Week Zero Discussion/Impressions/Discoveries/Fun Facts
 

So, it seems to me that this year there are more Week Zeros than ever, so the first "real" matches of Aerial Assist matches will be played this weekend! This thread is specifically for discussion of what was discovered either about the game or the field this weekend.

In regards to official fields (and possible 'quirks' discovered about the field, ie. balls under the bridge in 2012), the only events I know of with official fields are the Merrimack event (which is FIRST-run/has official electronics) and Suffield Shakedown in CT, and the MAR Scrimmage in Watchung Hills(which as of now is still on).

I will personally be at the Merrimack offseason event and should be able to have some video up on Youtube soon after the event.

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

I believe the Suffield Shakedown Scrimmage(CT), will also have an official field, just not the field control and scoring systems.

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FYI, the MAR scrimmage at Watchung Hills will have the official field, but not the field electronics.

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Will any Week Zero events be running webcasts?

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

Team 41 is planning on trying... but we haven't been having much luck lately with the weather or the field or much in general :-) . So check the website or the forums and if we have it up we will post the link. Caveat on top of the caveat, we run more of a practice then a scrimmage as we have yet to get six working robots at the event at the same time the three years we have done this. So if the webcast is up, it will most likely be VERY boring.
Thanks,
Jim

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

Suffield Shakedown just wrapped up. Only about 20 teams were able to make it.
We skipped eliminations due to the start of a snow storm (again!) that was heavy to our south.

We had an official field operating on FMS lite, meaning no lights and paper scoring that actually worked pretty well. The truss is cool. Watch your head on the field. Some padding on the lower bar may be a good idea. If you don't meet the height limit, the truss was like those bars that they hang overhead at parking garages.

Many Robots in almost finished condition. Typical for a shakedown cruise. Many teams will be revising their designs over the next three days.

Notables:
263, Sachem After Shock. Good drivers, good assists.
716, Who'sCTEKS. Ri3D spinning rods for acquisition, high goal sometimes.

230, Gaelhawks. I questioned designs that used a hammer or some other weighted lever to store energy to kick the ball, but this Robot was consistently dead on. Having the ball pass through the plane of the goal during the "flat" part of the trajectory was key, though the shot could be blocked.

195, CyberKnights & 839 Rosie Robotics, had unique designs for ball handling. Neither worked too well, yet..........We may see some very interesting solutions to the ball handling problem this year. Rosie's looked like a virus. I wish I took pictures.

558 RoboSquad made a cool intake roller with the motors positioned axially inside the roller. The intake solutions are also interesting.

We had three assists with high goals happen.
Truss shots that were almost caught.
High score of 142. (No defense, cause there were no Robots on the field for the opposing alliance)
There is an interesting defensive strategy described below that may require a rules revision. Hopefully not.

My impressions after this rudimentary Beta test of the game:

- It's going to evolve more than past games over the next 8 weeks.

- Clear the field in Autonomous and get the cycle started.
If you can't guarantee disposal of the ball in autonomous or quickly in tele-op, don't bother.

- Robot to Robot passes are safer. Losing control of the ball sucks. Make your Robot a good kisser.

- The GDC hit the nail on the head when they interpreted co-opertition within an alliance this year by rewarding the "assist". Scores with assists were very valuable today.

- Good defense will become a serious issue by week two. Blocking the progression of the ball is very effective. Blocking a shot into the goal, is almost as valuable as scoring in terms of the time penalty.

- A defensive strategy that may be addressed with a rules change. (I hope not) Sequestering the opposing alliances ball between the corner of their low goal and the center of the field. It is a difficult strategy to break.
If you push them into your ball to cause possession, you get a foul. A G14 causing a G12. Both are 50 pt technical fouls. This defensive move may require two robots to pry the defender away from their ball. Like a trap in Basketball. I hope they let this play out.

- Foul calling will shift many matches. We had no fouls at Suffield Shakedown, but then, the defense wasn't developed. There is inadvertent versus intentional possession of the opposing alliances ball that will be an issue.
As defense becomes more pronounced, we will see this interpretation affect the game play, just like the NCAA and NBA where referees control the strategies and actions of the teams they oversee by the calls they make. Great sports analogy for the GDC.

- One great design. A Robot that can take in a ball on one side and shoot it out the other through the high goal without turning. Kind of like a shooting guard in basketball. They can make the shot quickly, and restart the cycle.

- Another great design. A Goalie Bot, or center (In basketball), that can get the first assist, and pass the ball to a truss bot, and then defend the opposing alliances goal. Reading the Hot goal and being able to put up some type of obstruction would be devastating to an alliance that was trying to work the autonomous advantage. Preventing autonomous success has a high time penalty for the opposing alliance to "clean up" the field.

- The third alliance member(s) would be a "power forward", that can handle the middle of the field, risk possession with a truss shot, and cause mobility issues for the opposing alliance as the try to move their ball towards their goal.

I am liking this game more and more.

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

Were the refs not calling this trapping?

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It only happened twice. As long as they aren't in contact with the ball, it probably isn't trapping. Just "sequestering".

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But the rule clearly makes a distinction between "isolation" and "holding". I interrupted isolation similarly to the VEX trapping rule where if you don't allow someone/thing to leave a place even if you don't touch it it is just like pinning.

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

We did that too. I thought it was the only sensible way to make it? :yikes:

We had fun at the Duel in the Desert. Thanks Arcadia! Quite a few robots shooting high goals, not many assist attempts. Although we did several "fed" assist shots into the high goal, with our in-one-end-out-the-other robot.

We saw one catch over the truss...and I think only one autonomous high goal. Although I didn't see a lot of the action.

No real matches were played, no scoring, no field, just a rope "truss" and half a high goal and two low goals at each end, but it was enough to get a feel for the game, and mostly to test robots.

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

As others mentioned above, this was the sort of scenario I envisioned would result in a "trapping" possession call. Will be interesting to see if this scenario is called the same from regional to regional and week to week

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

Does anybody have a link to where the videos of the events are? If they were recorded that is? Thanks.

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I am uploading footage from team 3467's matches today at the Merrimack, NH Week Zero event.

I will post a link in this thread when they are up.

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Be careful about extending outside of the field perimeter. When scoring in the low goal, the refs realized our net was hanging over the field rail. We were told this was a penalty, and that if we continued to do it after being warned that it would be technical.

Also, just because you completed your assist, doesn't mean your job in the cycle is over. I expect the pick play will be used often to free up shooters.

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At the event hosted by 2996 (thanks, people!), here's what I learned.

Quick passes require a quick intake. Fast possession will be a primo skill.

If a team can't hit the high goal with 75% efficiency or better, they'd be better off not bothering. Bouncing balls easily end up back on the wrong side of the field and waste a ton of time.

Same goes for autonomous shots. Why make your alliance partners chase down your missed shots?

The most efficient score I saw was: inbound, quick pass, over the truss to human player, inbound, low goal. 41 points. Reliability over risk.

Mecanum is as of yet not proving itself to me to be effective, though lots of teams chose it. I think it will be driver dependent, and not uniquely strategic.

The main way in which this game mimics 2008 will probably be the potential for high-speed collisions with appendages. Yikes!

Defense is more viable than I thought. A good 5' net will block many shots and frustrate many teams.

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

Here is what I picked up at the scrimmage held by team 2996. Defense can be very viable, and it is just a matter of initiating legal contact with other robots. Some bots are really pushing the 20" appendage limit, and it is pretty important to control that limit to prevent infringement of another robots perimeter. It is also very clear that we can expect some very physical matches. Assists might be able to swing a match, but are pretty difficult to coordinate with an alliance. A catch can have value if pulled of consistently, but if not it is harder to maintain possession of the ball. Losing communication in the middle of a match can be a bigger problem than years past due to the physicality of the game. Thanks for throwing a great scrimmage 2996.

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

Does anyone have video of a 3v3 match? At our week 0, there were never more than 2 functional robots on the field at any given time.

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Yeah, that was us. We are seriously sorry for sticking our appendage inside your bot. We're all going to need to be super careful.

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Some robots I saw at a Week 0 had a difficult time starting with a ball in the robot, and all parts of their robot staying in the frame perimeter.

Auton will be pretty neat as many robots will be doing things. shortly after auton is boring and many teams will be waiting on a partner to "clear the ball" before cycles can start.

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

From a crowd perspective I noticed as well. Because of only 1 ball, while the scoring robot is trying to score, the other 2 seemed idle at times waiting for the next cycle.
We are going to see a lot of boring matches at regionals early on.

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

It's fine it showed us the importance of the rule as well as the necessary importance of protecting all aspects of our robot. It was good because we were able to escape without too much damage.

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As a driver and coach i learned alot!

FIRST off thank you to all suffield shakedown volunteers for a great professional competition. It was a smart call ending early. We walked away with a finalist trophy because we ranked 5th. Unfortunatly us and 263 (1st seed) were planning to join an aliiance due to our fast assists.

Now for notes: ASSIST! ASSIST! ASSIST! We learned from our first match there was no point in doing your own thing. During our second we did 3 cycles of 2 assists. By the end of the day we had done 5 cycles of 2 assists. Its all about that transfer. Speed and power also helped us ALOT!

We hadnt tested our 10pt catapult so we never used it, but with a reliable pick up, passer, and 1pt scorer, we did very well!

Most fustratrating thing: when someone misses in autonomous and takes a long time to pick up. We can pick up fast, and watching a slower robot is fustrating because you cant get a new ball!

Best part of scrimmage: breaking our robot! We learned what to improve and alter

Note: only burned 2 holes in the carpet. We love our new drivetrain.

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Did anyone else manage to get a 60 point cycle today? There was only one that I know of at the week zero my team attended.

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We had precisely that experience and reaction. Breaking after several rounds was the best part of the day.

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Week Zero in Austin,

Thanks to AusTIN Cans for hosting today.

No scrimmaging due to lack of teams that could run but it was apparent that ball control and robot interaction will definitely have a huge impact on the game.

We had four teams fully functional on the field today.

Two robots who could catch from over the truss and made it look rather easy.

Three teams who scored in the high goal during auto I believe.

All teams could pick it up off the ground and score in the high goal.

Leaving balls on the field after auto will be a huge factor to clear to get cycles started.

The trues is low as others have mentioned so be careful when walking around before and after matches.

Corner goal should be an easy score even for basic bots.

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So no one with a 20' extension can go along the side without pulling in their extension? I really hope teams realize this early on!

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G21.

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

Another note I remembered, the roof over the driver station actually stuffed us twice in autonomous and several times in teleop. The ball would be essentially through the goal, hit the pipe and bounce back into the field. Apparently FIRST is aware of this, but it it would cost them $60k+ to fix it. They though the bounce backs would be rare :). I for one hope they resolve this.

#FRCWEEK0 TY Q MC 7 RF 115 BF 12 RA 58 3467 319 BA 1735 1058 501 RFP 0 BFP 0 RHS 15 BHS 10 RTS 100 BTS 2

In this match we had two 50pt cycles. Tried and missed the catch on both.

Cycle went inbound > truss > catch (and miss)> pass to zone 3 > shoot.

We also had two missed autonomous shots that we needed to clean up in that match.

Yeah, luckily our drive team realized they could score from the side of the lower goal without getting any penalties.

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

Thanks to teams 1730, 1986, and 1987 for hosting their Week 0 scrimmage again. We were able to learn a lot about our robot and how it works with the field and with other teams. I hope you guys continue to do this every year!

We participated in 4 matches of 3v3. In one match we completed a successful 60 point cycle. The human player gave the ball to either 2410 or 1785 (can't remember which one) who passed the ball to 1986. They provided a beautiful truss pass for us (1939) to catch and we were able to turn around and score in the high goal.

There was minimal defense in this match, so I'll be more excited when I see it done in an actual regional.

Completing the catch is the most difficult part of the 60 point cycle. We had several 50 point cycles.

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

I'm not sure how my team will work out autonomous now because we have net and we were going to drive up and open the net and let the ball roll out. Now it looks like we will just drive forward.

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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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.

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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.

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

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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: ...

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

In-bounding was a huge time-suck. A lot of teams were chasing balls around, or waiting for them to stop bouncing, before they could get a cycle started. As were bumbled balls after auto. Same with missed high-goal shots.

Defense will be very important, but being able to switch from offense to defense and/or counter-defense will be even more important.

When the bearings in your WCP colson hub explode... you're gunna have a bad time :(

They were, I even saw that procedure with my very own eyes.

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Shooting too hard can hurt you. We were shooting so hard at Teh Chezy Pofs field we were bending their field spec goals. Having such a fast, flat trajectory seemed to make it more difficult to line up. Back at our field, we switched to weaker springs and had a much easier time making shots.

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

The one thing we noticed with robots with low trajectory flat fast shots:
As they try to shoot on the fly while moving towards a goal, the shot really dives and many misses were below the goal.
I think some teams that prototyped designs didnt factor making shots other than if the robot is stationary. Unless of course they have a variable shooter.

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

We did not attend a scrimmage this "Zero week" as we are hours away from our nearest held, but last Thursday the comp bot was disassembled down to the drivetrain again, parts and pcs went across town for the powdercoating (actually our entire team took off Friday completely for V-Day)...Too tired to even go to dinner, we were at home. Rest was needed.

Saturday AM the powdercoating took place, and then all pitched in & re-assembled and tested, then dropped off the competition bot, tools, charger and bat's at our practice field a few blocks away from the shop. Sunday AM we had the programmer busy on the Auto coding and fine adjustments & (within an hr. that was set and corrected and perfect (as long as the bot was pre-charged w/ air properly of course), and it was hitting 100% high goal nothing but air), then we had a 10 hr. very complete shakedown session, and that compressor surprisingly is still working just fine.

I think throughout the 10 hr. shakedown, at least 80% of the student team members showed up & drove sometime today (our field is in a vacated elem. school library area...Thank you Mr. Jacks!), w/ empty bookshelves lining 90% of the walls). Carpeted floor, one high goal half, one low goal, and a half field real alum. truss like the actual FIRST field uses, and plenty of other open space to chase that big rolling ball. (Two quite tender knots on my head right now tell me that the students (and adults), on the field this year, would be better to either not wear a stupid hat like I did...Or at least make it a certified hard hat this year!) That truss is hard!

Many of those that drove today had never in their lives ever driven the bot, and many never a wheel and a stick at once (sometimes it showed, but each became better very quickly, and some were instant matches right off the bat and had practiced/played together in the past).

They beat those shelves (and the bot), up pretty good practicing everything they could from inbounding into the bot (rolling into it from the shelf, tossing into it, throwing into it), chasing down & ball pickups from every angle possible and against everything in that room imaginable (I actually think when they have solid flat walls on a real field it will be that much easier, but that constant interaction w/ field and room elements, was much like facing opposing & defending bots all day & night). High goal shooting 90%+ all day, low goal delivery pretty much perfected now also, passing, pushing, and running on a 2.5 min. clock, then switching out drivers. Lots of practice was had by all.

The most amazing thing was (no matter how much I grimaced all day, whenever they slammed it into something hard, most often w/ the ball pickup out and chasing hard, and sometimes w/ the ball tucked up tightly & neatly held inside the frame perimeter and at full speed...Because, of course, I personally want to see that well built, working & colorful thing go into the bag "undamaged on Tuesday night", be fully ready to just be inspected and pass right off the bat, and hit the Field for a full Thursday practice session at the first Regional we attend in over a month),....It needed a good hard shakedown...and it certainly received it today!

Happy to say....No breakdowns all day (though I was looking for another compressor in the shop tonight just in case we wore that 1 out...I found it! Let's order another also please, OK?)

Just a whole bunch of compressor cooldowns and regular battery changes...A bit of code adjustments, some out of the box "let's see what this will do" testing....And a heat gun aided "tusk angle" adjustment to get that within the 20" extension maximum safely, and a wee bit better mouse tra....err, "ball trap".

Usually, the hardest thing is getting the "good auto" programming & then the on field timed reality of it, down pat and repeatable. That was actually the easy part this year w/this very robust / and very repeatable design.

Then to top all.....they went off this evening...(I'm looking at only 48 hrs. to go.....and maybe 10 real hrs. of real working shop time left or so)...And they start the not so easy...."Over the Truss tosses by hand" & attempting to catch, some not so well aimed & some pretty hard landings of the ball into, on, in, & off of the bot...about 20 or so good hard tosses....I'm really grimacing now, as you can possibly imagine right?.....YES....errr, Nooooo! (George...Our industry mentor, is cool as a cucumber...saying, hey, I'd rather it break now then later). Me...I'm freaking out and looking for the door!

But, they actually got it down pretty good catching a few early, & 4 of the last 5 pretty hard throws, and no damage at all to the toy. (We needed to find out what was best..."tusks" open or closed, or..."when to close actually" for best catch timing, to keep that ball from bouncing in & then out again). Or better yet if we even feel comfortable in attempting the catch later on...I now say...Go for it! (But, pick and choose based on ball height please! Stay away from those rocket shots to the moon.) That test gave me a headache....Or was that the 2 good truss hits to the head I took a little earlier?

Overall, it was as "very" intense a shakedown, as I personally have seen us do before bagging, so far. And everyone around here now seems pretty relaxed after today and extremely proud of this years build.

Still lots to do...More work to accomplish (and a ton of practice time left w/ the "not as pretty bot" but, functionally the same, left to go in the next month!) A new A/M P.U. gearbox is on the way for the practice bot, and we are practicing for another month w/ a near duplicate. Oh, and a shop or 2 to clean up. BIGTIME!

We appreciate those vids & tips on the game (and the elements & game strategies listed that you perceived & witnessed), from those that attended scrimages this "zero week" weekend, and we will be reviewing & discussing many of them tomorrow and in the days to come. Thank you!

For those that have early Regionals...Good Luck to all....And we'll see you in PHX. & L.V. & hopefully St. Louis!:D

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

Here are some match videos from the Merrimack Week 0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfxBE2ocTXc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vojAM_yHwI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNAqjYgNGZE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qN95IMu-0o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uuvB6S376Y

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

We attended a week 0 event that used the FMS Lite to facilitate the event. We(but no other teams) had issues with the FMS. The FMS was able to ping both the robot and the drivers station and the drivers station showed it was completely connected, however during every match the robot refused to move. We could take it off the field, tether and it worked great. We redid the d-link and connected to it wirelessly and it worked then also.

This same issue happened to us in 2012 and the FTA told us it was our problem, however we couldn't replicate it to figure out what the issue was.

We are worried that this is going to happen at the regional, where we are unable to compete, anyone know a solution to this? Will it happen or is it just an issue with the FMS Lite?

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

We didn't attend a scrimmage, but I did watch a ton of film and from what I gathered, defense will be huge, especially right after autonomous if the other alliance misses any shots than they need to be heavily guarded. One great defender can really cause some damage time wise! If drivers are smart they can go from being a box on wheels to a viable alliance partner!

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

THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS


^ This.

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

In regards to over-inflation at Suffield Shakedown. I pulled the worst of the over-inflated. Some were OK. These were inflated according to the FTA & his directions were followed. I checked a couple & the fill valve ended up off to the side of the zipper. At this point it would have been very difficult to slightly deflate them. The real world isn't perfect & neither are we. We purchased those balls & I decided to leave them as they were. We did not have any punctured balls.
The second issue was penalties by the "REF". We only had one ref & I advised him to use his judgement to only make a call for serious violations. Since we had only a dozen or so robots, I wanted them to get as much practice time as we could offer. We did advise 1 team of outside the envelope issue & told them they would be illegal at their 1st event.
I'm tired of hearing all these students & mentors put the blame on the field, & the refs & FIRST. My suggestion it to make adjustments to accommodate variations to the balls, the field, other teams, atmospheric conditions, etc. In other words, lighten up! Have fun, learn something new every day.

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

We're 200+ miles away too...we fortunately got our robot together and working in time, and made the long drive to Arcadia High. First time we've had a real field trip to the Duel, it was fun! Sorry you couldn't make it, but thanks for the detailed report on things you learned with your robot this weekend.

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

This happened to us in 2012 as well, a new radio fixed us right up. Be sure to bring an extra radio to your first event and plan to make it to your practice matches to test the original radio on an official field. If it fails, swap for a new radio and try again.

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

Our robot was able to pick-up off the ground and catch either over the truss or on an inbounding toss from the human player very effectively. This really helped our cycle times. Most matches we caught tosses from the human player and would then feed the ball to one of our alliance partners to toss over the truss (we would then try to catch), or for scoring into the high goal directly. Unfortunately in our last qualification match a bearing in one of our wheels exploded so we only had two wheels on one side (only one of which was powered). Additionally, in our last qualification match our alliance partner, Team 58, had their shooting mechanism broken off of their robot and was tipped over. Despite being the second seed, we lost in the first round of elimination matches.

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

Anyone get an impression of what the average winning/losing scores will be?

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

In St. Peter, MN, we were able to usually get 2 on 2 games going in the afternoon. We had a lot of our 2 on 2 matches ignore defense as it was hard enough for robots running around for the first time to do much else than concentrate on the task at hand. 3018, our team, was able to get the second assist without much difficulty due to this, and we even had a catch one time. It seems that the closer you are to changing possession, the easier it will be. It will also be difficult to keep some parts of the robot in the playing area when the 20 inch projections are near. It will be imperative for the drive team to really pay attention to this.

Our robot did pretty well compared to the other 8 or so robots that participated, but ours was also the most complete. We also had a practice bot going to help determine our drive team, doing as much as possible in the little time we had. Catching will be difficult if there is any defense on the bot, and other robots running 'accidentally' into your ball looks like it could be frequent with 3 bots on the field. It was good to see what could happen out on the field, and it was nice to read about what other issues were seen at more complete regionals. Thanks for sharing!

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

Get out to the field on Thursday during your practice matches whether or not your robot is fully operational. That way you can identify any potential issues and work to resolve them while there is still plenty of time and not much stress.

You have two key volunteers at competitions to help you with these types of issues:

• The FTA will do everything he can on the field to try to get your robot moving on Thursday. On Friday and Saturday, they will be less lenient because they need to get through matches.
• The CSA can spend more time with you off the field to get your robot configured properly. If trying to get your robot working on the field is taking too long, the FTA will likely send you to the CSA.

Between those two, your robot will be moving. You just need to make sure that you test early and that they are aware of any potential problems as soon as possible.

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

Never before have I seen a game piece launched by a robot blow the polycarb window out of the drivers' station wall. So... congratulations?

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

Congratulations on a spectacular violation of G10 and possibly G11, and special thanks for a reminder of why we wear safety glasses.

IIRC there is one spare piece of polycarb per field, so best to not do this twice.

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

There is nothing against the rules for hitting your opponents ball on purpose once, as long as you don't chase the ball down and continue to do it.

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

I was wondering if anyone had any recordings of a week 0 match with a view of the full field in action (kind of like what FiM does with the fisheye). I'd like to use a match of this year's game to help train our scouts on what to look for when watching matches. I can use the fish-eye lens view from previous FiM matches to explain in general what to look out for, but a video of this year's game in action will help much more.