Re: Team 254 Presents: Skyfire
 

I wholeheartedly agree, that was a great match.

Re: Team 254 Presents: Skyfire
 

It takes a lot of tuning to get these wheeled shooters to shoot accurately. Especially with the amount of ball variation that is out there....not to mention the field crew switching old balls for new ones whenever they feel like it.

We have been to 3 competitions and are just now getting our shooter near the accuracy that we were planning for when we designed it. We did not shoot very well at our first event either, it just so happened neither did anyone else.

I am sure with some dedicated tuning, 254 will have this awesome machine knocking down shots very soon.

Re: Team 254 Presents: Skyfire
 

Agreed it took Jared and our programming team a very long time to hit a "sweet spot" which could handle both new and old basketballs. Even with this tuning, you will still have a random undershot or overshot, once in a while.
We also found in Boston (the hard way) that the adjustment process also needs to take wheel wear into account. After 36 matches our wheel had degraded to the point where the COF and compression was not at its original specs.
That being said 254 is obviously the kind of team that is going to continuously and consistently improve right up through St. Louis. It is just a matter of time and "piano tuning". Good luck this weekend.

Re: Team 254 Presents: Skyfire
 

Yes, but remember that you're comparing 254 at their first event to 67, 341, 1114 & 2056 at their third events. I know I'm basically restating what Adam and Al have already said, but this game requires an insane amount of tweaking. We were pretty embarrassed by our shooting performance in Week 2 at GTR East; since that time we've been working non stop to get things perfect, and our shooting percentage stats reflect this. The Poofs are by far the best team in FIRST at in season adjustments. Look for their accuracy to hit a crescendo in St. Louis.

Re: Team 254 Presents: Skyfire
 

I could not agree any more with what Karthik siad. In Orlando we had the same issue. Making the smallest changes made a world of difference. 254 will be firing on all cylinders next comp.

Re: Team 254 Presents: Skyfire
 

I'm scared now. The question is: How much change can they do in 4 days? Usually, they have a few weeks between competitions. Now they have just about a day left.

Looks like we'll see soon!

Re: Team 254 Presents: Skyfire
 

What is there to be scared about? They already won a competition "not firing on all cylinders". No doubt in my mind that they will be much improved at CVR. Good luck keeping up

Re: Team 254 Presents: Skyfire
 

In Orlando we were 5-5 73 hp 50 bp 69 tp

In Lenape we were 10-2 175 hp 100 bp 264 tp

In Mount Olive we were 11-1 167hp 120 bp 300 tp

254 is going to make the changes it needs and i am sure you will see simular results. It's crazy what small things make you win and lose.

Re: Team 254 Presents: Skyfire
 

Watching 254's accuracy improve match by match on Fri & Sat at Silicon Valley was very inspiring. I can only imagine how deadly it will be at CVR with multiple days to work on it.

Re: Team 254 Presents: Skyfire
 

Something we noticed during our testing and then at our regionals is that alot of robots used shooters with curved hoods. We noticed that with curved hoods that the ball variances caused large variances in shooting distance. When we tested with a straight hood with no curve, we saw much better results, and every shot with any ball was consistent to about a foot. We knew with tuning we could get a curved hood to work, but we went with straight because we were able to tune it on bag day right before bagged, and have not changed the shooting code since then.

Re: Team 254 Presents: Skyfire
 

254 works, at a minimum, as hard as anyone else in FIRST. I've seen them pull off in 4 days what some teams can't do in 4 months of competition season.


I'm looking forward to watching them on the webcast this weekend. Go Poofs!

-Brando

Re: Team 254 Presents: Skyfire
 

You know it's bad when we are critiquing a team that has already won a regional. Go Poofs!

Re: Team 254 Presents: Skyfire
 

Can I get an encore?

Re: Team 254 Presents: Skyfire
 

How is your wiring so clean and invisible?

Re: Team 254 Presents: Skyfire
 

Clean is through experience. Invisible is because they run a lot through their frame. Not sure how much they did this year though.