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Depends on the state. In Michigan at the regional I ran there was one team that scored more than 460, and 5 teams over 200. At the MI state tournament I expect multiple scores in the 400 plus range and 200 should be the bottom of the range.

Keep in mind the importance of time to the score!! Oh, and this assumes your state hasn't reduced the value of the time score.

Jeff Anderson
Livonia, MI

How have you guys been going about picking up the pennies? We tried to use a thin scoop, but it didn't work very well. At our regionals, no teams bothered to go for the pennies.

cpweber wrote:How have you guys been going about picking up the pennies? We tried to use a thin scoop, but it didn't work very well. At our regionals, no teams bothered to go for the pennies.

We've also been using a thin scoop out of sheet metal but we can get the pennies with relative ease with it. What material is your scoop made out of?

schist99centz wrote:

cpweber wrote:How have you guys been going about picking up the pennies? We tried to use a thin scoop, but it didn't work very well. At our regionals, no teams bothered to go for the pennies.

We've also been using a thin scoop out of sheet metal but we can get the pennies with relative ease with it. What material is your scoop made out of?

That's probably where we went wrong. We experimented with a plastic scoop, and when it didn't work out before regionals, we kind of dropped the idea. Thanks!

Our best score so far is 499. We cleared the board in 2:32. Do any of you guys know if any team has got a score of 500 or more? Also, any ideas that would help cut down or time would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

schist99centz wrote:Our best score so far is 499. We cleared the board in 2:32. Do any of you guys know if any team has got a score of 500 or more? Also, any ideas that would help cut down or time would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

In practice, my team has pretty consistently been getting 500-530; our best is 549. (At states yesterday, we messed up and got a 454, but that was good enough to place us first in Virginia.) We clear the entire board, unless when we're getting an object it flips out over the walls.
As far as improving your time, it totally depends on your robot. What sort of end effector do you have (i.e. scoop, claw, etc.)? How many degrees of freedom is your arm? What method do you use to flip the jugs? What's your strategy for moving objects? I'd say the most important thing, in general, is to practice as much as possible, but I might be able to offer more specific advice if I knew more about your robot.

The average score I'm getting is about 445. Is that normal for you guys also?

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.

The venue for Robocross at Nats is a small gymnasium that will also host Wheeled Vehicle, and Scrambler. This doesn't seem like enough room to run multiple courses for each of them and there doesn't appear to be any seating/bleachers or balcony for spectators. Anyone heard anything about how they're going to make this work?

kwinks wrote:The venue for Robocross at Nats is a small gymnasium that will also host Wheeled Vehicle, and Scrambler. This doesn't seem like enough room to run multiple courses for each of them and there doesn't appear to be any seating/bleachers or balcony for spectators. Anyone heard anything about how they're going to make this work?

Many invites I've been to do this. As long as there aren't any flight events, it should work fine.