Alignment Line Use
 

First for those of you who forgot or never realized, there was a strip of gaffers tape 11ft from the castle wall referred to as the alignment line in the manual.

As I was looking through the manual I wondered if any teams actually used it or even thought of using it.

(Doing a quick search all I found was one team wanting to detect it in auto

Re: Alignment Line Use
 

We set up all of our auto crossings to end centered on the alignment line. We were looking to eventually score low in auto from positions other than the low bar. We came close a few times, but never quite made it.

Re: Alignment Line Use
 

We considered it very briefly, but quickly decided that detecting the goals' retroreflective tape would be more reliable and more informative than a piece of tape of similar color to the carpet. Besides, we originally planned to launch with our rear bumpers over the outer works.

Re: Alignment Line Use
 

We used it for the main alignment of our shooter. We got our bot perfectly set so it would score every time we were on the line. Worked well for us.

Re: Alignment Line Use
 

How did you detect you were on it?

Re: Alignment Line Use
 

We didn't use it for alignment while scoring. We used it as a reference line for defense. We told our defensive bot to stay in front of it while playing defense. This was effective in that the defensive bots on our alliance never received penalties for contacting a robot in contact with the outer works. This simple rule allowed even rookies to play safe and effective defense.