Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t recall seeing a thoughts on nationals thread.
Here are my thoughts.
The Venue: Overall I loved it! The pits had a pretty good layout, but I would’ve changed a few things if I had organized it. The pits were easy to find teams from your division and it was nice because you did not have to walk far to find your partners or opponents. This made scouting easy. However, I did not like how the teams tables were split up. They were divided by divisions and I think it would have been easier if teams from the same schools had tables that were next to each other. I’m sure schools that brought more than 1 team per school would agree. I liked the tournament area also. The seating was good during qualifications and divisional eliminations but during finals it got a bit crowded. I liked the mounted chair setup rather than the pop-up bleachers that worlds has. But worlds needs more fields so that’s understandable. Ohh and one more thing on division. I did not like how the teams were split up. It went that the first half of your clubs teams (fake ex: 1200A-1200C) were in the red division, and the second half (fake ex: 1200D-1200F) were in the blue division. This made the blue division significantly easier than the red division since the best teams from a school are typically in the first half of the alphabet. Also, since the teams were split up like this, you could pretty much tell which division was going to win just by the division list.
Robots: There were some great robots there! I didn’t watch any of the Red division qualifications or eliminations so I only saw the 12’s team up to win in the finals. But in the blue division 323Z was definitely the best scorer. 1045F also had a great robot. It was one of the best descorers in the division and if they had a scoring autonomous (in semi’s they didn’t use it, so not sure if they have one or not) they possibly could have beat us. If they picked us for a partner the outcome might’ve been different as well ;). Those are the top 2 teams from my division but from what I heard 1064a and 3018 were good in the red division besides the 12 teams.
Suggestions for teams going to worlds: Have a good autonomous!!! This was a game changer in half our matches. We had some close matches and without the autonomous bonus or sacks that were scored in the beginning of driver we could’ve lost. And parking bonus. With matches that good teams participate in, the top score is usually around 175 and that extra 20 points is about 11% of your overall score, it definitely helps. I’m sure that has already been talked about on the forum before though.
Complaints: My only complaints are what I talked about before about the not having teams from same schools pits next to each other and splitting up divisions by the first and second half of the alphabet. I think it would be better to have it organized by every other team.
This is random but do the 12 teams or 1045F have any members actively on the forum? I am just wondering because they were great teams at nationals and I have not seen them on the forum. I have not been active on the forum this season so I can’t exactly say I haven’t seen them on the forum.