So my team is thinking about not even participating at the tournament at our state competition and instead using a full on skills robot to try to claim the skills award and with it a spot to worlds. Do you think this is advisable?
I think it would be disrespectful and unfair to your alliance partners if you did not at least participate in qualification matches. But, a skills focus sounds like a good way to qualify for Worlds. Depends on your goals.
We would still participate, but just with a mg only bot. I can just imagine it:
“Well, the bad news is we can’t stack cones, but the good news is we can deliver three mg’s in autonomous…”
I would say that a mogo only bot with a fast base is better than a lot of teams you get partnered with… Just score the points you can and play defense. You would be surprised how formidable a strong defensive bot can be…
Yep, any partner is better than a robot that scores no points and gets in my way. That happens a lot.
Unless you can get 100 programming skills with this robot then I would advise against it. There is no guarantee that you can get in top 35 as most State tournaments happen in March and February. The skills scores skyrocket during February so you can’t aim for anything either. The driver skills you will take an L, robots can do all the mogo and have time to stack 3 cones and park to achieve 108. There is no guarantee unless you can get a 100 in programming skills. Just a safe spot.
Does your region provide a birth for skills champion? @briancole
I think he was referring to winning the skills challenge at his state championship which should be feasible with a good skills bot.
Oh lol ok
Actually, this sounds like a great strategy against the cage-bots. You claim your mogos and once they are in the zone, they are safe. Internal stackers could still take them out to safely place the cones on, but the opponent? No, that would be clear descoring.
Descoring by moving the opposing alliances mobile goal out of the 5 point zone is legal. See:
The goal would be to spend lots of time skills programming to ensure that 100 .
I don’t think anything requires you to participate in the tournament, I would think you can just do skills and win a trip to worlds if skills at your State has a world spot for it.
Assuming the EP can sign you up for skills with no entry in the matches.
At a tournament you can do matches without skills, so I assume there is a way to do it the other way around.
It depends on how many spots your state has, in New Hampshire only the three champions, excellence winners, and design winners qualify for worlds. Qualifying through skills is only applicable if somebody double qualifies by winning and receiving an award, or being in the top 35 in the world.
PA is worse, 3 from tournament and 1 excellence!
@briancole I would not say its a bad idea, but if you spend too much time on a robot that is far behind the curve in actual matches, you might be in a scramble if you end up qualifying past states.
@7517j Pennsylvania has significantly more spots for Worlds than most other states. The biggest difference in PA is that middle school and high school divisions are split. This year PA gets 4 (middle school) and 9 (high school) spots. Not to mention, PA is split into two “states” – Eastern and Western – which adds 5 more (middle and high school combined) spots for Western PA. To put this in perspective, when my team competed in our first season (6th grade, Toss Up) the high school and middle school division were mixed, and PA had not yet been split into eastern and western PA. During that season, there were only 10 available spots and 6 were dedicated to the champions and finalists. Even though a middle school team technically had more spots open to qualify in 2014 than they would in 2018, it was not a level playing field with first year 6th graders playing seventh year high school seniors.
We already have a tournament worthy robot, we just don’t have the connections necessary to win. Also, there are enough good bots in my region that I think tournament winners are going to come down a lot to luck.