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[FTC]: FTC Block Party! Official Thread
I'm not in FTC, but I thought a thread should be started about the 2014 FTC game: Block Party!
My initial thoughts on the game: Raising the flag and hanging will be among some of the biggest scoring opportunities. Balancing the high goals is a big opportunity too (pushing into the low goals seems like less of an advantage). Any other thoughts? |
Re: [FTC]: FTC Block Party! Official Thread
Raising the flag seems like a pretty easy task to me for the amount of points it's worth. Also having done a VEX game involving cubes before, I think it will be very easy to score cubes. Balancing the goals sounds fun.
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Re: [FTC]: FTC Block Party! Official Thread
Auto looks big this year, and more manageable/doable than last year.
Does anyone have projected high scores? |
Re: [FTC]: FTC Block Party! Official Thread
I think that swerve drive can have lots of advantages for this game!
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Re: [FTC]: FTC Block Party! Official Thread
I think that it will have a great advantage in Teleop as well. It could be much easier to put equal amount of blocks on both sides of the balance. Also swerve drive does have its advantage against defense in FTC as well.Also I think that it could be a great help with aligning with the corner flags.
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Re: [FTC]: FTC Block Party! Official Thread
This reminds me of Rebound Rumble.
1) Valuable end games that are pretty doable (but not as easy as balancing). 2) Getting 2 robots hanging is a lot harder than 1 (like triple balancing). 3) You need the right combination of robots on your elimination rounds alliance for the end game. 4) Teleop will become more important at higher levels, even though end game might dominate a lot of the earlier qualifier rounds. |
Re: [FTC]: FTC Block Party! Official Thread
First, here's a fairly bare-bones google doc I made breaking down scoring for the game (just create a copy to use it yourself; comment any issues you find please!). A couple small things about that-- auto scoring is worth 42-3 or 22-3 points because the block is scored after teleop too. I'll also be editing this to make it more intuitive to use and to comply with any rule changes that are introduced, as well as adding estimate points for different "archetypes" of robots.
Based on that spreadsheet (which hopefully isn't too far off of reality), here's my general predictions: 1: A single robot should be able to score 20-40 points in autonomous mode fairly consistently (plus another 20 if they can do IR). This of course assumes that the robot is designed to quickly complete the autonomous mode, which most likely won't be the case for teams with pincer-arms. 2: Flag raising is easy. Based on experiments with the field at our kickoff event, it takes about 17 turns to raise the flag all the way. If you can manage 2 turns a second, it's less than 10 seconds for raising the flag. 3: Balance bonus is awesome. It provides an opportunity for teams to really jump up from behind. 4: Balancing is potentially worth more than hanging and flag raising combined. 5: Scoring on the lower level looks surprisingly profitable-- those count as block points too if it's balanced! 6: Defence will be difficult. Pendulums are almost as bad as pyramids from Ultimate Ascent, and the flag is even more restrictive. Those are my thoughts right now. I'm probably going to be thinking though mechanisms and how to play the game all night, so I might add to this. |
Re: [FTC]: FTC Block Party! Official Thread
Hi there,
Shameless plug! A few Pigmice alumni and current team members have gotten together for the Autodesk Week 1 FTC Build. We will be sharing our take on the game as well as our design, prototyping and building process in a live stream as well as video clips posted separately. http://www.autodeskweek1.com/#!home/mainPage See ya all around! Garrett |
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Re: [FTC]: FTC Block Party! Official Thread
Hmm... After last season for FTC I was able to catch the very end of the season of an FRC team. With springs allowed in the game manual (It may always be that way, we were a rookie team last year and everything was a scramble) I hope that we can implement some lifting system similar to the one we used for Ultimate Ascent.
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Re: [FTC]: FTC Block Party! Official Thread
I wish I had some affiliation with FTC this year... I've built a bot for a somewhat similar VEX game. :rolleyes:
Check out WPI Savage Soccer 2012. The game was played with wooden cubes. We had one of the highest scoring bots. Here's the link to a video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMWYcsjCLNw I think autonomous could be a huge advantage in this game. Would it be possible to collect a full load of cubes and score them in autonomous? |
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Re: [FTC]: FTC Block Party! Official Thread
Is there anything in the rules about raising flags in auton/raising your opposing alliance's flag? That could be done in auton to sabotoge the other alliance's end game.
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Re: [FTC]: FTC Block Party! Official Thread
<GS6> states "During the Autonomous period, robots can only score pre-loaded blocks. If any other blocks other than the two autonomous blocks are scored by an Alliance during the autonomous period, their autonomous period block score is zero...." Would it be possible to score in the opposing alliance pendulum/floor goal so that they score three blocks, thus making their autonomous score zero? ...Or would it put our alliance score at zero?
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<GS6> During the Autonomous Period, Robots can only Score pre-loaded Blocks. If any Blocks other than the two Autonomous Blocks are Scored by an Alliance during the Autonomous Period, their Autonomous Period Block Score is zero. They can, however, still get a Bridge Bonus. |
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If you scored your Autonomous block in their goal, I'd bet you just gave them an extra 22-43 points! |
Re: [FTC]: FTC Block Party! Official Thread
Anyone else play around with a "max score calculation"?
If my team's assumptions are correct we calculated it to be 705. This of course is all 100 blocks scored in outer goals, max score in autonomous (both scored in IR outer goal and both fully on bridge), and an endgame where the flag is raised fully and both robots hang/hang on each other and then the pole. This would leave the other alliance with a scoring potential max of 175. Let me know if we went somewhere wrong in the math. Thanks! |
Re: [FTC]: FTC Block Party! Official Thread
Has anyone been successful in printing the one page game description?
http://www.usfirst.org/sites/default...e_One_Page.pdf I've tried a number of things and there seems to be an error in the PDF. I can read it on the screen, but not print it no matter which machine/OS/etc I try. |
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Penalties are handled different this year. Penalties are added to the opposing Alliance's score. In theory this means the max score is unlimited. Ranking points shouldn't be affected by penalties. Quote:
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Re: [FTC]: FTC Block Party! Official Thread
Very true! We were not thinking about penalties. Glad to hear we are all on the same page as far as the max "scorable" score being 705.
On a different note, has anyone with the new AndyMark playing field played around with the dimensions for building the flagpoles? The building guide says some of the geometery may be different but does not specify as to what could change. Ideas? |
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It's even more far fetched than getting 50 blocks in one of the outside Pendulum Goals, but we're dealing with theoretical possibilities. :D |
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In practice, I would say that if you're careful you could realistically get 25 per bin. So the maximum feasible score would be: Auto: 80 block + 40 bridge = 120 Teleop: (25*3+25*2)*2 Block +50% balance bonus = 375 35 Flag Score 100 Hanging Score Total = 630 |
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Stacking blocks I too got 3x3x3 for 27 blocks. On the second test, I gently tossed blocks in from the side. 8 settled in nice and flat on the bottom. Then the next 2 sat on an angle between two of the base rows of blocks and supported by the first 8. I continued to toss blocks one at a time and it settled out with a pattern that allowed me to toss 35 blocks with 33 locking into the bin. After that they would slide off the stack. Your mileage may vary! It all depends on how the first blocks start stacking on the bottom tier of blocks. |
Re: [FTC]: FTC Block Party! Official Thread
I really like this challenge.
Because of the variety of ways in which a robot can score points this year (the bar, the flag, blocks, and autonomous) I feel that a number of strategies will emerge. For example, a team could play defense the entire match, and then score both the flag and on the bar. Or, a team could entirely focus on scoring blocks for the entire match. Or, a team could make a 60 point autonomous (by scoring your cube in the beacon basket and parking on the ramp) and then play defense. This is opposed to last year, where hanging as many rings as possible was the only viable strategy (lifting just didn't seem to be worthwhile enough last year). |
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Re: [FTC]: FTC Block Party! Official Thread
If your team is considering some sort of "grappling hook" design to lift your bot, and you're thinking of launching it from your bot over the pullup bar, think again. The FTC officials put the kibosh on that idea on their forum here...
http://ftcforum.usfirst.org/showthre...ull=1#post7285 - FTC Team #6389 |
Re: [FTC]: FTC Block Party! Official Thread
I was wondering if corner braces were allowed as appropriate building material in this years FTC challenge. The manual states that fasteners and structural materials are allowed, but there is no specific rule for corner braces. If not would an individual have to make their own from raw materials or is there another alternative?
These are the braces we would like to use: http://www.homedepot.com/p/Everbilt-...2#.UlWJCtKsjTo Many thanks! Team 6169 The countdown to world domination has begun...... |
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