So, seeing as how there’s a delay in discussion of astonishing robots, here we go:
10Q - Half of our team worshipped them already.
44 - still loving their pop-out wheels and green-locking ramp
254a and 8215 - Cheesy poofs and what Karthik called the Chinese poofs. Gotta love them (they’re like identical)
478(?) - Most sophisticated internal catapult ever. Love it!
2918b - Excellent robot, great team uniform too.
2921 - Excellent driving, well made (got stuck here and there, but still won the championship so it’s all good). Near clean sweep so many times
8192A - Fast holonomic and ridiculously well-driven.
KTOR - Love the linear actuator design. Also most intimidating looking.
2921 Did a clean sweep in the 2nd match on Thursday on the Math field. It was impressive to watch. I thought then, that they would be the team to beat.
What about 76’s robot. You have to watch a video to see what they created. Pretty wild and cool! I can still hear Karthik screaming “Give them an award right now!”
We (24C) actually went against both of them in a match, we knew we were dead when we saw we were up against 254A, but when we saw 8215 come up to the table with an almost exact copy, we knew we were doomed, lucky for us Cheesy Poofs never moved after autonomous, and the “Chinese Poofs” had some problems with their drive (drive motors were moving very slowly) so we could have had a clean sweep, but when we noticed we had won the match already, stopped scoring for a few more ranking points.
Yes they had a very cool idea, collect all the balls, then at the last second launch them all over like a catapult so it couldn’t be blocked, unfortunately it could only hold 9 footballs, and usually threw half of them over and out of the field it was so powerful! Also, their “daisy chain bot” had a long cord that was hard for their alliance partner to drive around, and the bot that was supposed to collect the balls and give them to the catapult didn’t collect very efficiently.
8192a (if you’re referring to the championship winners) was a pretty much identical clone of Rangi B, so if you mention one you gotta mention the other. Same with the Chinese Poofs. 2919B (“Brute”) was an absolute beast with a deadly autonomous, and I was surprised that they didn’t win the division outright. Rangi C was also pretty awesome. Heck, basically every single New Zealand team in Math was impressive.
This is fun! In addition to their clean sweep, 575 averaged 101.6 points per match in qualifying, including matches of 170-2 and 105-10 (all with partners who contributed, of course).
10Q never had a clean sweep, but they averaged 116.8 points per match in qualifying on Technology.
Some teams played the points game so there was not a blow out so big scores don’t mean that much.
My picks for the event (other than my Downingtown teams)
Green Eggs - all star hardware driven hard and fast with a purpose
929Z - Hereford High School - dual claws on with future NASCAR drivers at the sticks. Fast, quick and big defense.
677 - The Jones - complicated bot that worked. The engineering was done by a 9th grader, can’t wait to see what they have next year.
The teams from New Zealand. Another case of practice, practice, practice. Those kids looked like they were used to driving between bites from the bbq grill (oh wait they were ).
*76 - Wow (and when Karthik says “give them an award” just do it!
I was confused by all the “10” teams. Every match seemed to have one and they were winning.
College was KTOR and their “python bots” that could eat anything. Was also impressed by PDT’s omni (that base is fast). Had they been able to score the contest would have been over on Thursday.
Lots of good designs, we have pictures and more pictures to ferret out the good engineering ideas to work on for next year. It would help if the teams posted a close up shot of what their best mechanical part is. (Ours was shoulder bolts on two pivot points)
I didn’t get to wander out of the Technology division to take a look at other robots too much, though I did manage to watch some of the playoff matches in the Science division. The few that really stuck out to me were 44, 12A, 1103, and 76. 44 had probably one of the best 18" goal-scoring mechanisms at the competition, and also flung footballs over the wall with ease. 12A’s massive dumper was altogether impressive. I especially remember the one playoff match where they kept it to around a 20 point loss despite not having an alliance partner. 1103 had one of the best dumpers at the competition. They could dump huge amounts of balls with ease (and insanely fast), and their programming skills run was really well done. 76 did have some issues working, but their stationary catapult idea was really fun to watch and watching the entire stands cheer every time they launched footballs and let out their little mini-dumper was definitely entertaining.
i believe 2467B was most feared in the engineering division. there was replica of that design in the math division(2467D), made my the same builder of 2467B. it did very well, but they 2467D unfortunately was not selected in their division finals. originally, 2467D was supposed to me in the same division as 2467B. If they both paired up in the top seed selections, they could have been almost unstoppable. overall, top teams that were able to carry out every single function and strategy was 2467B, 2467D, 44, and 2921.
It’s not so much about the individual teams as it is about the combination. I thought that the winning alliance didn’t contain any of the most amazing robots in the competition; it just had the most effective combination of robots. In my honest opinion, nearly all of the truly amazing bots this year were in Science and Technology. Unfortunately, something really irking happened with the standings this year. Our team, and other teams, felt that some of the best robots in our division (ex. 2901B and C, 2919B) were not in the top eight, and that a lot of robots that weren’t nearly as good were. Tournaments might be much improved if the SP system was revised. For example, what if teams received SP equal to the sum of their driver skills and programming skills scores? If you wanted to keep the emphasis on close scores, you could use highest programming skills score + highest driver skills score - average of (your team’s score in a match - the opposing team’s score in the same match). I think things would’ve turned out with a lot more of the best teams in the top of their division.
I’m a fan of the method of getting SPs based on the following rules since although the current system works if enough matches are played, even eight matches leaves room for flukes/seeding.
You receive SPs based on how many points your opponent managed to score against you
OR
You receive SPs based on the difference in score between the two teams,
whichever is higher.
This would allow the top teams to cream their opposition to potentially gain more points than the closest possible match could.
As for bots that impressed me, green egg’s autonomous was scary whenever it worked, the 12 bots were scary to watch. 1114z, our alliance partner in quarterfinals did an amazing job considering what we were facing, 63-52 against the 44 alliance. I watched the new zealand bots perform in the robots skill heads up and they definitely showed their prowess in dallas.
My opinion is that the average robot was far better in science and technology vs math/engineering. On the other hand, the top robots in every division were pretty much even.
On the other hand, I think we did well, 7-0 after most of the qualification rounds and I don’t believe we lost many if any autonomous modes. Our only problem was we decided to cream the opposition and get to the top by pure QP, therefore, I think we wound up with the second lowest SPs in our division.
You guys were great at Dallas, and one of the most-underestimated teams. Watching alliance selection I was hoping that you would be on the #1 alliance out of Science, which would have been awesome (not to take anything away from 21C – a great team that did a really good job during both qualifying and in eliminations, it’s just that I’ve known the 721 guys for three years). Best wishes in your future endeavo(u)rs. I’m sure you are all going to be very successful, and will also field the first VEX college team from BC!
8192a amazed me with there robot. It was a very good copy of a New zealand teams robot but much more simple with a very good driver. Very good team and Very Friendly.
Team 44 , I didn’t get to see alot of them but there robot was awesome for the towers, and very good for scoring had a great driver but there stratergy didn’t pay off at the end.
Team 1337 was pretty cool just because of there number plates too.
254A- Had an amazing design and its programming was way beyond my imagination. Though we never played them head to head this year in a match it felt like we were being haunted by them all tournament long as we played against several of the “China Poofs” throughout the 3 days. We always knew we were in for a tough challenge when we saw that distinctive Poof-style triangular intake robot with a pneumatic flipper set up across the field.
What an incredible year they had having won Pan Pacific, Championship of the Americas and the Disney All-star tournament (to name just a few). Although they did not make it out of their division, I would have to say it felt like “the year of the Poof” to me. Their design motivated my team (and others) to improve their own design all season long.
1114Z- Unique approach to the game. Great defense with a very nimble drive. Redesigned their blocker prior to elimination rounds to effectively block the goals against us.
254E: Great defense with a nicely engineered robot that was well refined over the course of the season.
Others in our group that come to mind: 721, 575, 8164A, 1, 12’s, 10Z, 8222, 8202, 21C, 677
Wish I could have seen 76, somehow we didn’t cross paths with them during the tournament.
There were many more that impressed me but I don’t recall all the team numbers. The NZ robots were quite impressive (as we found out in the finals).
I helped inspect 76, and had the pleasure of both seeing then going “whoomp” and dealing with a small scar they made on the field. I had to tell them that if they continued to damage the field we would have to ban their robot from the tournament. To their credit, they sent right to work and came up with a creative solution to the problem, which they then presented for re-inspection. They are a classy team. I suspect the tournament didn’t turn out the way they wanted, but there were a team that made Karthik say, “Give this team a trophy right now!”
, The Chinese team who won , had a copy of a NZ robot but it was much more simple with a great driver which helped them win the divison and the finals along with Homeschool and Kristin.
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