What could go wrong?
 

What do you predict will be the number one thing that teams will fail to prepare for or underestimate that will cause a lot of trouble at competition? In 2013 it could be loading frisbees from the human player. In 2012 it would be a team's bridge lowering mechanism.

Re: What could go wrong?
 

Defense. Unprepared teams can get completely shut down if they are up against a solid defense.

Re: What could go wrong?
 

Corralling bouncing balls or ground-loading.
I'm seeing a bunch of catapults on social media, but no one is glorifying their floor pickup/loading method. One must get a ball before one can shoot a ball.

Re: What could go wrong?
 

Good point. I was going to say something similar to this, mostly regarding having a hard time picking up balls because some robot is harassing them. Or trying to line up for a shot/catching a ball, only to be pushed away by another robot.

What do you think the best thing a team can do to prepare for intense defense?

Re: What could go wrong?
 

Autonomous.

Teams are going to neglect the importance of having an accurate auton, not use the appropriate amount of sensors to ensure they are consistent, and then insist that they preload a ball and shoot every match. Then, when they miss, it is the burden of their alliance to get their ball into the goal before the cycles can start happening.

Re: What could go wrong?
 

Driver practice, Driver practice, Driver practice

Re: What could go wrong?
 

Didn't even think of the hassle that would be, good catch.

I think the movement of the ball is going to be very strange and will take drivers a while to get used to, and could get caught off guard by other bots in the way.

Communication between alliance partners is going to be interesting. I wonder if it will be a relay between coach to drivers or if entire teams will be talking at the same time to get objectives done.

Re: What could go wrong?
 

And to elaborate on that, one thing you can do is get an old skid/tank robot you might have sitting around and have someone drive it against the new robot.
The drive team might complain about the defensive bot's driver knowing their robot too well, or what they're trying to do, but it's practice for a reason. It will only force them to get better.

Re: What could go wrong?
 

This is exactly what we do. We are going to have 3 other driving robots in order to practice to the full extent. It is extremely helpful and is the best way to prepare for defense.

Re: What could go wrong?
 

That's a lot of batteries.

Re: What could go wrong?
 

It won't be a robot issue.
It'll be a communication and strategy issue with their partners.
It's hard to get people on the same page in a ten minute period.

Re: What could go wrong?
 

This. I also hope egos don't get in the way, but.... it could happen.

Re: What could go wrong?
 

"We need you to play defence."
"But we need assists!"
"We can make up the difference."
"But we need assists!"
"You guys are far more valuable as a defender"
"But we need assists!"
"You cause more penalties than you score points."




"But we need assists!"


Can't wait for these conversations...


-Nick

Re: What could go wrong?
 

The secret endgame!

Re: What could go wrong?
 

Damage.
Most teams seem to be following the Ri3D approachs, all of which have vital assemblies spending time outside the protection of the frame perimeter. Ask yourself if your pickup/shooter/catcher is going to function after a solid hit at speed.
Make things robust and easily repaired/replaced. Bring plenty of spare materials. Avoid difficult to fabricate (or obtain for COTS) items.

Re: What could go wrong?
 

Being one move ahead of your opponent rather than one move behind them. If you are reacting to what the other team is doing you have already fallen behind. Scouting will be paramount. Knowing the strengths and weaknesses of the teams you are playing and the strengths and weaknesses of you alliance will make the difference between a W or an L.

The communication behind the glass will be a killer. Staying undefeated will be really hard this year. teams can easily be taken down by their own alliance.

(not so hypothetical strategy)

Team A
"teams A & B will shoot in auto. We will do a 2 ball auto, team C just drive forward"

Team C
"but we need to show our auto mode for elims!"

Team B
"Our scouts say you haven't hit it once."

Team C
"that's why we need to show we can do it!"

Team A
"did you get it on the practice field?"

Team C
"no we couldn't get a time, but our programmers say they fixed the problem"


The best possible solution is A&B let C shoot and then ....

Re: What could go wrong?
 

Assists are going to be much harder to do than people think.

Too many teams will concentrate their designs on shooting the ball through the goal (not that difficult of a task) and not on making nice easy to pick up passes.

Re: What could go wrong?
 

Contact inside the frame perimeter can be a serious problem when you're trying to acquire a ball and your opponent is playing defense on you.

Re: What could go wrong?
 

Moving in autonomous.

I know that may sound silly since all the robot has to do is move forward, but based on past years I've seen lots of situations were teams failed to move their robot in autonomous.

Re: What could go wrong?
 

Acquiring a ball, assists, and drive practice. These would be my top unprepared items most teams will fail at or are underestimating.

Acquiring and keeping control of the ball/game piece is a huge aspect most teams underestimate year after year. Most teams spend most of their match trying to gain control of the game piece or lose it easily.

Assists are this year's big ticket item for points but most teams will underestimate what is needed to do assists well. Simply saying in a strategy meeting, "we'll simply just spit the ball out and they will give it back to us" will not get you very far. There are so many factors that will go into working well will your partners on the field. I predict that most alliances will attempt to do a triple assist (or even double) and spend their entire match trying to do it but running out of time to score.

All of this boils down to drive practice. You NEED to give your drivers time to practice its not even funny. There is no end game where you can make up the difference you have one part of the game and you need to some part of it well. This all comes down to your drivers. You can design a robot that does everything but if your driver can't perform to the level your robot needs to be driven at you are going to have a bad time. Assisting will but a huge time dump if drivers aren't ready to do it quickly. I see a lot of matches being won by a robot out cycling a few poor robots attempting to assist.

Re: What could go wrong?
 

Ed you hit it right on the head. All the issues previously discussed in other threads have detailed strategy concerns, but I bears repeating here. ONE playing piece for three teams and the miriad of permutations as to what each of the allies could be doing at a given time relative to each other and the other alliance is very fluid and difficult to coreograph--even if they were willing to do it, forget about just trying to convey all that info.

Re: What could go wrong?
 

I think a lot of teams will practice and practice and practice...

and then realize they don't know what they should be doing when not holding the ball.

Re: What could go wrong?
 

Like most years, I also expect a lot of this one: "But we need to show that we can _______ this match"

Re: What could go wrong?
 

Too many teams will waste too much time trying to acquire the ball, just like always.

Re: What could go wrong?
 

QFT. There will be a LOT of incidental, unintentinal incursions, especially Week 1. I wouldn't be surprised to see an Update come out between Week 1&2 of competition season reminding teams to be aware of their design.

Re: What could go wrong?
 

These three imho are going to be the biggies. Last year all we really had to do was make fast cycles and occasionally maneuver around a defensive bot. This year, a single robot will only have the ball (ideally) about one-third of the time, leaving the other two available to play defense or get set up to receive assists. If you have robots that are entirely focused on being able to do nothing but put the ball in the goal, you're not going to be able to form any kind of strategy at all.

This year, all the robots on the alliance should be able to play some kind of defense for when they don't control the ball. There aren't any no-touch zones on the field this year, so it's possible to totally shut down an alliance's progress by just physically keeping them from moving down the field. Coordinating a strategy that actually involves as much if not more defense than offense is going to determine who goes to nationals and who doesn't.

Re: What could go wrong?
 

I am surprised no one wrote anything about inspections. You can't play if you don't have the sticker! Number one on my list is legal bumpers, followed by legal pneumatics and electrics. This year add successful dry fire tests so scary shooters don't launch objects (robot parts) into the spectator seating areas. Be safe out there....

Re: What could go wrong?
 

Good observation. This is going to be a real problem for some teams. I also think that many teams are going to struggle with their own shooter damaging the robot. I see a lot of catapults causing repeated stress damage to the robots on which they are deployed.

Re: What could go wrong?
 

There will be at least one team that does not understand the 20" extension rules and unintentionally breaks them for their catching mechanism. For example, a 28"x28" robot will try to extend into a 68"x68"square by extending out ~28" from each of the 4 corners. Read G24! It shows rounded corners for the legal extension area.

Re: What could go wrong?
 

Great point! I think there will be quite a few claw type grabbers going after the ball, and quite a few net-type catchers that may try to defend. When these 2 meet it may be hard to separate them...

Re: What could go wrong?
 

This year's kit frame seems ideal for protecting the electronics and other fragile components. You can take advantage of that lip along the bottom of the frame to mount a piece of polycarbonate and use that to hold your electronics and even the battery. Now all of your important stuff is recessed and should be protected.

I think the biggest thing people won't be prepared for is the opponent's ball. If an alliance launches their ball over the truss, and it lands on top of your robot and gets stuck... that's a technical foul. Possibly two if you can't dislodge it. This is particularly important for any team that intends to catch the ball.

Our team is thinking that "catching" the ball is going to be something other teams aren't designing for, and we're designing our robot to accommodate that. This actually lends itself to the previous issue, because if our robot can catch our own ball then it could just as easily catch the opposing alliance's.

Re: What could go wrong?
 

What we have deemed the "perfect shot" for our robot requires a whole heaping helping of stored energy. We're looking to design accordingly--stress damage on our own machine is something we very much hope to avoid!

Re: What could go wrong?
 

*Consults Murphy's Law*

Everything

Re: What could go wrong?
 

On behalf of audience members everywhere: Thank You!
::ouch::

Re: What could go wrong?
 

I predict a 2003 like situation. The high stacks (assists/catches) will be replaced by robots just crashing into each other (a good defense team can stop/slow down all passes/catches, just like a good defense in 03 could destroy stacks)

Oh, and if anything ever goes wrong with the field (or a robot just drops comms), people will be raging mad this year. During week one, I predict multiple "the field ruined my chance of winning, we were the best, but lost, and the FTA didn't listen to us" threads on CD.

Re: What could go wrong?
 

Quoted for truth.

Re: What could go wrong?
 

Re: What could go wrong?
 

#1 Thing teams will overlook:
Reliable & controllable passes which have low kinetic energy so a partner who is close can easily receive the pass. Lack of practice with passing will be just as bad as overlooking it.

It's also the most overlooked thing in Ultimate Frisbee Rec League :rolleyes:

Re: What could go wrong?
 

It doesn't need to be a ten minute period if you talk to all your alliance partners in the pits a couple matches before your next queue call. Not trying to be snarky, just saying that it's a good way to prepare for a match.

Re: What could go wrong?
 

Adding to the calls for transitioning the game piece between the intake and end effector, moving the robot with the ball in one's possesion could be overlooked. Some quality contact by a defender into the side of some robots could easily dislodge the ball and create a huge disruption for an alliance.

Re: What could go wrong?
 

I think that in elims teams might pick teams that are all great shooters and over look the importance of the assists.
This brings up the possibility of "upsets" in elims by lower seeded teams who can get many assist points.
But then again the the amount of assist points you team has plays into your seeding which may make the higher seeds be the teams who are good at assisting.

The point is that alliances in elims who have three teams who can get the ball in the 10 point goal but can't pass won't do well.

Re: What could go wrong?
 

Or you could take the top 10 point shooters so other alliances can't have them, I would assume if you can build a consistent high goal shooter, you likely have a good pickup as well, scouting data would confirm.

Robot A: Shooting ability = 8, Pickup ability = 6

Robot B: Shooting ability = 5, Pickup ability = 9

I would probably lean toward A depending on the quantity of effective 10 point shooters at the regional.

Re: What could go wrong?
 

Poorly executed strategies and poor communication between teams as to what to do while coordinating assists.

Do I have to have a shamless plug for strategy mats again? :D

Re: What could go wrong?
 

Do you guys think that the catchers teams will use will work better or worse than planned?

Re: What could go wrong?
 

I have a hard time envisioning catching as a strong scoring enhancement--not with full defense allowed.

Re: What could go wrong?
 

I agree.
I would also add that the "kind" of shooting" that helps robots catch easier is important as well.

And as noted by others, defense is important to address, and totally being underated here on CD.

Re: What could go wrong?
 

EVERYTHING. EVERY SINGLE THING WILL GO WRONG. IT WILL HAPPEN WITHOUT FAIL. LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
::ouch::

Re: What could go wrong?
 

Maybe teamwork and deference.

Re: What could go wrong?
 

Of course it will. That's how the world works...

Re: What could go wrong?
 

Very true. I think the main problem will be if you want to play "Offensively" and focus on maximum assisting or to focus the alliance efforts "Defensively" and have one robot ferry ten point goals while their partners try and interfere with the other alliance's ability to pass successfully.

Re: What could go wrong?
 

defense and teamwork

Re: What could go wrong?
 

Re: What could go wrong?
 

I believe with all the "robot in 3 days" a good amount of teams will have average robots that do something...leading to the importance of driver practice!!!!!! Also, a big thing will be teams putting, controlling, or manipulating the ball on the ground. The less time it spends on the ground, the faster you can maneuver and not worry about it being hit out or controlling that outside your perimeter as well as dodging defense. Keep moving and the ball off the ground...efficiency!

Re: What could go wrong?
 

I think the most prominent problem that teams will have this year will be collecting the ball, and that they'll be spending too much time on it during the match to try and obtain it.

But I think that some teams might be underestimating the power of defense as well, not just underestimating how potent it can be if you're playing against it, but also because some teams might not want to use it as a strategy in a match when it's very viable and can sometimes shut down another offense. I feel like teams that specialize in defense this year will be rare, but could be valuable if done right. A team who plays goalie with an elevator and 6 in. cylinder could be highly useful, even if they only are able to block 1 out of every 3 shots then that could be a lot of time wasted by the other alliance get the ball, line up, and shoot, especially since they'd have to do it all over again.

Re: What could go wrong?
 

I think that pinning other robots could be a huge problem either way the pinning goes. If you're pinning another robot, you could get called out for simply not moving back 6 feet as the rules state after 5 seconds of pinning. Also, if your robot is getting pinned, you may encounter a very unforgiving situation in which you have the ball and you're being tag-teamed pinned against a wall as one opponent switches out with another and overall wastes a lot of game time. This is of course highly improbable as a team strategy but none the less it is still probable.

Re: What could go wrong?
 

I think the pinning rule in this year's manual makes "tag-team" pinning unworkable. As I read G29, it requires all robots participating in the pin to back off for five seconds or else get a technical foul.