What did we learn - FIRST Scrimmages?

[Mr MOE]

To all those who participated in or viewed any of the many scrimmages held today:

What did you learn about "Breakaway" today?

Thank you to all teams and volunteers who made these events possible!

[baruffir]

Charge the battery for the Classmate!!

We were at the Suffield Shakedown today, about to start the second finals match after winning the first. Right before the match started, our Classmate died. Luckily we were able to borrow another team's battery for that match, and won.

I can't remember the team number, but HUGE thanks to whoever loaned us their classmate battery.

[ttldomination]

I learned that in the anticipation of scrimmage, the team works a lot faster than usually expected. We hooked all of the electrical board, pneumos, built bumpers, mounted a roller, and tested some other mechanisms. Most we've ever done on a Saturday.

[gorrilla]

We found our ball magnet needs to be faster

[chris1592]

We found out that we can drive against 1557 and nearly flip them over just by pushing them in low gear :D

[JaneYoung]

That robots are making it over the bump.
That robots are attempting to make it over the bump and may need a sign on the bottom like the one in the game animation.
That the students and mentors that I talked to, were enjoying themselves and this awesome opportunity.
That scrimmages offer opportunities to rethink things.
That rookies rock.


Thank you, FRC 2158 and FRC 2881 - for hosting the third annual Austin Robot Roundup at Anderson High School.

Jane

[Merle]

While I posted this issue in another thread, I will state it here as well... If you are experiencing any watchdog timer issues, no matter how infrequent, you must correct this issue before competition. The field control system shut down our communication with the robot in multiple rounds due to watchdog errors. You are not able to regain communcation for the rest of the round. The good news is we were able to resolve our watchdog errors by removing all, but our basic code (ie. removed camera, gyro, and other code, leaving only our joystick/drive and kicker motor controls in the Teleop.vi) and were able to get a few complete rounds in without errors. We are using LabView.

Merle Yoder
GRUNTS Team #3146

[KC1AJT]

although i was not at a scrimmage, i watched a webcast with a few members of my team. we found and believe that some teams try to rush their designs to make it to these scrimmages. please please, in the future meet earlier in the season, meet at least 3 times a week, have a commited team, and you should have everything working fine for these scrimmages. we only saw 1 robot hang in this webcast and only 1 autonomous goal (for however long we were watching). so i urge teams to let the drivers and programmers hav the robot for the next few days before ship :rolleyes:

[V_Chip]

although i was not at a scrimmage, i watched a webcast with a few members of my team. we found and believe that some teams try to rush their designs to make it to these scrimmages. please please, in the future meet earlier in the season, meet at least 3 times a week, have a commited team, and you should have everything working fine for these scrimmages. we only saw 1 robot hang in this webcast and only 1 autonomous goal (for however long we were watching). so i urge teams to let the drivers and programmers hav the robot for the next few days before ship :rolleyes:

What webcast were you watching?
And I also agree with the fact that some teams rush their designs in order to attend these scrimmages. IMHO (even if you do not have a working robot) it would be wise to attend for the advantage of observing how the game is played, learn more about other teams' designs, and scout out the competition.

Looking forward to the start of the competition season.

[BradMello]

IMHO (even if you do not have a working robot) it would be wise to attend for the advantage of observing how the game is played, learn more about other teams' designs, and scout out the competition.

He cannot be more correct, getting to know your opponents before competitions is key. The more knowledge you have about a team (their strategies, driver style) the better chance you have of beating them.

[KC1AJT]

What webcast were you watching?
And I also agree with the fact that some teams rush their designs in order to attend these scrimmages. IMHO (even if you do not have a working robot) it would be wise to attend for the advantage of observing how the game is played, learn more about other teams' designs, and scout out the competition.

Looking forward to the start of the competition season.
we were watching the Suffield Shakedown. IMHO a scrimmage may be fun and can help with scouting, nothing can replace the ussual 15-20 hours of driving practice my team has

[V_Chip]

He cannot be more correct, getting to know your opponents before competitions is key. The more knowledge you have about a team (their strategies, driver style) the better chance you have of beating them.

Or considerations for a possible alliance . . .

:D

[Mr MOE]

Thanks to everyone who posted their learnings so far. Anyone else have any observations from the scrimmages?

[darkember]

I was a little surprised with how low the scores were. I did notice that a lot of the scoring was done by robots pushing the ball into the goal instead of kicking in. Also, I noticed that defense was a pretty big factor too.

[Chris is me]

We found out that if you want to play at a scrimmage, you need to build your robot faster, plan it out better, and not mount your battery in a manner that causes your electrical board to fail when you fly up a bump.

While technically not at a scrimmage, but just on a field, we also figured out the tunnel is not a terrible zone transfer method, but it's very vulnerable to defense like bump climbing is.

[AcesJames]

I learned that our team overestimated the necessary drivetrain to get over the bump. We made an articulating drive with 6 wheels, 16 sprockets, and 27 feet of chain, and we were going over the bump easily....but so were all of the other teams at Shakedown. Teams with the kitbot frame and 4 mecanum wheels were going over without too much trouble at all. 230, which was arguably the best robot there, had that exact setup.

However, I also learned that having 6 sticky wheels did NOT hamper our ability to turn, and it helped a whole lot in being able to push around other bots. It was literally like a warm knife through butter. Also, in learning things about our robot, we are then able to assess what we can and cannot do, and where we can and cannot play the best on the field. As it is, our kicker will be great picking up balls that were launched from the far zone, and just popping them quickly into our goals.

[SilentHAWK6]

Where any of the cast saved/recorded?

[Dr Theta]

We found that the ability to move between zones consistently and quickly can be the key for a successful match, that controlling a majority of the balls on the field doesn't always lead to high scores (not that it hurts your chances:D), and once again the drivetrain of the robot is the most important design feature; being able to go where you want in a quick and efficient manner will once again play a huge role.

[Nickel5]

I found:

Not much travel over the bumps
Seemed to be more beneficial to the other alliance than to your own due to open field section.

Low scoring

High score was 6, a more average score was 2
Hard to push a ball over the bump
Just ended up being caught under the frame.

Once a ball is up against the alliance station walls, it's dead. If it's against the side walls in the middle section, it's also dead.
Autonomous is very important because it's a unimpeded chance to score
Hard to manipulate ball, even with ball control

[sportman3333333]

Did anyone manage to find the e-stop button at the driver stations at Suffield Shakedown. Team 999 has lost the stop button. If anyone has it, please pm me.

Thanks

[Michael Corsetto]

I learned how important ball possession is and how not-so-important bump climbing is. We would climb the bump max once per match and still be shooting balls all match. Teams that lacked ball possessors were
A) Having trouble lining up kicks and
B) Taking lots of pictures of our front roller :p

We also learned the importance of lining up quickly, and you can miss to the wall slightly and still make a bounce shot.

[O'Sancheski]

What webcast were you watching?
And I also agree with the fact that some teams rush their designs in order to attend these scrimmages. IMHO (even if you do not have a working robot) it would be wise to attend for the advantage of observing how the game is played, learn more about other teams' designs, and scout out the competition.

Looking forward to the start of the competition season.

He cannot be more correct, getting to know your opponents before competitions is key. The more knowledge you have about a team (their strategies, driver style) the better chance you have of beating them.

a very good point... Team Paragon didn't have a working robot to go to the Suffield Shakedown but our team still showed up... i went up to see how the game would be developed and see all the cool robots... to my surprise 90% of the teams had a robot under 18" and had Mecanum wheels... i left half way through the day to go back to the build site to work on the robot... but the funny thing is, Team Paragon won the Spirit Award and we didn't even have a robot there... good job to all teams that participated and good luck to evryone

[MrForbes]

I learned how important ball possession is and how not-so-important bump climbing is.

I learned how many teams did not realize how important ball possession is.

[Mike Betts]

I was a little surprised with how low the scores were. I did notice that a lot of the scoring was done by robots pushing the ball into the goal instead of kicking in. Also, I noticed that defense was a pretty big factor too.

Billy,

Low scores are quite normal for a scrimmage. Scores will increase as the season progresses.

Mike

[dtengineering]

Did anyone see a robot hang from another robot?

Jason

[KC1AJT]

Did anyone see a robot hang from another robot?

Jason
havnt seen it happen Jason i dont think we'll see much of it until Atlanta either

[bobosalad]

i learned that many robots (at the eagan invitational) do not have climbers, autonomous, or do too much at all. but as always there were the few that stuck out and preformed well. and it didnt help that the communications werent 100% solid.

[jamie_1930]

Today at the Rally we realized how much the rollers, everyone was experimenting with, suck. Literally I don't recall a robot with a roller, including us, not having at least one occasion where they sucked the ball into there robot. Luckily though we hadn't made a very good backcover for the robot to prevent balls from entering the back, so when we did suck up a ball we drove forward and pooped it out. Also thank you to 1511 for hosting the Rally once again as always it was a blast and this time we actually got some drive time instead of just working on the bot in the cafeteria the entire time.

[Katie_UPS]

I learned to bring tools. We thought "oh, the other teams will have a bunch of tools, we'll be fine". So did most everybody else. Also, I decided that having a robot that works (or atleast drives) is a key factor to getting on the field (no such luck for us :/).

[waialua359]

I learned how many teams did not realize how important ball possession is.

Jim,
TOTALLY agree with you.
This is why we are still scrambling wondering if we should powdercoat or not tonight or tomorrow, with less programming and driver practice.

We spent 1 1/2 weeks trying to find the right speed, motor, device, frame stop, etc. that we felt was to our satisfaction on possessing the ball.

Its not perfect, but with driver practice in how they turn and do reverse turns, it certainly improves.

One of the schools here had a scrimmage, and that was the biggest problem.........good ball possessing.

[waialua359]

Once a ball is up against the alliance station walls, it's dead. If it's against the side walls in the middle section, it's also dead.
Autonomous is very important because it's a unimpeded chance to score
Hard to manipulate ball, even with ball control

thanks for confirming what we were afraid of.
With bumpers on and being high off the ground, how the heck do you get it from the wall, without a manipulator that wacks it back into play?

I've seen videos of vacuum suction cups that work well, once it grabs the ball. But without rollers, it would make it almost impossible. Those videos showed it with their bumper off.

Kind of reminds me of 2008, comparing teams that had the top rollers vs. those that did not. We didnt unfortunately.

[MrForbes]

This is why we are still scrambling wondering if we should powdercoat or not tonight or tomorrow, with less programming and driver practice.

Our robot frame is rusty steel....oh well...at least it can hold onto the ball reasonably well.

[Karibou]

I'm seeing a lot of mentions of kicking and scoring and traversing the bump, which is really good information for teams like my own, who still have some room to make changes to our robot before our week 1 event. What ended up happening with hanging - successful, didn't attempt, failure?

[commodoredl]

I saw at least one team at the Rochester Rally deploy a successful winch system and Elevate themselves (378). Team 1507 had a hanging mechanism but I only saw them deploy it once and it was too slow to lift them in the last 20 seconds. A second year team (I think TanX) had a scissor lifting pneumatic lifter, but they couldn't get the angle right and it looked like they didn't have enough air pressure/battery voltage to fully lift themselves.
I saw a lot of mecanum wheeled robots there. If any teams had a high traction drivetrain, I suspect the defense would be quite effective.
Not many robots were operating on the field, so there weren't many opportunities to see defensive strategies.

[Cyberphil]

I learned how many teams did not realize how important ball possession is.

It is very surprising that many teams did not think of this. We also overlooked the importance of ball manipulation. With the past few games being like they were, it is surprising that many teams overlooked this thing of extreme importance. Each game relies on manipulation of the game pieces. For some reason people think that other aspects are more important, but when you think about it, if you can't posses the ball and aim it, you cannot win easily at all. We figured that out a little too late. :(

[Mr_D_Mentor]

Of the 30 robots at the Suffield Shakedown, there were maybe 5 or 6 that attempted to hook on and elevate. Only a few were successful. Usually it took more than 20 seconds to complete the process.

The matches were low scoring. If that trend continues into the regionals, being able to elevate could be very beneficial.

Our drive teams had a little trouble adjusting to having the robot facing them most of the time.

Going over the bumps was not much trouble.

Balls against the side walls were difficult to break free.

I think there was only one goal scored during autonomous.

[V_Chip]

Of the 30 robots at the Suffield Shakedown, there were maybe 5 or 6 that attempted to hook on and elevate. Only a few were successful. Usually it took more than 20 seconds to complete the process.

The matches were low scoring. If that trend continues into the regionals, being able to elevate could be very beneficial.

Our drive teams had a little trouble adjusting to having the robot facing them most of the time.

Going over the bumps was not much trouble.

Balls against the side walls were difficult to break free.

I think there was only one goal scored during autonomous.

(I also attended the Suffield Shakedown)

I agree; majority of the matches were low scoring and out of the teams that were capable of hanging either struggled or successfully hung but not in the confines of the specified time.

Most of the robots were mechanum but some had difficulty traversing the bump or lining up with the tunnel.

1071: Your robot did well from what I observed.

[Mr_D_Mentor]

Thanks - but we had our share of problems. We spent the whole day today rebuilding the kicker.

[jamie_1930]

I saw at least one team at the Rochester Rally deploy a successful winch system and Elevate themselves (378)..

I saw this and was extremely pleased to see someone hanging out there, but the problem I, and 378, noticed was their arm to elevate themselves was hanging below the plane of the platform when they were finished. In accordance with the FIRST definition of elevated

ELEVATED: A ROBOT that is completely above the plane of the PLATFORM and in contact with the TOWER shall be considered ELEVATED.

this would mean that they would not be awarded the points for hanging. Although I'm confident that 378 will be able to fix this in the next two days before ship (Yes we're that close and I'm sure everyone is panicking).

If anyone from 378 is reading this and I misinterpreted what was happening please correct me I would hate to have false information on your bot floating around.

[J93Wagner]

At Sussex (a scrimmage in Milwaukee, WI), Team 93 learned that our ball control devices didn't work a single bit. So now we're scrambling to redesign the devices in question. I'm just glad that we know this now rather than after the robot has been shipped!

[GBilletdeaux930]

Through observation, we realized that if you are hanging, be sure you don't make your hanger go too high.

Unfortunately, the one hanging attempt at Sussex (Wisconsin Scrimmage) didn't go so hot... 2062, I give you major props for your hanger, it works magically. But they brought it too high at one point and didn't pull themselves up high enough to get points... Watch that.

Oh, and we learned that no one likes to shoot when we flap a wall in front of their face ;)

[XaulZan11]

Unfortunately, the one hanging attempt at Sussex (Wisconsin Scrimmage) didn't go so hot... 2062, I give you major props for your hanger, it works magically. But they brought it too high at one point and didn't pull themselves up high enough to get points... Watch that.

Somone correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the penalty was because they lifted too early, or extended into 'finale configuration' before the last 20 seconds. I would think they were just making sure they could lift and ignored the penalty.

The reason they were not completely over the platform was because their one hook was not on the bar so the robot was slanted on one side.

Both of these things seem very fixable/avoidable. 2062 had clearly the best/most advanced lifting mechanism at the scimmage. I forsee a lot of sucessful hangs for CORE at Wisconsin.

[FIRSTgirl675]

We learned that:
1.) robots are not as robust as they may seem. One robot at the Fembot's practice snapped their hanging arm in half (which took them 2.5 weeks to build).
2.) Never underestimate the power of your robot, especially during autonomous. You might end up launching over the ramp and into an alliance member's electronics.
3.) Robot problems arise only when you are not at home.

[Kims Robot]

I saw this and was extremely pleased to see someone hanging out there, but the problem I, and 378, noticed was their arm to elevate themselves was hanging below the plane of the platform when they were finished. In accordance with the FIRST definition of elevated


It was not counted by our Ref that time, but they did do it again in another match and their arm did not drop plus they lifted themselves higher. 378 has a very simple & elegant system and I LOVED it :)

What I Learned:

MANY robots got stuck driving up on balls, lots of penalties there
Ball Control will be very clutch, robots that are good at it wont spend time chasing balls
A LOT of kickers broke today, a lot of cool solutions, but a lot of them broke, reliability may be tougher than we thought
We didnt get a chance to see it done, but 1551 had an AWESOME solution for suspending a second robot (I would encourage anyone who saw it to let them keep their secret until week 1) I now think there may be more suspensions before Atlanta
Human players were doing ok, it wasnt too difficult to return balls without fumbles
It is possible to "do it all" - 378 could go over the bump, under the tunnel, kick & hang!! WOW
Saw a lot of mecanum drives done reasonably well, and they were able to climb the bump
Even really low robots can flip over going over the bump!! We saw two 16" tall robots flip over and turtle(on their backs)!!
Kicking balls 2 zones wont be as frequent as we thought, only time we saw it done it bounced off the back wall out of the field
FEED YOUR WATCHDOG!! (how annoying to get halfway through a match and get unfed watchdog errors)
FULLY Charged Batteries work best if you expect to make it over the bump!!!
Saw several matches with more penalties than scores, and while I would normally say this would "clean up" after early regionals, I think a lot of it is due to ball incursion & kicker feet getting stuck out, which may not be as easy to fix


Well a HUGE thank you to all of the teams that came out to Rally, we hope you learned as much as we did, and it was GREAT to see everyone!! We love the Rochester teams :) See you all at FLR in a week & a half!!!!!!

[Bomberofdoom]

Last time I didn't feed our Watchdog(last year, my senior year as programming lead), he went crazy and died on us.
I killed the Watchdog. Dangit!!! (Inside joke)

[artdutra04]

thanks for confirming what we were afraid of.
With bumpers on and being high off the ground, how the heck do you get it from the wall, without a manipulator that wacks it back into play?

I've seen videos of vacuum suction cups that work well, once it grabs the ball. But without rollers, it would make it almost impossible. Those videos showed it with their bumper off.A robot that has the ability to strafe (swerve, mecanum) can acquire balls with vacuums sans rollers if it strafes diagonally into them.

[Arefin Bari]

Are there any videos from any of these scrimmages? I (and I am sure others as well) would love to see them.

p.s. - Please take permission from the teams if you are going to post a video of their robot.

[Michael Corsetto]

Are there any videos from any of these scrimmages? I (and I am sure others as well) would love to see them.

p.s. - Please take permission from the teams if you are going to post a video of their robot.

Check out this thread: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=83332

Just a few links provided by squirrel so far...

[Koko Ed]

That alot of teams tha thought they were done still have a long way to go. Thursday will be long and lonely again for us in team que.

[waialua359]

wow,
a post at 4:53am.
At least we got 5 more hours until Monday morning when the sun rises.
We are trying to powdercoat right now, since the team decided to do an all-nighter and got permission to miss school in about 7 hours.:) It sure helps to have our own oven.

Then our programming team arrives at 8am to continue for the next 12 hours................

[Rick]

...Once a ball is up against the alliance station walls, it's dead. If it's against the side walls in the middle section, it's also dead.
...

I have to disagree with you there. This may be true for roller type dribblers, but is in fact easier for vacuum setups.

[Koko Ed]

Another thing we may have learned is due to low scoring perhaps the wonky seeding won't be so painful to deal with after all. While I'm not looking forward to a slew of 1-0 matches I would prefer to not having losing alliances rewarded for being terrible at competing.

[coldfusion1279]

well 1-0 matches doesn't sound like anyone was really all that spectacular... And in this case the winners and losers get the same amount of seeding points (assuming no penalties were called) correct? This would benefit the loser.

Although I agree with the point you are making Koko Ed. Low scores will keep this otherwise confusing scoring system relatively simple.

[Koko Ed]

well 1-0 matches doesn't sound like anyone was really all that spectacular... And in this case the winners and losers get the same amount of seeding points (assuming no penalties were called) correct? This would benefit the loser.

Although I agree with the point you are making Koko Ed. Low scores will keep this otherwise confusing scoring system relatively simple.

But the winner gets the co-opertition bonus (I think it's 3 points). So the winner gets the big advantage there.

[GaryVoshol]

But the winner gets the co-opertition bonus (I think it's 3 points). So the winner gets the big advantage there.

Winner gets their score + 2x losers = 1

Loser gets winner's score = 1

Advantage?