Re: Week Zero Discussion/Impressions/Discoveries/Fun Facts
 

Here is our video from that match.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY614W-VXQw

Re: Week Zero Discussion/Impressions/Discoveries/Fun Facts
 

At Week 0 in Merrimack, it was evident that a quick cycle is more important than a cycle that ends in a 10 point shot. It's better to get that ball in and start another cycle than it is to fight for 10-20 seconds to try and get another 9 points.

If you're under heavy defense, or don't have a 90%+ high goal shot, it's often more advantageous to score low and move on to the next cycle.

Re: Week Zero Discussion/Impressions/Discoveries/Fun Facts
 

^This

Smart teams need to know when its more important to collect your assist points through the 1 point goal over trying to line up and miss a shot up high.

Re: Week Zero Discussion/Impressions/Discoveries/Fun Facts
 

Rochester Rally X is going on right now and we're having full 3v3 matches and they are AWESOME! You guys should really check this out, were really learning a lot about Aerial Assist today. The webcast is: http://penfieldrobotics.com/media/livecast.php

Re: Week Zero Discussion/Impressions/Discoveries/Fun Facts
 

Another thing noticed. Work on your pick ups. Almost every team is going to need to pick up and theres a good chance 2 out of the 3 robots on a alliance will be nothing but passers. Picking is really what can slow down a cycle.

We spent 2-3 weeks building different versions of a horizontal pickup and perfecting each. Best thing we could have done! We still have plans to improve though.

Re: Week Zero Discussion/Impressions/Discoveries/Fun Facts
 

Teams need to realize that if they can't score in auto or within ~5sec after auto ends they shouldn't start with a ball on the field, it just slows the game down. It is not advantageous to have a ball on the field that can't be scored fast (for the bonus auto points) or collect assist/truss/catch points.

Re: Week Zero Discussion/Impressions/Discoveries/Fun Facts
 

If you're not doing anything, you're doing something wrong. Play some defense! All you need to do is block an opposing robot from getting where it needs to go, even if it's not holding the ball, and you've done a lot of good for your alliance.

Another observation: Catching the ball is, in most cases, more trouble than it's worth. Note that there's no restriction on playing defense against a robot lining up to catch a ball... just make sure you don't catch it yourself!

Re: Week Zero Discussion/Impressions/Discoveries/Fun Facts
 

The Suffield Shakedown Scrimmage went well. As always there are usually some quarks, but nothing we couldn't handle. I want to thank everybody involved with making it a success. That means not only our team, but all those step-up volunteers at the event from other teams. The District events are looking for volunteers like this.
We had made a commitment to all the teams who signed up for the event. We really had to beg the school to let us hold the event. I think the Scrimmage taught what worked & what didn't, even though there wasn't a full house of robots.
Because the weather was turning worse, I made the decision to forgo the eliminations & end the event so the teams had a safer ride home. When Jack The Hat Kentfield made the announcement, I didn't expect the reaction we got. Every body clapped & cheered. I thought they would boo us. To all who attended the Scrimmage, I thank you.

Re: Week Zero Discussion/Impressions/Discoveries/Fun Facts
 

One thought that is helpful for all teams before bagging your robot is check your ball pickup mechanism with a FULLY inflated ball. The balls at the Week Zero event were inflated so there were no creases in the ball (which was fuller than what we practiced with in our shop. Its a simple change for us but some teams might have a really hard time.

Re: Week Zero Discussion/Impressions/Discoveries/Fun Facts
 

Was the field staff aware of the inflation guide? Were they over inflated as per the guide?

Re: Week Zero Discussion/Impressions/Discoveries/Fun Facts
 

The inflation guide is helpful, but remember, not all volunteers read every single rule. I remember seeing Red triangle tube in 2011, that I could tell from the Webcast were over-inflated :ahh: ...

Re: Week Zero Discussion/Impressions/Discoveries/Fun Facts
 

I would say the field staff was following the rules. Our team kept our ball slightly less than inflated so it wouldn't be as easy to pop. For us the fully inflated ball wasn't an issue but just like tubes in 2011 it will be something that will hurt teams.

Re: Week Zero Discussion/Impressions/Discoveries/Fun Facts
 

This game has 3 targets instead of 1 last year.
2 are constantly moving, which makes any missed shot, real, real bad!

If youre going to shoot, make sure it goes in the 1st try.

Re: Week Zero Discussion/Impressions/Discoveries/Fun Facts
 

One of our events in 2011 had many tubes that could barely (if at all) be fed through the slot as they were over-inflated which caused us to have to do some redesigning at the event...we discussed that many times while designing out ball collection/shooting systems for this year's game.

Re: Week Zero Discussion/Impressions/Discoveries/Fun Facts
 

We attended a "Week 0" event, hosted by Chantilly Robotics (612). Many thanks to them for finding a space and building the field! We learned a mountain's worth of information about our own robot. The event wasn't crowded, so we were able to stay on the field for pretty much as long as we wanted. We got about 3 hours of drive time. We already nailed a quick 1-ball autonomous, so today was all teleop.

- There was a noticeable drop in the amount of time it took to rectify errors between the start and end of the drive time. In other words, through the drills and raw trial/error, the drivers became MUCH better at chasing down a ball. I think it will be painfully obvious if a team's drivers haven't had practice if competing against those who have.
- It was best to simply load right next to the human player. We tried a variety of inbounding techniques including rolling, tossing, etc. The lower the kinetic energy required to complete the inbound, the faster that ball went sailing over the truss.
- Flat trajectories with plenty of power are KING of the high goal. There's such a large margin of error I think we missed 3 shots all day - and one of those was while trying something completely experimental.
- We are forever hooked on Colson Performa wheels. 3 hours of driving, very little wear and 0 maintenance.
- The best catches across all of FRC will come from TRUSS specialists who apply the minimum amount of kinetic energy to a TRUSS shot. In fact, I bet almost anyone can catch with some practice and that type of bot.
- With the last bullet in mind, I think it's better to just not plan to catch unless a robot has specifically built something specifically to catch and can absorb the energy of an average TRUSS bot's ball. A single bad catch could cost an entire cycle's worth of time depending on where the ball wound up going.
- Inbound-TRUSS vs Inbound-Assist-TRUSS - who knows. Still on the fence about that one
- Low kinetic energy pass-assists will do very well. I wish we could have practiced more of them today.
- Getting a ball off of the edge of the field without incurring penalties will take a lot of practice; it is the biggest advantage we gained today. We ran drills of doing just that all up and down the field so our driver could gauge various distances and angles. We figured out that it takes an extra second or two to do it right with our robot, but the penalty for getting it wrong is equivalent to giving the opponents 20 extra seconds of free time. The biggest danger to teams will be driving right next to the wall chasing down a ball - just a corner of the intake clipping the edge while adjusting to the ball will incur a penalty.
- Pushing the ball into the low goal is easy, but getting the ball there in a controlled manner to do so isn't. It's much better to contain the ball and then go into the low goal over the top. Not that we'll do too much low goal.
- Assists without ingesting a ball are a bit harder than I thought. We'll see how it goes when more teams are trying.
- This one is more of an eliminations-type bullet. This game will take a LOT of higher-level coaching - i.e. coaches who micro-manage will hurt their alliance due to lack of field vision. As a result, drivers need to be able to think on their own until re-directed. Drivers need to be able to communicate with themselves. The coach needs to learn their specific lexicon (i.e. 'kick' is not the same thing as 'intake' even though it's the same movement) so communication of the higher-level strategy can be done in terms they immediately understand. Field vision, to understand what allies and opponents are up to, is key.
- The ball didn't go out of the field but once or twice (during catches) and then it wasn't where our own HP's could have had an effect. As a result I don't know how much we will want our human player outside of the inbounding zone - three HP's running a ball out to the cycle is much better than one depending on the match tradeoffs.