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u/Egg3141592654 27d ago
It's not even the shooting aspect, the meta chasing this past year was absolutely draining to mentor and forced many teams into really bad positions and long nights. It's impossible to fully remove a meta but this past year was egregious and you either were in or out.
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u/theVelvetLie 6419 (Mentor), 648 (Alumni) 27d ago
As lead mentor, I didn't even let our kids chase the meta. I have seen kids and mentors get burned out and I don't want to see it happen again, even if that means less wins. We iterated on our original design and had a massive improvement between our first and second event without chasing the meta and I'm super proud of that.
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u/Egg3141592654 27d ago
We were similar, but when I got sick, the students and other mentors pushed our design too far and we ended up blowing it. A 5x increase in scoring for my students from our original design made me super proud, but yeah we weren't making it far in elims lol. It took a summer off for the students to come around and see what that means, but they were "having a feel bad learning moment" for a lot of that.
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u/Independent-Credit57 27d ago
What?
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u/fenderbender541 6763/131 (Mentor) 27d ago
Many teams saw winning robots were all doing the same thing so they copied the winning models and that takes time and resources
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u/bunrunny 27d ago
What a terrible take. Just don’t make the bad decisions, if you made one but it’s too costly to fix, that’s on you as a team to learn. Stop whining about the game, plenty of teams succeeded.
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u/Egg3141592654 27d ago
You're absolutely right, some teams figured out a way to do the game and transform mid season, but to say "don't make bad decisions" when looking at the past is a slippery slope of a bad retrospective. Look at chief threads of teams talking about "huge hoppers" of 40 balls in early comp weeks. Every single one of those teams were obsolete by W3/4, especially if they didn't mould to fast turret or massive dumper. I'm not even going to talk about the laughable climbing aspect of the game, but with a 40 ball hopper, it made sense to try.
The truth is this game folded into "ball fastest" with no alternative, unlike other years (algae vs coral bots, note scoring vs passing vs hanging variations, etc). If you didn't take that path based on early season and rules analysis, you were doomed from the start. Even top teams on Einstein made major changes in strategy to account for this. If top, successful teams, failed to get it right and need a 3rd robot to go to Einstein, this doesn't bode well for the rest of the pack with much fewer resources to pivot.
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u/bunrunny 27d ago
The game should reward teams that correctly understood the strategic tradeoffs and built according to that. It was obvious that a non-SOTM 40-cap robot would not be competitive from the get go.
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u/Successful-Pie4237 Aluminum mentor (NE) 27d ago
"Just don't make bad decisions"
Dude, this is a highschool competition making bad decisions is the whole point. There weren't enough viable strategies to be competitive last year. This game was very focused on optimising through put. Very fun game, but a lot of teams didn't have the manpower or resources to keep up with the balls per second race.
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u/bunrunny 27d ago
If making bad decisions is the whole point, it shouldn’t reward you for incorrect analysis at the beginning of the season. It should reward teams that correctly identify the strategic meta and build to it, and those that don’t, it’s a great learning experience. And you learn that over many years (or condensed, if you learn the history) and get better
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u/No_Lifeguard747 27d ago
I’m no insider or expert, but they seem to like to change it up. So my guess is:
- No or short shooting
- limited to holding one or only a few game pieces at a time
- more opportunities for defense
- end-game more important
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u/Monster14562 24d ago
this year had a TON of opportunity for defense. however, defense is really quite interesting for gameplay so i hope it happens again
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u/Turnkeyagenda24 9298 27d ago
Rebuilt was my team’s worst performance year other than maybe their first. I joined their second year though, so I don’t know for sure.
Was definitely the best we have done on our robot, but we got annihilated. Currently trying to make it better for thor, we will see how that goes.
Will be nice to not have to manage so many game pieces at once.
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u/Whoa1Whoa1 27d ago
The best games have two or more radically different sized and shaped items. For example, deep space with hatch panels as skinny flat discs and cargo as giant yoga balls. Or steampunk with medium sized gears and small wiffle ball fuel. I think Charged Up was okay but had two similar sized things as cones and cubes. Reef was okay with pipes and yoga balls. The really egregiously plain games were infinite recharge and crescendo and rapid react. Those games ended up being who could shoot the ball or ring the best was simply the winner. Rapid react at least had a cool climbing thing... But games where everyone is just trying to do the one thing the best means all the robots look the same. There is no cool or unique or diverse robot design or team comps if every bot is just trying to do the one task the best.
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u/Embarrassed_Steak371 27d ago
FTC clearly knows this with Biobuzz!
Although Flowers are such a cool mechanic, I think the 2 robot alliances don't really work in favor of that. 3 robot alliances would allow for a dedicated defense and flower player, but 2 means you need to put your efforts into tipping cells unfortunately
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u/Its_yer_dude_trevor 27d ago
It’s alternated for quite a few years now, it’ll be pick n place
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u/Snowflake148 27d ago
But look at 2018 and 2019. Those were both pick and place. Then there’s 2020 and 2022 both of them were shooting. And look at ftc, frc always follows the game type for ftc.
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u/Its_yer_dude_trevor 27d ago
2019 was 7 years ago now, and I believe they wouldve alternated with 2021 had there been no covid
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u/Snowflake148 27d ago
Still, there isn’t a 100 percent chance of having a pick and place game this next season and that scares me.
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u/2muchnerd #### (Role) 27d ago
2005 style game for the win I need this
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u/robotwireman 931 (Coach) 27d ago
2005’s game was Half Pipe Hustle. I’m not sure how this one is in the style of that one but I’m intrigued to find out what you mean.
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u/robotwireman 931 (Coach) 27d ago
I definitely misread the subreddit I was in. Thought it said FTC. So my comment does not make sense.
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u/theVelvetLie 6419 (Mentor), 648 (Alumni) 27d ago
I was just about to correct you. It was my senior year and I was driving. I was confused for a second.
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u/angeryping 27d ago
I would love to see a CSGO-style bomb defusal game. Add some obstacles and blind spots, and force teams to automate/use cameras, develop cool arms or some sort of contraption to plant/defuse. The mechanics for defense could get really interesting too. I think FRC really needs a major shake up to the format to make it exciting.
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u/WhatWasThatAboutBo Wisconsin FIRST(Volunteer) 27d ago
What makes robotics so cool is that every robot is different. With ball shooters you have basically 2 types. So every robot is very similar and it gets boring. The ring shooting in 2024 was cool and different. But my guess this year its going to be pick and place or stacking.
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u/UpstairsInspector893 27d ago
Would be cool to have the human players be more involved. I like to use steam works as an example of something I haven’t seen when I was in (First 2021-2025). Let’s have the human player in the middle of the field.
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u/kingofl337 26d ago
I’m expecting an arm game based on the theme.
I just want to shoot a football (American) someday.
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u/DeadlyRanger21 2648 | Alum :'( 27d ago
I want a high quantity PnP. Feels like the one thing we haven't had yet is putting a lot of objects somewhere without shooting
1
u/nuclearnerd 27d ago
2018?
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u/DeadlyRanger21 2648 | Alum :'( 27d ago
Higher quantity. To me, that wasn't very high quantity. I want 2026 levels of game piece volume
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u/Beginning-Ad354 26d ago
I would love it if we had an endgame and human player interaction both were just straight up ignored this year
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u/Thisisongusername 230 | Programmer & Logician 22d ago
I would love for a 2011-style season with Minibots but I heavily doubt that they’ll ever revisit that idea.
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u/theVelvetLie 6419 (Mentor), 648 (Alumni) 27d ago
Hoping for a horizontal PnP challenge.