Tips for first vex tournament this year

[68031B]

I am currently in 8th grade and we have our first tournament tomorrow, this is our current robot

11w cata with red motor and 36 to 84 gear ratio
2, 5.5w wings
11w fall down intake (it starts in the 18x18 then falls down)
11w 30 inch scissor lift (that is just the lift, not counting the initial height it gets from the robot) for blocking
4 motor 4 wheel with a 1:1 gear ratio

Any tips or strategies I should know for my first middle school tournament this year?

[kmmohn]

My best tip would be to read the interview section of the judge’s guide https://recf.org/documents/2023/06/guide-to-judging.pdf/ then get your team together with your coach and practice some interview skills. If you event is offering the innovate award, be sure to get the innovate application into your notebook (near the front so the judges can find it easily).

[Gigahertz.t]

For general tips, there are a lot of topics on the forum:

What is something you wish you knew before your first tournament?

(Btw the 101 things gave me inspiration for this question.) I’ll go first. I wish I had known to bring more than one spare battery. I know this isn’t a necessity, but with how fast they die, and with the rush of the tournament setting it can be hard to make sure you always have a charged battery if you only have two. Luckily one of our sister teams thought to grab all of our schools batteries last second so we were able to use those.

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For strategies, seeing as you have a 4 motor drive, try to avoid other robots as much as possible as you will get pushed arpund easily. Try making a clamp to the matchload bar to give defenders a harder time. Don’t shoot matchloads unless you’re sure they’ll make it into your goal and not get “stolen” by the opposing alliance.

[4233XBen]

You have a scissor lift. So, I would recommend not to drive with it extended at all, except when blocking and match loading. As robots with scissor lifts are a little bit tippy ( when they are extended) and you may get filliped over easily. I would also be aware of the game manual and rule G13 as you may find it useful.

For general strategy, I would recommend

1. Shooting 4 or 5 match loads at a time when you feel like you can score them
2. I would recommend being very carefully about being pushed around as you probably don’t have traction wheels

If you can i would recommend attaching a low hanging mechanism. To hang with using just a scissor lift (not a catapult) you need the weight to be exactly centered on the point of attachment when being pulled up or else you could risk bending the lift.

My past robot is very similar to yours it has a 29 in scissor lift ( without robot included) so if you want to look at it for ideas :

"The Tower 2" 4233X Over Under Middle School Middle Season Robot Reveal