Auckland had a very successful first scrimmage this weekend. 26 teams attended, with each team playing seven ranking matches for the Nationals qualification ladder followed by eight alliances of two playing a friendly elimination bracket.
The top three teams on the ladder are now 2918A (Glenfield), 2901C (Rangitoto) and 2918D (Glenfield) each with a record of 5-2-0. In fact, the top six teams are all on 5-2-0. The champions were the fifth seed alliance of 2919M and 2919A, both from Kristin School. The finalists were the third seed alliance of 2918D from Glenfield College and 2909B from ACG Parnell.
Here are some new world records for overseas teams to try to beat:
– Highest Robot Skills score: 13
– Most points in a match (by one alliance): 41
– Most points in a match (by both alliances): 72
– Most sections on a skyrise: 6
– Most cubes in floor goals by one alliance: 13
The main thing to know if you are competing in a Skyrise event soon is that the autonomous bonus is extremely important. In 79% of matches played, the autonomous bonus decided the match – that is, the losing team would have won the match if they had won the autonomous bonus. For comparison, across the first six Auckland scrimmages for Toss Up that number was 39%. Nearly all teams who won the autonomous bonus won it just by driving forward for a set time and leaving their preload on the tile. If you want to win your first Skyrise event, program your robot to consistently score more than one point in autonomous. When you get to the event, go find all your qualification partners and if they haven’t written autonomous, help them write a program that lets them drive forward off the tile for a 1 point auton. Doing these two things is probably the most efficient way to increase your qualification ranking, and you’ll help out other teams who might not know how to program an autonomous routine.
If you are refereeing a Skyrise event, you should know that the descoring rule is a reasonably tricky one to enforce. Robots can descore cubes quickly when you aren’t expecting it, and unless you’re keeping track of the positions of all the cubes you won’t always know whether the descore was legal or not. Pay attention to which posts have undescorable cubes on them, especially low posts since an illegal descore on a low post is quicker than an illegal descore on a medium or high post. Teams who know about this rule will generally not break it since it’s an easy rule to comply with, but early in the season not everybody knows the rules. We also strongly recommend that you make sure teams use flags (or coloured plates), because without them it can be hard to enforce <SG9>.
Thanks very much to Whangaparoa College for hosting. The next scrimmage will be at Kristin School on July 5.
AURA volunteers present: Hamish, Matt, Abigail, Lucas, Oliver, Nathan, Rob, Ellen, Jack, Chris, Cameron
Volunteer hours: 81
Thanks also to Hayden from Massey, George from 2906 and Jamie Davis.
