December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

SECOND Robotics is back! Kickoff is just around the corner, and before you get busy and stressed with robotics, take some time to get busy and stressed a whole month earlier! That's right, the December Design Competition is back for its second installment with a brand new game!

For those of you unfamiliar with the design competition, the basic idea is a group of friends and I have created our own FRC game in order to provide a challenge to the FIRST community to better prepare people for the strategic design and game analysis required at the beginning of the FRC season in hopes that participants will utilize what they have learned from the competition to make their 2015 FRC team perform at a higher level of play. Individuals (or groups of people) design their own complete robot to participate in this year's game, Tubular Touchdown.

The manual for Tubular Touchdown may be found here, and the game documents and CAD models may be found here.

Each team of contestants must turn in a CAD design for their robot as well as written documentation detailing their robot, their strategies for the game, their strategic design and thought process. Basically anything in the normal season that cannot be portrayed simply via the CAD model would be helpful having in writing. It will help your score to have more documentation about your processes.

This is a relaxed competition. We know this is a busy time of year for many people, so when it comes to CAD models, thorough completeness will not be a factor judged upon. This doesn't mean you can leave out entire subsystems, but if you don't have nuts/bolts or shafts, it won't hurt you. As long as your general design gets across and you can explain it in words, you will be able to be less attentive to minor details on design. That being said it's always cool to look at well designed and detailed robots, so if you have the time, we'd love to see what you come up with in full detail.

The competition begins today and ends at noon Pacific time on January 1st, and our goal is to have a winner chosen before kickoff. Last year the winner wished to stay anonymous, and while we will fulfill those wishes if our winners prefer, we would like to say that many people were interested in knowing which robot won last year and were disappointed that they missed out on viewing what was truly a beautiful design.

For submission, if you use Solidworks, Pack and Go your assembly and put the zipped folder in a folder with your documentation. Otherwise simply send a STEP file along with your documentation. Submissions should be sent to alawre1@gmail.com.

Myself, wasayanwer97, Jay O'Donnell, and mahnyi worked on this project over our Thanksgiving breaks, and we hope you all enjoy it. If you have any questions feel free to post them in this thread and we will get back to you asap (like hella quickly).

Good luck everyone, and happy holidays!

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

This is hilarious. I've been telling another mentor on our team for the past couple of years that footballs are going to be the game piece the next year.

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

Grr I wish we had a heads up so we could have planned to integrate this as a team wide offseason CAD project.

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

Some people have PM'd me their questions, so I will post the official responses here:

No they are not.

Yes, but they will not count as points.

You may not place extra footballs on the ground at the start of the match.

There is no rule specifying how game pieces may be entered onto the field.

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

Is there a limit to how many game pieces of either type that a robot can hold?
Can the human players throw the footballs through the goal posts for points?
What are the exact positions of the rolling goals at the beginning of the match?

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

No limit on the amount of game pieces a robot can hold.

Yes, a human player could throw a football through the inner tube slot.

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

Thank you so much for this! I was just wondering whether or not it would return.

Also, is there any chance we could get the CAD files in .stl format? :D

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

I'll see if I can get .stl versions up soon. (I'll edit this post when I do)

EDIT
A .stl file of the entire field can be found via the following link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/1pxzqp4jun...Field.stl?dl=0

Feel free to message/reply with any questions or issues.

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

I quickly read through the rules like I would a real FRC manual and took notes. Some of my questions are useful to this exercise, and some of them clearly aren't (there won't be FTAs on this field). Some of the questions I ask in the notes, get answered later on the manual as I kept reading.

Here are my notes. I like game rules in general so take my notes with a grain of salt, I get that a lot of the questions don't need answers for this CAD challenge.

Overall I like this game. The two end games is a neat idea it gives something for a plowie to do during the end game.

We'll have a football game one day and I wouldn't be mad if we got some variation of this game at some kickoff in the future. Nice work.

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

Thank you for the compliments, and thank you for the notes you've taken. We agree that there are some very valid concerns in there that will affect the majority of teams, and we'd like to get them cleared up as soon as possible.

If balls do not clear the field then there is no need to clear or re-enter them. They will simply just sit in the place where they've fallen. The only requirement for the balls to be scored is to make it through the Goal Post.

We did not clarify because we believed that out of the many ways of interpreting the location of each zone and which you are in, any possible method you can think of will be a valid one that will not give one advantage over the other.

The mobile goals are made out of Lawrencium and are as round as we can get them. The weight was an oversight, but they should weigh in at around 50 lbs.

The CAD says no so I say no.

The pegs are long enough to hold two tubes.

Teams will need to consider goal control as an active part of the game alongside scoring.


Like you said, many of your comments were greater related to if this were a real game, and since it is mainly a design a strategical analysis exercise I've skipped some of the notes in an effort to not make an extremely long post or to crowd the thread with information that may confuse teams. That being said your analysis was so thorough that if the chance comes I would love to see you be a member of the FRC GDC.

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

Really though, the word is what it is. You know what we intended as creators of the game. Please don't lawyer each and every word.

With 2 points and a high five from the nearest ref. Personally, I wouldn't count on it as a reliable strategy since the goals are always subject to motion.



So.....defense? Yeah....defense is allowed.

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

If a mobile goal is knocked over (I know it would be hard to do since the base is pretty large but...) and the football/tubes fall out, are they not counted in the final score of the match? Is there a penalty for that?

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

Any alliance that knocks over a mobile goal will incur a penalty of over 9000 points as per G4.

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

The mobile goals can't both be in th center of the field at the same time.
Unless you've got some trick up your sleeve! ;)

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

With 100 footballs at their disposal, it seems very feasible that someone could make a team 71 in 2002 type bot, just pull a goal (or both) up to the feeder station, lock in place, and for the entire time before fourth down just funnel/chuck in balls.

That just seems like way too easy a way to do well in the game. Maybe less footballs should be available?

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

What made 71 so deadly wasn't just the design, but the execution. These days with the added robots and the more powerful drive systems I don't think a 71 style robot would be effective in this game. It was something we all discussed before choosing it. I am in no way saying that it is better to go with a safer design, but a risky design like 71's requires proof of perfect execution to be successful, and that's proof that is hard to conjure in a design competition such as this one.

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

It looks like about 190 footballs will fit in the rolling goal. I have simulated it and got 184 to fit. Anyone willing to verify that?

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

Can multiple HEPTAGONAL INNER TUBES be scored per PEG? IE, even though there are only 24 tubes, can all 33 of your starting tubes be put on your own Mobile Goal?

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

This seems like an odd answer. Can they be thrown around the side wall of the driver station? Can the human players walk to the sides of the field and throw them in? Can they be entered through the goal post? To the extreme can a human player bring a quad copter to the driver station and fly the game pieces to the center of the field (clearly illegal, I'm just saying this rule can dramatically effect robot design and game play)

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

Yes.

The intent was that all humans be behind the alliance walls at all times. G19 has been added to clarify this intention.

Regarding the quad copter....that would be pretty cool. You are right though that like many things you have pointed out - these limitations were an oversight that were not included due to the intended nature of the design competition. We figured that if it became important in the eyes of someone else, someone would ask, and we would provide an official answer. We wanted to make the manual small and simple in exchange for rules and clauses that we decided were either too situational to require an immediate rule or too unlikely/irrelevant to affect how teams approach their design.

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

What does "facing" mean? Is there a defined "front" of the robot? Isn't there always a field guardrail to the left of a robot? I have no idea what this rule is trying to say.

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

It means that if one were to face their goal's side, their robot has to be on the left side of the field. Think of Breakaway's autonomous mode starting positions.

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

So I hear defense is an option...
Since the footballs aren't (or at least I do not believe they are not) designated to a team does that mean you can interact with game pieces that your opponent are in possession of?

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

Footballs are not alliance specific, so if you can find a way to retrieve footballs from another robot in a way that ensures the other robot is not damaged, it will not be against the rules. That being said as a judge I wouldn't say it's a particularly smart strategy.

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

Not sure if I'm interpreting G4 correctly however doesn't the part against breaking the plane of the floor make it impossible to pull the goal over the speed bumps without incurring a 9001 point penalty?

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

Are footballs scored in the mobile goals in autonomous considered scored like teleop?
This question leads to another: when are scores assessed? Are they assessed when the match ends or as events take place? If you knock a tube off the peg (not unlikely by any standard) is it descored?

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

It says nothing about breaking the plane of the floor, but that the plane of the base may not intersect the plane of the floor. While I did not add that part to the rule, I believe this was added under the assumption that the plane of the base was limited to the surface area of the base, essentially saying "the base cannot touch the floor", with the intent being that the goals should not fall down or be tipped over.

There are no points awarded to footballs scored in the mobile goals during the autonomous period. Scores are to be assessed at the end of the round per usual, and G7 has been added to the rules to clarify this.

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

First of all, this is awesome! Now I have something to satisfy my designing urges until build season.

A couple of questions. Can the mobile goals be intentionally moved or grasped during autonomous and/or teleop period/before the Fourth Down period? Can you move your goal or your opponent's goal to one side of the field or another? Also, are you able to grab the opponent's goal?

I only skimmed through the rules earlier and haven't had time to thoroughly read them so I apologize if my questions were already answered in the rules.

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

We are glad you like our game! Everything you said is legal. Keep in mind that you need to predict how your opponents will play the game and respond to each of your actions. Some strategies seem really easy until you realize that there are robots who won't let you just do what you want willingly.

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

Do the casters on the bottom of the mobile goals swivel or are they fixed?

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

They swivel.

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

1. Does blocking a robots movement by use of the mobile goal qualify as a pin?

2. The mobile goals may not be grasped during Fourth down are we to assume that means a robot cannot grasp it but an alliance can by using multiple robots move it more effectively?

3. Is the horizontal extension limited to 20" in one direction or are we allowed to have multiple extrusions at once?

4. Are you allowed to load game balls into your robot pre-match and hold onto them until Fourth Down

5. Which determines the the position of the mobile goal at the end, its final resting position or its position at when the time runs out?

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

Since we've now reached the halfway point into the competition, I would like to leave this small teaser of things to come:

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

1. Yes

2. The mobile goals may not be grasped during the Fourth down. It means what it means.

3.Similar to past rules, you can have multiple extensions

4. No you are not.'

5. While we do not expect the goals to be moving with a great enough velocity at the end of the match for it to matter, I will say 5 seconds after the match ends the match will be scored.

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

Loving the design so far! Can't wait to see the whole thing!

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

Neat!

I would like to point teams toward some cool gate latch style mechanisms in 2010 that allowed robots to grab onto a vertical pole by driving into it, without actuating anything. The mechanisms used in 2010 didn't release, but I'm sure you can figure out a way to accomplish that.

Here's a picture of a pole grabbing mechanism 1114 used in 2010. The rules of this competition require the ability for such a mechanism to release. How could that be accomplished?

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

Is the ' 2" high 1" wide ' speed bump a typo? Based on the picture it looks like a semicircle.

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

You may be misreading - the document shows 2" high (2 inches high) and 1' wide (1 foot wide)

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

5 more days until submission time! We're Looking Forward to seeing what all y'all have done to complete this challenge!

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

When/How can the community expect to see submissions and the winners?

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

We are hoping to complete judging and contact the winners in the next day or so. From there if the winners are cool with us making it public we will announce it on this thread.

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

Did you ever make any of the designs public? I'd love to see some of them.

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

It appears that Andrew Lawrence's Chief Delphi account no longer exists. At this point, I seriously doubt that we will ever know who won.

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

As far as I'm aware, we didn't receive any submissions. Probably due to time of year and commitments, since December probably isn't the best time for it.

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

What did happen to Andrew's account? AFAIK, he's still involved with FIRST, and I did quite like his posts.

As for the design competition, I'm sad that nobody submitted. It was really well done, so our team may reuse these rules for design lessons/fake kickoff if we get around to meeting in the summer.

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

I personally would still love to see some designs for this, and might design something myself over the summer. I could try to set another due date over the summer if more people are interested, since a lot of college students are more available during the next few months. If you're interested let me know.

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

A new challenge is also going to be released sometime early summer. Probably mid-June. I've been helping Andrew out. Let's say this much: It's a pretty awesome game. Hopefully we will get a good amount of applicants considering the modified release date.

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

This is valid, for those asking.

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

I made a design and forgot to upload it due to my not being able to export it to an acceptable CAD format (My computer is old and slow and can barely run SketchUp and Blender). I'll try to link to some files here sometime this weekend.

Re: December Design Competition 2014: Tubular Touchdown
 

Hi Andrew