Our team 74019B and 74019Z are going to state this year and i would like to know how the older, more exprienced teams prepared and got ready for this stressful event called state championships.
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Make sure everything on your robot is in tip top condition. No gears are stripped or broken everything runs smoothly with little friction.
Test the heck out of your autons. Make sure they are 70-80% reliable. Don’t make any big changes as they will inevitably affect other things.
Bring extra parts for things that could break. Bring extra miscellaneous parts like screws nuts etc. Also extra electronics. Alonf with the basic necessities like the robot batteries controller etc.
Create a plan of what you are going to do for the day. Who is scouting (if you do that), who is checking the robot one last time. Who is in charge of pneumatic and bringing things to matchs. Who is managing time and skills matches. Who is taking notes. So basically make roles.
As for stress try to stay calm being tense doesn’t help with driving. Trust me I’d know. Make sure you drink water and eat. Keep you body and mind in a good place and don’t be to confident or doubt your abilities.
Hope this helps. Good luck at state.
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What’s scouting? 20chars
Walking around and taking notes on what all the other teams can do. This way you can have an effective game play strategy for the teams you’re paired up with (and against).
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Typically teams will scout out other teams to find teams that they are interested in partnering with for eliminations. They will also watch other teams to see their strategies so you can plan and make a strategy for your next matches.
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im scouting 20chchchchchc
Considering you’re a first year, just meet people. Try to befriend and get contact info for people from every other team there. Though you might have to sacrifice time that you could have otherwise used to perform better at the event, knowing people will pay larger dividends in the future than anything else.
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idk what the right answer is but it depends on your time frame and access to pneumatics
rule #1 is KISS: keep it simple stupid
with that said what my team is doing/did is a complete rebuild controller remapping and completely new autos with new sensors.
try to have as many drive motors as possible
with 2 go direct 200rpm
with 4 go anywhere from 233 257 or 280 rpm depending on weight
with 6 try to stay below 450 or so
with 8 well yolo you can do 600rpm
auto race is soo important this year anything you can do to win that is super important but remember parking is also important.
make a win point auto and run it when you have an easy match so you can go up in rankings.
make friends with every half decent robot you can unless you plan on being in first place come team picking time.
get your skills up if you don’t end up qualifying for worlds chances are someone will double quall and the higher your skills the higher your chances to pick up that spot.
trust me, i have made friends with every team already (except the little kids who think theyre cool)
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So, I’m pretty new too, but from the competitions I’ve been in, you wanna keep some things in mind.
- Red alliance sets robots second.
This is something that I recently learned, and its something that we should be using to our tactical advantage. At this point in the season, auton basically determines whose going to win the match, with some exceptions of course. - Scouting is IMPORTANT
You wanna know who your up against, so that you can find ways to counter them. That’s part of the process; you look at the challenges and find ways to make your way around them. I would personally assign one person to scouting at a tourney so that you know what the robots do. That comes in important in alliance selection. - Have fun!
Though VEX is pretty competitive, it’s important that you should be trying to enjoy the experience and have fun while your at it.
There’s a lot more, but I’m probably just having a brain fart here.
Anyway, congrats on qualifying!
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By the way, I had created a similar post earlier this season. You might want to look at it for reference if you prefer.
Going to Regionals for my first time, what to expect? - VEX V5 General Discussion - VEX Forum
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so going into eliminations you need to understand how you and your alliance will win the match, and what each of you need to do:
- During auton
- Immediately after
- In the endgame
discuss these factors explicitly. Each member of the alliance should understand what you need to do to win.
that means you need to Understand the micro and macro strategy of the match.
Example for me at my states
I was a 2 goal carrying robot who could make it up the platform quickly or push others up, paired with a 2 goal robot with rings who struggled to make it up the ramp.
Macro:
Overall:
We decided that we wanted to shoot for a double climb with 4 goals in the endgame, after we won autonomous. I would look to get and hold neutral goals (if I lost a goal in autonomous), as well as harass our opponents robots and provide space for my alliance to stack rings. When they were ready I would pass them my alliance goal, grab their alliance goal with rings, and continue to harass / provide space.
Auton:
I would place against the faster oponnents because I was faster and more reliable at taking the goal. I would often go on the left side so that they could easily access the alliance goal with their ring side goal intake and I could contest the high neutral
Earlygame:
We’d touch base after auton was done. I’d tell them what I was about to do, and then generally what I would do after, and they did the same. They let me know if they needed me to block while they adjusted a goal, etc. in this phase.
Endgame:
climb, with them going first, lift side first. I’d follow and push them up the ramp if needed.
Micro:
We practiced the alliance goal transition and double climb on the practice field for maybe 5 minutes. We looked at where I would need to get to where they could move a smidge and easily balance out the bridge, so it would be reliable and possible to do.
On the queueing table we eyed our opponents up. We tried our best to understand what their weaknesses were. Ex. if their lift claw was susceptible to being pulled out of, we’d discuss that when we went to place.
Here’s how the finals matches went with me and my alliance partner:
Part 2: RE-VRC-21-5163: 2022 Hawaii VRC State Championship presented by Hawaiian Electric - YouTube
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And here I did that but realized the robot was half or one inch over the limit and had to chop off part of the claw at the (state) competition and that broke everything.
If you already have friend teams from qualifiers, try and get in contact with them to try to make an alliance. My State Competition is this weekend, and we made an alliance with a team last Thursday.