Should You Get Totes From Landfill

[Robot Sans]

Is it worth making a robot that can get totes from the landfill or just go to the tote chute and have your human player pass totes. I think the human player option is a bit easier but could the landfill robots be a valuable resource? Thoughts.

[IronicDeadBird]

Its a key part of our robot design so I hope so...

[BrendanB]

Whatever concept your team can make the most valuable partner to an alliance through your execution and performance.

[Robot Sans]

Its a key part of our robot design so I hope so...
How many totes do you think you could acquire from the landfill, i ask because there are more totes in the human player area

[IronicDeadBird]

Haven't run the math nor do I rember the right side up totes and in all honest I'm not going to throw out some random number. The cadders showed me something that would do three to five totes per cycle with bin potential

[Taylor]

How many totes do you think you could acquire from the landfill, i ask because there are more totes in the human player area

I disagree.
There are 28 totes in the landfill area, plus 12 more are 'shared' on the step. So from a we've-got-them-and-they-don't standpoint, there are delta-52 totes in the "landfill area."
In the HP area there are 30 totes total.

[IronicDeadBird]

How many totes do you think you could acquire from the landfill, i ask because there are more totes in the human player area

Totes from the human player area are gated by the speed in which you can load totes onto the field. The loading process is also succeptible to errors on the human player side that result in fouls. I don't like the human loading station cause I don't know the LoS the refs have. That's a game element I can't control and I don't like not having control.

[MrForbes]

There are advantages and disadvantages to each place you can get totes from. I think you should get totes from wherever you can figure out how to get them quickly, and make stacks with them, that you can top with a container. Since there are so many ways to do that, and there are a lot of totes in each location, it's kind of pointless to worry too much about which is "best".

[MrJohnston]

There are advantages and disadvantages to each place you can get totes from. I think you should get totes from wherever you can figure out how to get them quickly, and make stacks with them, that you can top with a container. Since there are so many ways to do that, and there are a lot of totes in each location, it's kind of pointless to worry too much about which is "best".

This.

In order for an alliance to win at higher levels, it will need to be able to gather and stack totes and recycling containers from all areas of the field. In other words, both functions will be needed. I do not believe that there will be a single robot that can make level six stacks (with noodles and bins) with all three recycling containers on the alliance's side, gather the four RC's in the center and stack them (level six with pool noodles). Even the great robots will need complementary alliance partners. What's important is not so much which function you choose; rather how well and quickly you do it.

[pandamonium]

I think that it is a good idea to make sure that your robot is compatible with the strategy and robots of a high level team. I think most regionals will have 1 team able to stack 25 - 30 human player totes all by themselves.

[Kevin Leonard]

I think that it is a good idea to make sure that your robot is compatible with the strategy and robots of a high level team. I think most regionals will have 1 team able to stack 25 - 30 human player totes all by themselves.

So you think a good team is making 5 stacks per match at a regional level. I'm going to assume then that they're leaving RC's to someone else.

How many cycles did "good" regional level cyclers do in 2013?
The elite teams did 6-7 on an empty practice field. A good regional cycler in 2013 hit 2-3 cycles. Or the equivalent of such (i.e. 4 cycles with one miss/cycle)

I think a top regional team can reasonably make 3 stacks from the human player station or the landfill, while the best will do 4-5 per match. But that's just my estimations. Prove me wrong.

In conclusion, either one can be effective. Pick one and do it really really well.

[Caleb Sykes]

Totes from the human player area are gated by the speed in which you can load totes onto the field. The loading process is also succeptible to errors on the human player side that result in fouls.

How fast do you think a well-trained HP can get the totes into play? Ours can get under 5 seconds without any serious practice, and I expect he will be down in the 3 second range in the near future once our robot gets more together. As for fouls, trained human players could generally go the whole season last year without getting a foul, and since there were 10x more silly ways to get a foul last year than this year, I expect that our HP will be foul-less this season.

There are a couple of good reasons to choose landfill over HP station, but I don't think that speed is a good one at all. Only a handful of very good teams will be able to collect totes from the floor and add them to stacks in under 3 seconds. Most teams that go for ground pick-up will take around 10 seconds to line up with a tote even if it is out in the open, and grabbing from the landfill will at least double that.

[MrForbes]

Most teams that go for ground pick-up will take around 10 seconds to line up with a tote even if it is out in the open, and grabbing from the landfill will at least double that.

I hope we're not "most teams". But yeah, I can sure see that happening with fork type robots.

[Caleb Sykes]

I disagree.
There are 28 totes in the landfill area, plus 12 more are 'shared' on the step. So from a we've-got-them-and-they-don't standpoint, there are delta-52 totes in the "landfill area."

Why do you care about how many totes you take away from the opposing alliance?

[JamesCH95]

How fast do you think a well-trained HP can get the totes into play? Ours can get under 5 seconds without any serious practice, and I expect he will be down in the 3 second range in the near future once our robot gets more together. As for fouls, trained human players could generally go the whole season last year without getting a foul, and since there were 10x more silly ways to get a foul last year than this year, I expect that our HP will be foul-less this season.

There are a couple of good reasons to choose landfill over HP station, but I don't think that speed is a good one at all. Only a handful of very good teams will be able to collect totes from the floor and add them to stacks in under 3 seconds. Most teams that go for ground pick-up will take around 10 seconds to line up with a tote even if it is out in the open, and grabbing from the landfill will at least double that.

I strongly disagree. I think that having totes that are largely restrained from movement, in a known orientation, with a back-stop on at least two sides, will be much easier to pick up that a lose tote at an arbitrary orientation on the field. It all depends on how the pick-up mechanism is designed.

[Caleb Sykes]

I strongly disagree. I think that having totes that are largely restrained from movement, in a known orientation, with a back-stop on at least two sides, will be much easier to pick up that a lose tote at an arbitrary orientation on the field. It all depends on how the pick-up mechanism is designed.

It took teams at least that long to pick up game pieces in the last 4 FRC games, I don't see why it would be significantly different this year.

[pandamonium]

I'm going to assume then that they're leaving RC's to someone else.

Do not assume anything.
Teams can field 2 robots or do other crazy stuff that was not allowed in the past. There is also a legal way to cut the 5 second human player load time down quite a bit.

but the point of my post was that a good third pick probably wont have access to the human player station. being able to stack and score 12 - 20 from landfill would be a solid third pick.

[nicholsjj]

I want to add that the visual restrictions of the drivers will be more impacted for the Step totes than the driver station totes. I know with just a single stack made getting the step totes exponentially harder during our practice session due to sight restrictions, note we haven't put on a camera yet. I think a good alliance will probably have robots get the step totes enough to clear the RC's and then focus on the driver station totes for scoring purposes. The bigger question is do you believe that you need more than 20-30 totes per match at a regional/district level. If so then the step totes are a must, but they almost have to be done first.

[pandamonium]

The bigger question is do you believe that you need more than 20-30 totes per match at a regional/district level.

Yes i do believe so. Lets estimate that there is room for 9 totes to be comfortably scored on each platform. 4 stacks of 5 = 20 totes 14 stacks of 2 = 28 totes. 48 totes.

[New Lightning]

"Teams can field 2 robots or do other crazy stuff that was not allowed in the past."

How can teams field 2 robots. To my knowledge you can only bag one robot, and only have on robot pass inspection per team. Now unless I am wrong on either point I don't see how you could possibly field 2 robots for one team. And what do you mean by "other crazy stuff". It just seems very vague, could you please clarify.

[Jaywalker1711]

"Teams can field 2 robots or do other crazy stuff that was not allowed in the past."

How can teams field 2 robots. To my knowledge you can only bag one robot, and only have on robot pass inspection per team. Now unless I am wrong on either point I don't see how you could possibly field 2 robots for one team. And what do you mean by "other crazy stuff". It just seems very vague, could you please clarify.

The rule updates do not specify a restriction on maximum extensions beyond frame perimeter/transport configuration except for height.

The poster is saying that you could very well make 2 robots that are tethered together

[Kevin Leonard]

Do not assume anything.
Teams can field 2 robots or do other crazy stuff that was not allowed in the past. There is also a legal way to cut the 5 second human player load time down quite a bit.

but the point of my post was that a good third pick probably wont have access to the human player station. being able to stack and score 12 - 20 from landfill would be a solid third pick.

If my third pick at any given regional can score 12-20 totes from the landfill, then no one at the regional must have scouted at all and this dream third pick team must have sat dead for nearly every single match.

I can see the top few alliance captains scoring 12-20 from the landfill each match, with the third pick at the best events being able to score at best maybe 6 totes.

Yes i do believe so. Lets estimate that there is room for 9 totes to be comfortably scored on each platform. 4 stacks of 5 = 20 totes 14 stacks of 2 = 28 totes. 48 totes.

There are 7 possible recycling containers to score, assuming you somehow get all of the ones on the step. 7 stacks of 6 totes is 42 totes. If your alliance scores that, I applaud you, especially at the regional level. There's no reason to score any more than that until the highest levels.

[cadandcookies]

I'll go with an answer similar to the one my high school computer science would give:

"It depends."

FIRST games are based around the idea that the couple thousand teams are going to come up with a few thousand solutions. To any FRC game there's never been a "correct solution"-- of course, they run the gamut from borderline useless to world champion, but there's far too much variety to make a good case for there being a single correct way to play a game.

[snoman]

Why do you care about how many totes you take away from the opposing alliance?

Because they can't score with them. Take them even if you don't use them

[Christopher149]

The rule updates do not specify a restriction on maximum extensions beyond frame perimeter/transport configuration except for height.

The poster is saying that you could very well make 2 robots that are tethered together

To be pedantic, you can field one robot that consists of multiple connected systems attached by flexible tethering. So, say a robot and an attached powered chassis.

[Caleb Sykes]

Because they can't score with them. Take them even if you don't use them

Unless you happen to be in the finals round, this is the wrong mentality to have for this game. If you're not going to use them then taking the time to grab them will only hurt your alliance since you could be doing other things with your time.

[GeeTwo]

About half of the totes available to you are in the landfill, and you don't have to wait for the human player to feed them to you one at a time. Further, there are only two HP stations. This means that to work efficiently, an alliance needs to have at least one of its members working the landfill. Having your robot be able to do that (and also work an HP station) is the only way to ensure that you will never be on an alliance that is unable to score those totes.

For this reason, we focused our design on the landfill, while ensuring that we can also score RCs and totes. We do not anticipate any difficulty recycling litter at the HP station, apart from the time factor.

[Tammyo]

I think it is important to have a robot that has both abilities. You want to be versatile because you never know what your alliance will be able to do. You might get a situation where two of your alliances can only get totes from the human player station therefore, you will need to be able to get totes from the landfill.

[Ginger Power]

My question is: Who is more likely to seed higher, a robot that can only stack from the landfill, or a robot that can only stack from the HP? I tend to want to say the landfill because it is arguably the more difficult of the 2 tasks. This way you'll never be on an alliance that isn't capable/efficient at acquiring those totes. On the other hand I could see teams who load from the HP score 20 to 30 totes every match. This stems another question as well... what type of robot will be the more valuable draft pick? I think it depends on your answer to question one to a great extent.

[JamesCH95]

It took teams at least that long to pick up game pieces in the last 4 FRC games, I don't see why it would be significantly different this year.

You think it took 20s to pick up game pieces in the last 4 years? Really?

What leads you to believe that picking up landfill totes will take twice as long as free totes? This is what I'm really curious to know.

[IndySam]

The landfill totes are in the same location every time. A driver can drill over and over and over again on getting these totes to the point where it can become almost automatic. Don't bet on the human load to be consistently faster.

[g_sawchuk]

It's really a debatable matter, and how your robot does the task is what really defines the best strategy. Landfill is such a risky move. Look at the field spacing. If you have 3 robots going to the landfill, it's going to be a tight squeeze. If you have some robots that place stacks on the step closest to the landfill, you could get trapped in and then knock over the stacks. I personally feel that the best strategy would be to have 3 robots, each who can perform one of these 3 tasks:
-One robot taking totes from the landfill, and making large stacks of 4-6
-Another making stacks from the totes at the HP station
-One robot taking RC to the HP station, getting a noodle in them, and stacking them

That would essentially be the ideal alliance. I'm hoping to compose a strategy book, detailing our possible match paths to best cooperate with your alliance members and ensure that you won't be in their way.

Your worst enemy this year will be your own alliance.

[philso]

My question is: Who is more likely to seed higher, a robot that can only stack from the landfill, or a robot that can only stack from the HP? I tend to want to say the landfill because it is arguably the more difficult of the 2 tasks. This way you'll never be on an alliance that isn't capable/efficient at acquiring those totes. On the other hand I could see teams who load from the HP score 20 to 30 totes every match. This stems another question as well... what type of robot will be the more valuable draft pick? I think it depends on your answer to question one to a great extent.


I'll go with an answer similar to the one my high school computer science would give:

"It depends."

FIRST games are based around the idea that the couple thousand teams are going to come up with a few thousand solutions. To any FRC game there's never been a "correct solution"-- of course, they run the gamut from borderline useless to world champion, but there's far too much variety to make a good case for there being a single correct way to play a game.

There are advantages and disadvantages to each place you can get totes from. I think you should get totes from wherever you can figure out how to get them quickly, and make stacks with them, that you can top with a container. Since there are so many ways to do that, and there are a lot of totes in each location, it's kind of pointless to worry too much about which is "best".

Most likely, both methods of acquiring totes will be valuable at the higher levels. Using the 2013 game as an example, there were debates about floor pickup of Frisbees vs. feeder station. The winning alliance had one robot that used the feeder station exclusively and had one of the fastest human players, 610, and one robot that used their fast floor pickup a lot, 1477. They made a very effective combination, not competing for resources (feeder station, Frisbees on the floor). A nice twist is that neither were the alliance captains yet scored most of the points for their alliance.

It may be too soon to say that loading from the human player will be slow and problematic. Many teams in 2013 had trouble loading even one Frisbee at the loading station, the Frisbee falling to the ground. Other teams found ways to do it reliably. Others found ways to do it reliably and quickly, loading all 4 in the time it took others to load only one.

[Andrew Schreiber]

It took teams at least that long to pick up game pieces in the last 4 FRC games, I don't see why it would be significantly different this year.

Maybe in Minnesota.

I know for a fact our robot could complete a cycle from grabbing a loose ball to scoring it in 20s. Heck, I saw Bomb Squad acquire, truss to HP, inbound, and score under heavy defense in sub 20 seconds. So, no, it most certainly doesn't take teams that long.

[Laaba 80]

Maybe in Minnesota.

I know for a fact our robot could complete a cycle from grabbing a loose ball to scoring it in 20s. Heck, I saw Bomb Squad acquire, truss to HP, inbound, and score under heavy defense in sub 20 seconds. So, no, it most certainly doesn't take teams that long.

Bomb Squad isn't most teams. They fall in the "handful of very good teams" he mentioned.

[IndySam]

Bomb Squad isn't most teams. They fall in the "handful of very good teams" he mentioned.

If it would have taken my driver 10 seconds to acquire a ball last year he would have been fired. Heck if it took more than a couple seconds he would have been fired.

This year without defense he/she will need to be able to line up and acquire within a couple seconds and that's without an active grabber.

[Laaba 80]

If it would have taken my driver 10 seconds to acquire a ball last year he would have been fired. Heck if it took more than a couple seconds he would have been fired.

This year without defense he/she will need to be able to line up and acquire within a couple seconds and that's without an active grabber.

And I would agree with you, but the fact remains that most teams struggle to acquire game pieces quickly.

[Andrew Schreiber]

And I would agree with you, but the fact remains that most teams struggle to acquire game pieces quickly.

Which isn't what I replied to. He said teams took 20 seconds to get objects, which I interpret to mean, "on average it took teams 20 seconds to acquire a single game piece in each of the last 4 years". This statement is completely wrong based on even the weakest events I attended last season (I attended 11 events over the preseason, season, and off season. I think Ed is one of the few people in FRC who saw more events than I did).

My point is, if I assume a reasonable distribution of team skills, placing the average at 20 seconds is horribly wrong. There are certainly teams that took that long or longer, but I wouldn't claim that the average for acquiring game pieces is 20 seconds each.

[Laaba 80]

Which isn't what I replied to. He said teams took 20 seconds to get objects, which I interpret to mean, "on average it took teams 20 seconds to acquire a single game piece in each of the last 4 years". This statement is completely wrong based on even the weakest events I attended last season (I attended 11 events over the preseason, season, and off season. I think Ed is one of the few people in FRC who saw more events than I did).

My point is, if I assume a reasonable distribution of team skills, placing the average at 20 seconds is horribly wrong. There are certainly teams that took that long or longer, but I wouldn't claim that the average for acquiring game pieces is 20 seconds each.

I took the "maybe in Minnesota" as an unnecessary shot against our region. Had you said this instead I wouldn't have posted.

[Andrew Schreiber]

I took the "maybe in Minnesota" as an unnecessary shot against our region. Had you said this instead I wouldn't have posted.

Poster is from a team that has only competed for two years and only once outside of MN. Presumed data set was limited.

[zinthorne]

I think that the really good teams will be able to play all three positions, and that good teams will be able to stack from the feeder station and the land fill. I think that one role that alot of people arent thinking of very higly is just a support robot, that cannot stack well or do rc well. I think an ideal third pick would be a robot that can get atleast one to two rc from the landfill in auto, and then be very good at organizing totes for the really good stackers to speed up their ability to get totes.

[IKE]

While Caleb may have overstated the acquisition time, he may not be as far off as many are claiming. Through weeks 3 last year, the average alliance score was roughly 80 pts. During the match, there were 7 20 second periods last year. We will assume (falsely) that on average no points in auto mode. Scenario 1, 1 team does 8 cycles scoring 10 pts/cycle, and thus it would be 17.5 seconds per cycle. I really only saw this attempted by 1 robot last year during week 1. It was an amazing flurry of activity, but frankly a pretty mediocre score. In this scenario, there was very little time in the act of scoring (couple seconds), and the transition (drive time) was roughly 45 feet which took another 5-6 seconds. Thus the waiting on the HP to run around and load them was around 8 seconds which could arguably be considered acquiring.
Another scenario would be the Pass and high score. This is worth 20 points. This would only be 4 cycles which would be 35 seconds per cycle. Assuming scoring was not much different (a few seconds), then this effort would have about 30 seconds for acquire, transit, pass (another form of acquire) and final transit. If I give 5x2 seconds for transit, that leaves 20 seconds for an acquire and a pass which is arguably an acquire also. This would be 10 seconds on average for both of those actions.

If you run any higher score per cycle scenario, you get a lower cycle count and a higher "acquire" time per cycle relative to these "average" matches. this is also true of any scoring relative to auton. Using The Blue alliance, these average matches and lowering scoring accounted for 44% of matches, and the next bin higher accounts for 57% of matches.

So, while 20 seconds might be high, it isn't a 10x multiplier like many on CD here are claiming. I would argue to many that if you really take a hard look at how long it took your team to run down a loose ball and acquire it, you might be surprised.

Acquisition is often like other scoring. People tend to remember the fastest or best performance and ignore the time they spent 30 seconds trying to dig a ball out from under a bridge, or jostling the robot for 20 seconds trying to get a jammed frisbee free.

I poke mostly at Schreiber on this one as he is the youngest grumpy old man I know:p . He has worked with enough teams of various skill level to remember that a lot of the middle and lower end of FRC has difficulty acquiring and scoring a game piece more than 2 times per match...
************************************************** ******

The landfill will be a polar experience this year. For many teams, the blocked together distribution of totes might as well be fort knox as it will be difficult for them to get in and acquire without damaging arms and forklifts. I expect teams will learn skills similar to pool players of either "breaking" the pack to more easily pick them off 1 by 1, or learning which ones to go after first. There will likely be a few of the best teams though that will be amazing at acquiring in the landfill. With the slowness of the HP chute door (yes, chute door), some elite teams will develop landfill mining practices that will be jaw dropping. I suspect at least a couple (and likely not more) that will be able to outpace the chute door significantly. I can't wait to see them play the game.

[pandamonium]

I guess I slightly disagree with the the three roles. I think that there will be robots that can score 200 points on there own and see the roles more defined as:
Stacker: makes 5 stacks of 5 or 6 with 3 - 5 with bins.
Bin: Does not actually stack the bins but gathers 2 or more from step and may fill them with litter then puts them directly into stacker.
Landfill pusher: If given the entire match and a full scoring platform a box on wheels with a good driver should be able to score at least 8 totes.

[cadandcookies]

Poster is from a team that has only competed for two years and only once outside of MN. Presumed data set was limited.

While MinuteBots might be new, Caleb is a KnightKrawler alum, and has a few more years than that under his belt.

While I'd agree that extrapolating observations from one region to all others is typically an oversimplification, I'd also say that for most teams it's much more useful to be familiar with your area or the area you're competing in that it is to worry about others. It's pretty clear that there's a different average at, say Silicon Valley Regional than there is at MN 10K Lakes Regional. A team travelling to either region would likely have their assumptions about what an average team can or cannot do challenged.

[MrForbes]

The thing about level of play at different regionals...yeah, there are big differences. We usually have an upper tier robot at the AZ regional, and the same robot gets lost in the crowd at some other regionals we attend.

I'm expecting a lot of teams to take at least 20 seconds to get a tote and put it on a stack (however their robot does that). The talk of 5-6 capped stacks is mostly fantasy for most of the teams at the regionals we'll be playing.

One related aspect is that we are expecting quite a few teams to design for chute loading, so we want to be good at fast landfill loading. There are only two chutes. The landfill is 27' wide.

[Caleb Sykes]

You think it took 20s to pick up game pieces in the last 4 years? Really?


I do think it took on average about 20 seconds for teams to pick up game pieces on the ground. I'll be watching match videos from the past 4 years tonight and posting my observations here. We'll see how bad my memory is then. :)


What leads you to believe that picking up landfill totes will take twice as long as free totes? This is what I'm really curious to know.

Many of the grabbers I have seen grab from the sides of the totes, which would make it easier to grab a tote out in the open than one in the landfill. Visibility will also be a concern for totes in the landfill, since there will be other totes/robots/stacks in between the drivers and the robot.

Which isn't what I replied to. He said teams took 20 seconds to get objects, which I interpret to mean, "on average it took teams 20 seconds to acquire a single game piece in each of the last 4 years". This statement is completely wrong based on even the weakest events I attended last season (I attended 11 events over the preseason, season, and off season. I think Ed is one of the few people in FRC who saw more events than I did).

My point is, if I assume a reasonable distribution of team skills, placing the average at 20 seconds is horribly wrong. There are certainly teams that took that long or longer, but I wouldn't claim that the average for acquiring game pieces is 20 seconds each.

If anything, I would say that the average time would be longer than that, since just 1 team that can't pick up a piece at all would greatly skew the mean. Median would probably be a better measure. I'm curious then, if 20s is so far off, how long do you think it took the median team to pick up game pieces over the past few years? Ignoring 2013 since most teams didn't bother to pick up off of the ground

Poster is from a team that has only competed for two years and only once outside of MN. Presumed data set was limited.

Generally a fair assumption, but I was at 2 regular seasonFRC events last year, as well as championships and 2 offseason events, and I spent most of my weekends livestreaming events. MN certainly is below average relative to other regions, although we are getting better.

I do tend to be very pessimistic in my predictions of game scores and robot abilities, but I don't think this has anything to do with me being in MN. It probably is more just me trying to counteract the kids on my team who predict that average teams will make 6-tote stacks in under 30 seconds.:eek:

[lamk]

I do tend to be very pessimistic in my predictions of game scores and robot abilities, but I don't think this has anything to do with me being in MN. It probably is more just me trying to counteract the kids on my team who predict that average teams will make 6-tote stacks in under 30 seconds.:eek:

We have ask a student to simulate a robot, with perfect vision and perfect coordination, it takes 35 seconds to stack a tote of six from the feeding station and bring in to the scoring area and back. I expect a robot at the regional level to take at least twice that much time to do it. A lot of students really underestimate the amount of time require to do one cycle in a real competition.

[MrJohnston]

We have ask a student to simulate a robot, with perfect vision and perfect coordination, it takes 35 seconds to stack a tote of six from the feeding station and bring in to the scoring area and back. I expect a robot at the regional level to take at least twice that much time to do it. A lot of students really underestimate the amount of time require to do one cycle in a real competition.


How many trips back and forth did the student make? In our simulations, the driving to and from the feeder station (and lining up properly) takes the most time. An internal-stacking robot only needs to make one round trip. With a fast intake, it can stack totes as quickly as they can be sent through the chute. We are aiming for creating stacks 5/6 tall with bins on top in under 30 seconds. I would anticipate seeing one or two robots with (close to) this capability at every competition. I am hoping that ours is one of those.....

The "average" robot will be different...

[Snowfire]

There are advantages and disadvantages to each place you can get totes from. I think you should get totes from wherever you can figure out how to get them quickly, and make stacks with them, that you can top with a container. Since there are so many ways to do that, and there are a lot of totes in each location, it's kind of pointless to worry too much about which is "best".

Exactly. Our team is going to work on dropping totes from HP area and from landfill. Our thoughts are that if we can do both, then if our alliance partners can only do one, we can divide and conquer, getting more points and staying out of each others way

[c.shu]

I think most people are overestimating the difficulty of picking up totes from the landfill. From the little experimenting I have done we have found some ways that are simple, but effective. I would predict that a full 6 tote cycle with a container could be done in 30-40 seconds. This puts one robots score potential at 108 pts if you assume 3 cycles in 2 minutes and no litter since you are so far from the HP. (168 with a 3 tote auton and coop ;) )

[JesseK]

My predictions: yes, getting totes from the landfill is a viable strategy, even without knowing how the game will play out.

I think this year's Regional elims will come down to the state of the field after autonomous. Teams with little to no controlled autonomous will aim to keep the field as clear as possible in order to minimize obstacles around the scoring platforms. Alliances with an "ok" autonomous that litter the field will be slowed enough that they will be easily passed by 4 other alliances in QF's. Alliances with great, or at least clean, autonomous routines will have a very easy advantage in QF's, and probably also SF's.

Assuming a clean autonomous (RC's upright, not in the immediate vicinity of the first teleop actions; yellow totes aren't in the way either), I think it is much more difficult for forklifts with arms to deal with the field than the HP loading. The driver has to be pretty precise to break up & stack totes since they're at all different kinds of angles.

I think forklift hooks will be much better at the landfill totes than forklift arms in the early weeks, but only if the driver has something to help square up to the totes. After all, the hooks have a lift obscuring the driver's vision and precision alignment will be tricky if the hook depends on an exact center alignment. Forklift hooks also have to deal with tote sag, but there are some pretty nifty passive ways to do that.

Towards the end of the season, most teams will have figured out the tricks of the field to maximize the points their robot gets. This will help in quals where there are 3 robots who like HP loading, for example.