I love watching matches of robot ideas performing well on the field. I’m sure everyone has the one great match where their robot did well despite a rocky event.
https://www.thebluealliance.com/match/2017carv_qm25
What’s your best (or most interesting!) match of any recent season? Why?
All the years as a student:
2014: CWU Match 19. Was our highest scoring match in 2014 and one of the only matches without serious drivetrain issues that year. There was also a match where we lost comms but it ran the last command it got (forward at full throttle) and we slammed into the other alliance station, burning tracks into the carpet but there is unfortunately no footage from that event in general.
2015: PNCMP F2 Got lucky (as lucky as you can consider being a backup bot is?) and got ourselves in the finals. Was a very close match, good watch by 2015 standards.
2016: CWU match 63: 2016 was just in general a fairly “eh” year. This was, by RP/Point standards our best match, but was more interesting to see our lead screw break from defenses imo.
2017: Theres a few honestly, but ive forced myself down to two, WV Match 58 (correct vid)](https://youtu.be/7tKkZ3Pl9xE) and Hopper match 73. WV stands out as the only 4 rotor match at the event along with the first for PNW in general, and Hopper stands out as being a replay that took over an hour to start due to claims of AV issues with our laptops (wasnt the case, issue persisted with new laptop w/o AV) and a wonked out camera system due to this and still winning the match.
Hopper Division - Q107 (3309 on Red)
It’s not necessarily our highest-scoring, but it’s definitely a good match nonetheless.
Definitely, our most interesting match was MICMP Q53. At the beginning of the match, our robot’s drive train broke on the wrong side of the field. Luckily for us, we were able to be pushed across the field by our rookie teammate and got the hang in time to win the match. Bizarre but very lucky way to win a match at MICMP.
Last year when I read the tie breaker rules I kind of laughed at the fifth tie breaker. My thought was if total score, auto score, penalties, touchpad score, and rotor score were all tied - how was pressure going to different?
And then it actually happened: https://www.thebluealliance.com/match/2017mnmi_qf3m2
The most important match I’ve ever had? Q66 of the 2011 Peachtree Regional.
Why?
The entire regional, 2815 had been fighting a ton of debug issues with the control system. (If you’re new and think there are a lot of fiddly things with the current control system that can kill a robot, lemme tell you: this is NOTHING compared to the number of fiddly things in the cRIO era that can kill a robot.) We literally had six mishaps in 7 matches on Friday, and 5 of those were robot-killers.
Enter Q66 on Saturday morning. We’re playing with 2415, easily the best robot in the building that weekend. The first match that morning, we were having flaky comms again. So now we’re 7 for 8 with issues. Before the match, their folks come over and they’re kinda checking out the wheels, then they ask me (the coach): “Can you play defense?” I look over to our driver, a senior who drove all three years, and we say “Yeah!” And so we do, and the score is 67-12. Then in the last match, we lose the digital sidecar.
But by golly, playing that one match clean with them seemed to set the rest of the thread into motion.
Despite the ultimate loss, this match at Asheville was incredibly close and is one of my favorite matches:
Unfortunately, no videos( that I’m aware of) for THOR @ Raleigh 2017. 4935B was 0-5, having experienced technical issues in their first four matches, but then performs excellently in their 6th and last qualification match(Q27) with 3737 and 4561, leading them to be picked for eliminations and making it to the finals.
My favorite match to participate in was the original qual 49 in Curie (2017). Due to large packet loss (mainly because most teams were streaming high definition video their cameras), all teams participating in the match could barely drive. Though we ended up loosing the remake, it was still entertaining to participate in. The link to the original match is pasted below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=37&v=7kwSgV8lUh0
My best match though is probably Semi 1 match 1 at TVR (2017). We were expecting to loose the match (facing a dominating first seed), but after a close match and changing strategies mid match, we won the match and ended up winning the competition. Was a thrilling series, culminating at semi 1 match 3, when we won due to a opposing team breaking down, and missing a climb with seconds left.
That match was stressful to watch. Karan, I can only imagine how you felt behind the glass 
The whole Tech Valley Semis 1v4 series was pretty nuts. There was some fantastic driving from everyone on the field and some insane defense from 195 and 20. With this being our most realistic shot at our first ever regional win, it was insane to watch at the time.
My personal favorite match of ours was IRI Quals 63. Working with 2614 and 3478, two great but not dominant bots, we were able to play really well together and put up both four rotors and 40 kPa.
I don’t remember the exact match number, and there’s no video of the match in it’s entirety, but back in 2013 we were the only team who had the ability to do a climb at the Hawaii Regional. We only ever made it up to the 20 point range once even though our design was capable of the full 30, but the one time that we did make it up that high, we ended up causing matches to be stopped for at least five minutes while everyone got a picture of the event. I think that by far was our best match in the time that I competed with our team.
Maybe not our best match but memorable.
It was a rough year. We knew we were pretty good but bad luck, self inflicted mistakes and rough match schedules kept us down all year. We were picked by the number 5 captain at district champs and I didn’t really give us much of a chance.
Then we strategized and I started thinking, well maybe. Then we played this first match and got four rotors with 40 seconds to spare, After that I said to my alliance “we got this.”
It was kind of a magical year for TORC, and there are a couple of gems…
beating 67,33,5090 at Waterford with 27 & 4779 in two matches, setting the world high score, for about 15 seconds, was pretty cool.
Then being 8 alliance captain at MSC Ford field, and taking out the number one seed, 314,27,5907 after losing the first match, was pretty cool. Thanks 503 & 4970. Then we lost in the finals on Ford in 3 matches, to 6075, 2767, 5114 alliance.
Then at St. Louis, we were a 4th pick 1058, 67, 1640 alliance that ended up winning Archimedes. Then we actually beat, the winning alliance on Einstein 2767,254, 862. The year was an amazing season interwoven with alliances of that were teammates and opponents all year.
All year we had this accurate shooter, but it was plagued with jamming fuel in the feed system. We missed that early on, and it was tough to come back, but lucky for us, fuel didn’t matter early on. Great Michigan shooters, 2337, 2767, 33 were much more valuable at the end of the year, than at the begging. The alliance of 2363, 2337, 2611, 222, lost the 1st match with 2337 injured. In the second match, 2337 was still out, but we missed our Auto gears, and that was the difference in the match, with little fuel being scored. In the rubber match, we come out of auto, down on fuel, so during the match, it was up to us to score more fuel than the other alliance…
Our best match that we have a video of was probably at battle of the bay this year, we are start off and are mostly on the gear station side of the field
Half way through the match we had done 5 gears even with playing a little bit of defense, then switched to only defense for the rest of the match