What should a standard "Pass" be?
 

The success of an alliance with this years game is going to be impacted by the compatibility of their robots. So, what system do you think should be used?

Rolling on the floor?
Pushing into the next robot?
Tossing?

It would be awesome if some sort of Standard emerged from all of this.

Re: What should a standard "Pass" be?
 

I spent all day trying to come up with something that could receive both types of passes, but every single one was overly complicated. So it would be nice if one method for passing was agreed upon.

My opinion is tossing because of how similar it would be to shooting. Also this would allow the same system to be used to catch balls tossed over the truss.

Re: What should a standard "Pass" be?
 

Leave the ball on the FIELD, and the other team will pick it up.

:rolleyes:

Re: What should a standard "Pass" be?
 

My ideas for passing were pretty much to point the shooting mechanism at the ground. But I have a feeling that might be a bit too much force.

Otherwise, just pushing the ball.

Re: What should a standard "Pass" be?
 

Passing through human players looks like it will be a very important aspect of this game -- if everyone else recognizes it.

Re: What should a standard "Pass" be?
 

Then that brings up the issue of positioning the shooting and recieving robots. I suppose you could do something with adjusting your location based on the observed trajectory of the ball, but what I would really like to see is the adoption of standard optical reference points on each robot. These could just be four orange stickers placed in a square on the catching side of the robot and could make this sort of alignment infinitely easier.

Of course then you have to get everybody to do it so you can be sure your alliance partners will have them. But considering the difficulty of a successful ariel pass, this could be worth the effort.

Re: What should a standard "Pass" be?
 

No matter what there will be situations in which the ball is on the ground and one of the robots will have to retrieve it. An effective way of retrieving the ball while also counting as an assist might be a sort of flipper that goes under the ball and launches it to your alliance partner to catch.

A standard pass doesn't seem viable, as almost every kind pass will have to be done at some point. What maybe should be standardized is the method in which the robot catches the ball. It'll be a good idea to cooperate to find out which combinations of launchers and catchers might work the best.

Re: What should a standard "Pass" be?
 

mrnoble was amazingly accurate of his prediction on game: mrnoble post

I love his hockey view of the game:

"This year, I think I will be saying that our robot plays hockey. The twist might be that it uses a large (3' diameter?) ball instead of a puck. We will need to cooperate and pass frequently in order to score maximum points."

Shoot the ball off the floor like a hockey player lifts the puck. And... there's going to be a lot of checking.

Re: What should a standard "Pass" be?
 

regarding the passing to your human player, would that not discredit any of the "assists" that would have been built up since the ball went out of bounds? also, could it not also be considered a "consistent removal of the ball from the field of play" possibly resulting in a penalty?

Re: What should a standard "Pass" be?
 

There's nothing that says this.

There's a rule that specifically allows a robot to pass the ball to a human player. (G11 blue box)

Re: What should a standard "Pass" be?
 

I think that any type of "passing" will be acceptable. Actually catching the balls will be extremely difficult this year. I would think that passing will be done either launching or rolling the ball as close as possible to the robot that you are passing to. The receiving robot would need a floor pickup, which will probably be very common this year.

Re: What should a standard "Pass" be?
 

as simple as driving and bumping into it.

Re: What should a standard "Pass" be?
 

Considering defense, my prediction is that a 'standard' pass will happen ground-level and nearly point-blank with very little kinetic energy involved.

Re: What should a standard "Pass" be?
 

A robot that can pick up the ball from the rear and kick it out the front may be advantageous in terms of quickly receiving the passed ball and passing it on. But it would be a bit tricky to implement.

Re: What should a standard "Pass" be?
 

I checked out the post and it seems like he was spot on, except the part about scoring that's easy for the audience to understand!

Re: What should a standard "Pass" be?
 

I think a ball shooter is more reliable, due to the fact that it says in the rules: "Any extension above 60 in. may not exceed a 6 in. diameter vertical cylinder."
It would then be easier to shoot from alliance's zones, but there's also the fact that you need to catch the ball, or at least pick it off the ground.

Re: What should a standard "Pass" be?
 

...

Moved to new thread, under strategy.

Re: What should a standard "Pass" be?
 

The preceding post was an extremely astute analysis of this years game considerations, and the advice for the build approach is spot on, IMO. It was moved to here:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=124067

-Dick Ledford

Re: What should a standard "Pass" be?
 

The infinitely variable power shooter seems like it would be a useful concept to implement in this years game.

-Dick Ledford

Re: What should a standard "Pass" be?
 

I think my post was a bit off topic for this thread. I'll move it over to a new thread.

Re: What should a standard "Pass" be?
 

Teams are failing to realize that this ball is incredibly light. And herding this large clumsy object is not as easy it sounds. It flies off in odd directions. It does not behave like a basketball in rebound rumble. It doesn't like to be herded with bumpers

Re: What should a standard "Pass" be?
 

I came up with this pickup/shooter with the ability to pass. You can also add a hopper to the top to allow robots or human players to pass the ball directly into the shooter. It is quite compact and simple and is linear allowing the robot to drive up to a ball, bull-doze it and shoot it. Also, a simple CMUCam would allow you to track the balls and automatically align the robot so that the pickup would be assisted! I think that this is what we have been waiting for.

Here is the link to it in my CDN.

Also, I have the encrypted manuals in the CDN too. Will that cause any copyright problems?

Re: What should a standard "Pass" be?
 

Thinking more about catching the ball led me to consider the size of the robot. We are allowed to make the extensions very big this year - 20 inches outside the perimeter on all sides simultaneously.

It may make sense to have a big funnel made of two folding arms that pivot on the vertical axis about two adjacent robot corners. These would open to about 80 degrees, for a total width of about 56", or more than twice the ball diameter. The funnel sides could be designed to "trip" and hinge closed towards each other when a sensor plate at the perimeter line is pressed by the ball moving toward the robot.

This could be rather tall as well, giving a very large target area for the robot to make it easy to receive a pass.

Is this nuts?

Re: What should a standard "Pass" be?
 

Yeah, it's nuts. I was thinking the same thing.

We must have the same brain?

Re: What should a standard "Pass" be?
 

I like a soccer analogy better.

The best pass would be one that lands in front of me in my zone so I can easily shove it to the next zone. That should count as an assist.

I think the highest scoring would be each of us playing one zone and moving the ball very quickly between us.

Re: What should a standard "Pass" be?
 

But the human player station only covers the exchange between two zones.