Silicon Valley Regional (FINALS) (#FRC)

"You know your mission, devistate them, with gracious progressionalism!"

"This is why we do the math...GO! GO! GO!"

It was Saturday and we know what that means in FRC land, FINALS. I decided to once again get up early and head down to San Jose for the Silicon Valley Regional. It never ceases to amaze me that FIRST and robotics are about the ONLY things that can make me legitimately want to get up at 6am in the morning. Matches kicked off with opening ceremonies and Mark Leon doing his space suit routine once again. I have to say that the best thing FIRST in California has going for it is Emcee Mark Leon, who better to guide a bunch of kids through the pressures of competition than a big kid himself? As far as matches Saturday morning qualifications came and went in much the same way as they started with 971 in #1 seed and 192 in #2 seed. With qualification rounds over we know what that means, time to pick alliances.

As far as alliances went I wouldn't say there where any huge surprises but then I'm not intimately familiar with team politics, etc. in this region of the country so. The number 1 seed 971 picked the Cheesy Poofs (254), essentially the dominant team of California until recently they had won or been part of the winning alliance at every Silicon Valley Regional held so you get the idea. Realistically if you've been around FIRST at all and have a pulse I probably shouldn't need to explain who the Cheesy Poofs are. Of particular interest to me was the #2 alliance made up of teams 192 (GRT, Rookie year 1997), 1280, and 1868, as I had kind of adopted 1280 to root for because of their really cool robot design (see my post yesterday). You can of course see the rest of the alliances online if you're interested or weren't watching earlier in the first place.

I went 3/4 in terms of teams I picked to win in the Quarter Finals which is pretty decent for me especially at a regional where I'm not incredibly familiar with all the teams. There was one upset 2035, 668, and 114 managed to pick off 604, 846, 8 in a 3 match round which I didn't really see coming I personally felt that teamed up with the Funky Monkeys (846) that 604 had the better alliance. Lead by number one seed 971, 254, 852 bested 2035, 668, and 114 in two matches during their semi-final round. Semi-Final 2 had perhaps the best matches of the entire finals as 192, 1280, 1868 and 100, 987, 675 fought it out. Honestly as I watched these matches I really thought either alliance could have won and just as it looked like the 100 lead alliance was poised to win the second match 192 and company pulled out a win and then another to fight on to the finals. There were some close matches here, a testament to how good both alliances were. I'll also note that 100's paint job is of note in that they painted the sides of their robot orange and I have to believe this is not only because it's their traditional team color but it also prevents other teams from knowing just how many balls they've collected.

Queue Thunderstruck, do some math, thank Google profusely, because it's time for the FINALS in Silicon Valley!! The main event the finals of FRC 2009 at the Silicon Valley Regional 971, 254, 852 vs. 192, 1280, 1868. Frankly I wasn't surprised to see either of these alliances facing off against each other and all of the teams deserved to be there many of them one could have predicted from early in the qualification matches. That being said it is worth noting that SVR had one of the deepest fields in the finals of any regional in the country. As I look at my bracket with two hash marks under 971, 254, 852 signifying that ultimately, as many of my friends back in New England predicted from the beginning, they took home the trophy after two matches it doesn't seem to tell the whole story.

I think if you were to sum up the two finals matches in a word it would undoubtedly have to be: pinning. The strategy employed by 971, 254, 852 was to pin 1280 for a majority of the match and hopefully neutralize that alliance's best offensive robot. Ultimately they were able to do this reasonable success in both matches and it was enough to get them the win but it highlights several interesting things about this game.

• First you can only play so much defense. In other words even if you managed to for example pin 254 that still left a very good scorer in 971 out there roaming around. Now if you attempt to pin them well now you're only left with one robot to score with. This made me wonder what this game would look like as 2v2 instead of 3v3. Of coruse even that might be mute given the influence of humans in this year's game.
• The pinning strategy also really highlights the uniqueness of the trailer goals being attached to the robots. You're faced with another trade-off if you are pinning a robot consider the robot doing the pinning still has a trailer on it that is stationary and a potential human player (*grumble* Payload Specialist) target. The dominance of 254's scoring ability made that trade-off work in their favor but it is something to be considered. If this game were played with free roaming goals well then you could come in there and try and grab a trailer and run off with it, not possible here.
• It doesn't take much to break a log-jam. The pinning for the most part kind of went something like 852 would attempt to pin 1280 and then someone wold attempt to pin 254 and then what you ended up with was a log-jam of robots in front of one of the driver stations with a bunch of goals and robots sitting there going a whole lot of nowhere. It's worth noting however before you decide that pinning is the answer to all your problems that it really doesn't take much to break open one of these log-jams. All it takes is a bit of traction gained or a bump from another robot outside the jam in the right place and suddenly the whole thing has broken free. In the case of the SVR finals that usually mean 254 was back on the loose with a full robot worth of balls, not something you want to be on the other side of.
• Time multipliers need not apply. This isn't 2001 so that means you're going to be playing a 135 second match. That's something worth considering as you are attempting to keep a robot pinned if you're going to rely on pinning as a strategy just remember that if that robot breaks free with even just a few seconds left and their drivers, etc. are on they can do a whole lot of damage. If you can make it work for the full 120 then props to you but it sounds and looks a lot easier than it is.

All in all it was a great weekend worth of robotics and it was fun to finally, after two weeks worth of webcasts, to see this game up close and in person. Webcasts are fun and I'm glad we have them but being there in the arena with the energy of the crowd watching 4000 or so high school students and adults cheer on robots is something that cuts to the uniqueness of FIRST that simply can't be replicated. It was cool to have the opportunity to see FIRST from a different perspective before I head back to New England and the FIRST that I know. That said I am looking forward to Connecticut which promises to have a pretty insane field of teams. So until then I'll see everyone in New England for Week 5 and welcome any feedback with regards to these posts.

"You did your math homework right?...GO! GO! GO!"

Comments

[J Rod]

I'm annoyed now that I won't be at CT. This is the only year I've missed since 1999 and its possibly one of the deepest fields. Gahhh.