).
Hold on, its only week 2! There are still a few bots that we havent seen yet (71 and 111 come to mind)
I’m not disputing that by champs a 118/148 alliance would be awesome, but I’d like to point out that in both of the finals matches in Lone Star, they were playing against an alliance that was a bot down.
Yes it would have been great to watch if spectrum and the discobots hadn’t broke down in the finals. 3847 played great full court defense on 148 and 57 and 2587 could keep up in shooting points with 118/148 very well. I was hoping that 148 would do their apparent 30 point climb and dump, but that didn’t occur. Lone star probably would have went to a third final match had both alliances been running full throttle.
We learned that a group of three robots all under the top 8 seeds can take down the two top seeded offensive powerhouses at a regional if they have some really good teamwork, strategy, and luck.
Sadly, we were on the receiving end of that equation. 
We also learned that having a defensive bot to accompany those two offensive juggernauts is key in winning matches against feeder station bots.
Lastly, a great feeder station bot, ground pickup bot, and a defensive shooter/climber/hanger seems right now to be an ideal alliance makeup (i.e. 1114-2056)
I learned the same thing I did last week all over again, autonomous points win matches
We learned that scouting can be and is very important. Period. (Still trying to figure out how the #7 seed alliance of 231, 192 and 1429 happened at Lone Star 
)
This reminds me of our surprise that we were last pick in NYC even though our team had the highest auton points in regional. It was interesting and I do agree with the fact that scouting needs to be done more effectively this year than previously.
I’m wondering too. I’m assuming poor scouting by 4328 and others. 4328 in particular had the chance to pick 1429 or 192 to pair up with their own shooting abilities, but picked 1801 instead, which is primarily a (good) defensive bot. The whole Lone Star regional confused me, honestly. 57 was literally a single missed disc away from going undefeated in quals, seeding 1st, and totally screwing up all the alliance pairing strategies.
The teams that win in Weeks 3 forward are the teams that watched glaring scouting mistakes being made at Week 1 and 2 events. At first you can discount the notion, saying teams may have a secret strategy, but then you see 7 and 8 seed upsets that aren’t actually upsets…
Every match in Championships is going to be a really close call. After qualifications in San Diego, most match points deviated from one another only by 20 points.
Oh, and a Regional can be decided by pool noodles.
What do you mean?
From a full court shooter which got stopped by them, a modification at lunch turns a small defense bot into a tall defense bot to stop a low full court shooter(me). Then into an 84" tall robot to stop a taller full court shooter. That’s all it takes, given that the full court shooter is alone.
He means that bumpers ruining a hang can change the outcome of a match.
Full court shooters are vulnerable to defense (see 1138 and 2339 at SD) and the double defense strategy beats teams with no ground pickup.
Like a broken record… Autonomous, autonomous, autonomous, autonomous.
By week 4-6, every full court shooter is going to be ineffective. It is too easy to block them. One trick pony.
Refs are not aware of the absence of a starting configuration height rule. Our match start was delayed because we attached tall plastic straws to our 2nd alliance partner. The head ref argued with us for a good 5 minutes before someone would do a rule check. If you plan on attaching pool noodles last second, be ready to explain why it is legal.
We learned that no matter the outcome when you don’t give up you will always win.