sailingful wrote:Question on Strategy:
Our team had tried many different design ideas and based on results of testing, our team settled on the "speed" design. No objects in a bucket, robot and tennis ball in zone D, but we were done in 3-4 seconds. It took about 8 weeks to build and finalize the design. The Illinois Science Olympiad changes the rules two weeks before the state competition to greatly reduce the time bonus and make our design not competitive. 90% of the robots we saw at state were vex kits with nearly the same design.
The philosophical question for next year is: Should we spend our time trying creative solutions that test the limits of our abilities and the rules or should we focus on the standard solution and just try to differentiate based on amount of practice?
The team has lots of energy, but limited time, so we are already talking about how to make best use of that time next year.
"Speeder" vs "Object Collector" strategies have been discussed a lot in earlier posts of this thread. The major grind about "Speeders" is that they don't appear to have even tried to deserve top places in competitions. Your post, however, provides a different perspective that tells that speeders may also have paid their dues. However, in all tournaments my team competed (6 or so), no speeder has ever come close to a top finish.
I agree with the rule writer's opinion ("how to get better from here") in earlier posts of the thread. Meanwhile, I can understand the "Ojbect Collector"'s grief and grinds about losing to average speeders that took "the easier route". I think, after all, it's my choice to deposit my money in any FDIC insured savings account earning 0.1% interest (or maybe 1.5% if I look hard), or to invest my hard-earned money, with a lot of research, in stocks with upside potential in double-digit as well as greater downside risks. Sometimes, unexpected events happen, and all my research in stock seems wasted, useless or even harmful. I curse myself that I could have just left the money in any bank, and spent my time at the beach instead of a study room . Or, maybe look harder to find that bank with 1.5% interest. Maybe I'll learn a few things about CD, or maybe US treasuries. At some point, I may learn about inflation, and start over with my stock research...
For people who don't know, IL has a "proprietary" rule that says any robot stops the run within 60 seconds can get at most 120 points. I appreciate the rule because I personally just do not enjoy watching those speed runs, even though it's their
choice and a fair game based on the rule. I am too slow to follow what just happened in those runs. Have you tried working on something that takes, say, 60 seconds to put 1 ping pong ball in each of the two jugs at Zone D? That would have given you 72 points. Then, continue working out from there.
At the first invitational we competed, I heard some spectators gasped "wow, that is a loop hole" when they saw the "Speeder" strategy. That's just how people feel about it in this kind of intense competitions. However, I never heard of it again since no speeder has ever come close to a top finish in these competitions (YMMV), and some speeders abandoned this strategy in later tournaments. Some "Objector Collector" teams initially performed poorly in the season compared to the average speeders. But, the "Object Collector" teams that keeps improving their robot design and practice soon outperformed the speeders in subsequent tournaments because they have a lot of upside to improve, and the speeder can be capped around lower 200 very early in the season. The first exercise I had my team to do is to work out these numbers on paper, and we decided to maximize the multipliers and collect easy objects as quickly as possible to beat the Speeder's strategy. I soon had to find other goals for the team.
As to your philosophical question for next year, I'd say "don't worry about it". Other more experienced SciOly veteran may chime in, but Robocross is at its 2nd year (consecutively) and something else may take its place next year. Robocross ran 2008-2009, then gave way to other (same category?) events for 4 years. Having said that, many previous winners on this thread have been giving advices, "practice, practice, practice". No matter what design/solution you have. Standard or not. Not only your team gets better at it, you can also find areas for improvements through repeated practices. My team never took the same robot to our next tournament. There are always some changes here or there. After all, an investor's goal should be to maximize the investment return. If the investment needs to be a plain vanila stock, so be it. If you find the maximum return (with the same risk) in some complex and creative financial derivatives, so be it. If your team still has a lot of energy, there are some robot specific competitions. You may even consider Vex competitions
The parts may appear similar, especially with that signature claw, but the "guts" can be very different. I watched more than 50% of Robocross runs at IL state tournaments, and could not agree with your comments about 90% of them being similar Vex designs.
Just my 2 cents.
Cheers!
