Who has last move in Auto setup?
 

If I am setting up my robot to be a goalie, and I know my opponent needs to drive straight to the goal in order to score, of course I will try to position in front of them. They will of course try to not let me position in front of them and move their robot. I will in turn move mine and the dance will begin.

I know G6 says that being indecisive about where to position my robot will result in being disabled but who is really being indecisive? Me or my opponent? In my opinion I am not decisive at all. I know exactly where I want to be, in front of them :D

Re: Who has last move in Auto setup?
 

I would say you. You moved your robot after being set up. They moved again, then you moved a second time. I'm not official in any way, shape, or form.

That said... the GDC's response will probably be "We cannot comment on game-specific scenarios." Or something to that effect.

Re: Who has last move in Auto setup?
 

If I were a referee (Which I am obviously not) and were presented with that scenario, I would have penalized both teams, because they were both disrupting the flow of the match schedule. However, I am neither a referee, a member of the GDC, or even close to being official. My advice should be taken with a grain of salt.

Re: Who has last move in Auto setup?
 

This seems like a pretty reasonable and important question. Previous games have specified rules for who gets the last right to move, so I'd expect a clarification on this. My guess is that either offensive robots get the last opportunity, or that it will arbitrarily go to one alliance (red) in qualifications and then to the higher ranked alliance in eliminations.

Re: Who has last move in Auto setup?
 

Why not build a robot that detects the offensive robot and moves (autonomously) to block its shot? Makes the OP moot, and maybe you can block all three...

Re: Who has last move in Auto setup?
 

seems dangerous if they can alter their shot by a couple of inches on a diagonal. . . also 1676 sounds dangerous. . . interesting that a team is considering the goalie, can I ask the likelyhood you are going through with that. . . much props if you do

Re: Who has last move in Auto setup?
 

If you were asking about my team in specifically I would say there is a very little chance we do this. We would also as DonRotolo said, just use vision tracking to follow the other robot to block them. It is still a net negative as we would only be able to block a 15 or 20 point shot, as opposed to getting 25 points ourselves if we were to drive and make a goal in the hot zone. As a coach it is my job to think of these things to find out if they would be legal. If we are paired in quals with a robot that cannot move and can't even get the 5 "free" points for driving forward I would definitely want them positioned in front of our opponent. A little scouting will tell you the bots that must drive straight forward to shoot so you can just park where it will interfere most with them. I'm just curious who gets that last important move of their robot because it's potentially a 20 point game changer.

Re: Who has last move in Auto setup?
 

Our team was discussing this, and came to a general agreement that we could not do this before the opponent shot. however, if you were postitioned to the side of a bot, you may able to figure out how far away you had to be from the offensive bot to move sideways and knock the shot away.


*inserts 2cents*

Re: Who has last move in Auto setup?
 

genius - maybe use a simple proximity detector pointing down the field tuned to pick up objects closer than the truss

Re: Who has last move in Auto setup?
 

I think the OP has the more realistic scenario in mind where you take an under performing robot and convert it to goalie duty. If you have the capability to program a robot to intercept shots, you should probably be programming it on offense.

If you happen to have a robot on your alliance that cannot score offensively, and can mount an 8' pole to it and stick a corner in the goalie zone in front of your opponent it might have some value. Especially since the average robot will be probably just drive forward and shoot, or even the ones looking for hot goals will be just turning left/right off the center position to shoot.

This would be especially valuable if a top tier robot was able to shoot its own hot ball in < 5 seconds, then intake the goalie's ball and shoot into the other goal. However, that seems like like a tall order.

Regardless (though I expect a clarification allowing the offense last touch), not all field positions are equal. I think placing a disabled robot dead center, as far at as you can while touching the goalie line, and a jury-rigged blocking pole has some value for an essentially very low value team mate. Even if the offense can move, they might not be able to recalculate shot distance to compensate for left/right goals being different distances as they try to shoot the hot one.

Re: Who has last move in Auto setup?
 

Since there would be a max of 3 balls on the field at a time and the balls are fairly big, could you program your robot to detect the balls instead of the robot that way if a team shoots diagonally, your robot will move to the ball instead of just being in front of the robot and hoping it shoots at your pole?

Re: Who has last move in Auto setup?
 

For big kudos, use a Kinect to detect approximate orientation of the robot and eventual approximate trajectory of the ball.

FTC has a 'who sets up first' in the tournament rules. A quick search of the FRC manual has no such rule. Sounds like one may be needed this year. I bet refs will address what 'delay of match' means during the driver's meeting, if this isn't addressed prior to competition.

Even more kudos to the offensive team which has sensors that realize the distance to the wall in the bumper zone is 20-27" shorter than it's supposed to be and thus turns 20-30 degrees prior to the shot. Alternatively, teams could always just aim at the high goal above the low goal. Good luck blocking that.

Re: Who has last move in Auto setup?
 

I'm a rookie in FRC this year, but since you get the match schedule ahead of time, wouldn't you discuss with the teams you are in an alliance with to figure out whose auto mode is the most accurate?

And if everyone believes theirs in the best, do the individual scores for each team per match matter in overall ranking?

Or if you are worried about the other alliance blocking your shot, there's a rule stating that we can't pass under the truss until auto mode is over, so why be worried?

I might've misunderstood the thread, so please correct me if I'm wrong!!

Thanks!

Re: Who has last move in Auto setup?
 

Rule G4 says that you can place your robot in your goalie zone for autonomous, which is where the other alliance would try to score. So you can block a bit of the high goal, and/or some of a low goal.

Still, I agree with what other have said, that defense in autonomous is a fallback for robots that can't score.

Re: Who has last move in Auto setup?
 

You have misunderstood. Go check out the Autonomous Rules section. You can set up your robot in your goalie zone instead of the White Zone if you want. That robot would be able to attempt to block its opponents' shots.

This thread is about the stalemate that could occur between a robot trying to dodge a blocker and that blocker re-positioning to stay in the way.

Re: Who has last move in Auto setup?
 

A well designed and programmed defensive robot could sacrifice scoring 25 points of it's own and play goalie to stop the other alliance from scoring 60 points. That is a 35 point swing. I'm not saying it is likely to happen but it doesn't sound like something that should be dismissed so quickly IMO.

To the OP's question. Our team wondered the same and figured that the head ref should disable both robots.

Re: Who has last move in Auto setup?
 

Successfully defending 3 robots in 5 seconds sounds more like random luck or bad planning. I can't imagine a scenario where all three robots would want to shoot so closely together when a defensive robot shows up in the GOALIE ZONE.

Re: Who has last move in Auto setup?
 

From Team Update #1, added under G4: "TEAMS positioning ROBOTS in the white ZONE have precedence over opponents placing ROBOTS in the GOALIE ZONE."

So, offensive robots have the last move.

Re: Who has last move in Auto setup?
 

I am really hoping to see at least one team use the Kinect in the AUTO mode to be a wicked awesome goalie. Since previous games have had little interaction between robots in AUTO, there was never any huge need to do this, but a solid goalie with a human moving it around with the Kinect has the potential to be spectacular for this game.

Re: Who has last move in Auto setup?
 

I don't think this is possible for this year, there aren't any Kinect stations. Maybe you could use a Kinect on the robot to do vision processing?

Re: Who has last move in Auto setup?
 

I believe that you can still incorporate a Kinect into your driver station but it is your responsibility to make sure that the area is clear so that you can control it. There will be no designated area like in 2012.

Re: Who has last move in Auto setup?
 

This should cleared up by today's Team Update:
Emphasis mine.

Re: Who has last move in Auto setup?
 

I really dislike the word choice with regard to 'precedence.'

It means that the goalie robots have to set up first, letting the auto shooters see what they have to deal with.

However, the word precedence implies 'going first,' so it's possible to misread the rule by thinking that robots can be placed in the white zone first.

So, just for the sake of clarification, the rule means that goalie robots will have to set up first.

Re: Who has last move in Auto setup?
 

Wicked awesome goalie is just what our team has set out to build .We are a rookie team and realized that if we did only one thing well and benefited the teams with more experience and money we might be a sought after commodity.
We have a blocking pole that can deploy to 112 inches in seconds and we also have blocking flaps that extend over the top and front of the low goal 19.5 inches to prevent top and front shots. We are having some trouble with the kinect programming as we are mounting 3 kinects on our bot to detect incoming balls from multiple angles and react to block. Has any team ever used multiple kinects in this way before that you have seen ? Our team is comprised of all programming students and we are programming in Java .

Re: Who has last move in Auto setup?
 

My original post was referring to the fact that you could theoretically use the Kinect to block balls in AUTO by setting up the Kinect in front of your drivers and letting one of them control the robot during this time.

This is a much easier challenge than vision tracking since the WPILib still has support for driver-side Kinect usage. If you have any questions about that, you can post them here or PM me, since I know a bit about that.

I have never seen a team use 3 Kinects to vision track moving objects. In fact, I have never seen any team ever successfully vision track any moving system. In my opinion, there are usually other less aggressive ways to improve your robot that you could be spending your time on. Unless your team has a large group of very experienced programmers who have a lot of time on their hands, I would strongly advise you not to go down this route, especially since you are a rookie team.

I would encourage you to attempt to utilize the Kinect in autonomous on the driver's side, but not for dynamic 3D vision-tracking. That sounds like it could instead be a really fun off-season project if people are interested. Why don't you focus on being really good at possessing the ball quickly and easily? A solid goalie that can quickly get an ASSIST will certainly be in the elimination rounds at any competition, especially if said goalie can block AUTO shots.