Strange Worlds finals strategy.

Was keeping this in for awhile, but now I kind of want to…let it out.

This mainly focuses in on the division semifinals between Science and Technology.

So 8165A and 211A go up for the first match for Technology, and they lose. Ok, nothing wrong there.

Then for the second match, 359A and another partner (forgot exactly which one, sorry…the RobotEvents Championship page is like messed up.) go up and they win. Now after that win, I was thinking, “Ok, since 359A got the win for Technology, they should at least keep 359A for the tiebreaker.”

So then the tiebreaker match comes…and they bring up 8165A and 211A, the same teams as for the first match, the one they lost in.

Another team member and I were thinking, “What are they doing? That’s the same alliance that made them lose the first match!” And then they lost and were eliminated.

Now in no way am I showing bias toward Waialua, or saying that Hawaii teams are better or anything like that, but isn’t it kind of common sense keeping the team that you won the match with and another team (doesn’t matter which one) for the tiebreaker, rather than putting the same two robots that lost the first match?

Just my 2 cents.

maybe the winning robot broke down or something and had to get it repaired
or they were going for a new strategy but didnt execute it that well
(triangles maybe?)

Luck also comes into play. Moreover, keep in mind that the opposing alliance’s robots have been rotated as well, and Waialua isn’t necessarily fit to combat the opposing alliance’s strategy.

And also, there’s no saying whether or not Waialua would help win the tiebreaker. 575 and 44 are just TOO ridiculously strong.

Not necessarily. Pretend robots contribute to an alliance a set number of “points”. It definitely doesn’t work out this way, but pretend it does (in reality, alliance partner interaction plays a huge role, an alliance is more than the sum of its parts). Robot R1 has 5 points, R2 has 2, R3 has 1. B1 has 4, B2 has 2, B3 has 2. While B1 and B3 may beat R1 and R3, they may be worse off against R1 and R2.

What you’re saying makes sense. And there are a number of factors that could’ve lead to that choice. Partners, problems, pride, etc.

One thing that we did at one of the regional finals was that all throughout eliminations, we opened with our team and the captains, and then we would step out and let the second team do its thing.

When we were in the semis, one of the strong robots on the opposing alliance, which was supposed to play match 1 broke down, and so they had to play the alliance captain and their third robot. In accordance to that, we took our robot off to ensure that we had our strongest robots playing against the strongest robots of the other alliance.

There are a number of strategies and changes on the field that are not immediately aparent. My teammates were wondering what was going on and why we were removing it, so after telling them, we all agreed that it was the right choice.

The thing everyone has got to remeber is that team 44 green eggs didnt paly in the second match because of an issue on their robot. So you dont know what the outcome could have been.