Team 255 Foothill KS, San Jose, CA

After some early confusion about registration - team 255 got to work
quickly - installing their new lift and pole grabber. They missed their
first practice, made the second, and were ready for their 1st match
at about 8pm. It turned out the major 'hang-up' in the lift was the 
type of 'cable' used. I was sure nylon was allowed - but the teachers
couldn't find it on the parts list so were using piano wire. This was 
kinking and jamming the lift. It turned out that nylon was allowed and 
made a world of difference.

The first match was a big disappointment. After aggressively taking
control of the puck, getting the doubler and fending off one oppnent
from climbing for 1:30, we were horrified to see our partner had
only succeeded in getting one floppy into their basket. We had
tossed all our human player floppies to them and their player seemed
incable of both catching or throwing. One floppy actually hit him in the
face and went out of play! We were forced to abandon our
defense to get some floppies - with 30 seconds left we managed to
get 2 floppies to our human player and get them in our basket.
we had no time to hoist - meanwhile one of the opposing robots
climbed and hoisted about 8. Score - about 72-3.

The second match was a complete victory - we got the doubler, defended
the puck, both we and our partner hoisted about 3 floppies. Score about
60-10. Once again we demontrated superior algility, speed and power.

Our third was a narrow win.  Once again we controlled the puck and 
denied climbing, our partner loaded up and hoisted. This could of
been a big win - but our partner refused even to approach the puck,
let alone climb it - they said it was to dangerous!

4th - our partner snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
Once again we controlled the puck - got the doubler denied climbing
and our partner had hoisted 8 floopies - all they had to was stop
and we would of won - instead with a fully loaded basket and 5 seconds
to go they made a full speed run at the puck in an attmept to climb?
Not clear to me that they could - anyway with 1 second to go they
crashed into the puck and their basket dropped all eight floppies -
result - a 0 score.

5th -  A loss to Team 252 and 298 - once again we blocked Broadway for
30 seconds while our partner floundered about - Robo-Bear grabbed
the puck, got the double and the trippler. Our partner experienced some
type of control or power failure, because they seemed capabale of only
extremely slow movement.

We abandoned blocking 252 (probably a mistake) and attempted to get
some floppies in scoring position - we got 8 - and so did 252.
252 made a bee-line to the puck and climbed with its pole grabber.
We went over to the puck and attempted to pull it out of the corner.
at this point our partner did manage to get over to the puck and actually
blocked us from pulling out - our grabber worked, but we did not have
enough power to pull the puck and 2 robots (400lbs+ ) out of the
corner - we did hoist and got 6 high, 2 low)

Score a devasting 320-27.  In retrospect, perhaps if we continued to 
deny Broadway access to their human players, we could of thrown
floppies onto the puck and won 8-0 - but Broadway's big win probably
was one of the reasons they went on to the finals. Also - since we were
so low on points anyway - we probably did make the correct decision - 
you need the maximum point to qualify and get noticed.

The 6th loss was the most dissapointing of all.  Our partner, 186
had it's radio cable disconnect on its robot about 10 seconds into
the match - result were much the same as match 5 - I forgot how
bad the loss was.  Actually 186 was a prophetic number for us -
that's how we finished overall in the standings. In retrospect - we
probably should of opted for a more offensive strategy - If we had played
as if we were 1 vs 2 - we probably could of scored 15 to 30 points by ourselves.If we had a partner who was a fast climber - it would of been teoretically
possible to get in the low 100's.  Our lack of climbing ability clearly
was a big drawback in our design. 

The finals were spectacular - of course no-one would pick us as a partner,
but there were some 6-0 teams not picked as well as some teams in the top
30 that were left out. In general alliances were made between teams
familiar with each other from the regionals.  Several Western alliance
teams were in the finals, but I believe all were eliminated in the first
round.  Included were 60, 64?, 100, 192, 252, 254. 

The Broadways got an  award. The NASA team 122 
finished as a 4 seed and won its first final, but lost the quarter final.
Usually the margin of victory was 2 vs. 1 robot on the puck.  

The bad part of the games I feel was really the complete lack of defensive
thinking. since the only thing that matters in the qualifiers - points
count and winning doesn't matter.  In the finals points are not the issue -
winning is. I still saw absolutely no defensive strategy other than to try
to get opposing robots off the puck, once they were on - and preventing
lifts. I didn't see anyone trying to deny floppies to other robots or
stealing  floppies.

So after a good regional - and a robot that performed flawlessly in
its all 6 National matches Team 255 headed home wiser- next year they plan
to do much better!

Alan Federman
Webmaster/Mentor/Webcast Engineer
NASA - ARC