Pre-Ship Scrimage Results
 

I wasnt fortunate to make it to one of these scrimages today, as we just had too much to do on the robot. However, I was wondering how they went. In the past, they have shown significant insight into the game. So, if anyone can post some reflections on them, I think it would be a great help to all. Thanks.

Re: Pre-Ship Scrimage Results
 

I was at the UTC Scrimmage today, and did some refing. Overall, I think teams were too worried about getting their robot working, to really play the game the way they intended to.
Anyway, some of the strategies used were:
Horde small balls into HP. Most balls wins
Use big ball. I only saw 2 teams do it succesfully, only 1 of them more than once.
Block chutes with moveable goals.
Hang on bar right away / prevent other team from hanging (The finals came down to the 2 robots who hung the best facing off).

Thats really it.
Here's some pictures I got of robots and good action shots
And here's the rest of them. These ones are dark or blurry.

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In the Swamp shop 179 180 and 1251 got some full scale practice done. swampthing worked fine it caps and uncaps balls with no troubble. Spam had some control broblems, tho they blew us all away with their Holonomic Omni Drive. and 1251 got their Lasso device broken by swampthing and i helped them make an aluninum pice to make it work better.

GO TEAMS!!! I Had great Time An were All Glad you came

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Thank you to team 179 for hosting that. It really helped us. We weren't really having control problems exactly; we just moved things by hand so that we could be there to stop or catch anything if it didn't work. The switches have been tested and work fine. The driving of the omni-directional drivetrain was a little crazy, but we tweaked it a bit. Most of the problems are getting used to driving the thing since it is very different than tank treads. Our drivers got a lot of practice on your field today and we think we got the science down, for now. Lets see if that is still true at UCF.

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yeah we had problems but we'll figure them out-- it's not a spam bot without a million problems

but thanks swampthing for letting us test!!! spam luvs u guys

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Unfortunetly, the scrimmage ran behind due to field problems, so they stopped the matches and went the finals after the teams had only two matches. The teams who didn't get picked were kind of grr about that, understandably.


On a brighter note, my team managed to get both the lowest and highest score of the day!

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Team 64 would like to thank the 10 teams from the Phoenix/Tucson area who came to our 7th Annual "Duel in the Desert". The action was much better than I expected with almost a week to go before shipping. Several teams were able to gain axcess to the platforms. Three teams were able to hang. No one used the IR beacon in auto mode, though a few teams said they were working on it. Most robots (even the rookies) showed exceptional speed. A few teams realized how top heavy they were (tipping over was not uncommon especially when carrying the big balls.) Many teams used the pneumatic tires. Special acknowledgement to Team 1011 for their "Swerve2" driving system.

What suprised me the most was how little time two minutes is when you are trying to accomplish just a few things in this years game.

Ken loyd
Team 64

Re: Pre-Ship Scrimage Results
 

The one in DC went well, except for the radio channel problem. They had to be set manually, and some couldn't get off the default channel.

There were at least two that did the big ball, and two that did the chinup. Here we are:http://www.mbhs.edu/~aajohnso/robo04...20(Medium).JPG
(bad lighting, fuzzy, but that is 449 haning)

We were able to just drive up the 6" step, but we also drive up balls, goals, robots, etc, so we need to do something about that (we came home and started fabricating). There was some big event there, which first was a small part of, so there wasnt much room and a lot of people.

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Was that us.. because we did a couple times in practice rounds.. but then in the finals we kept losing pneumatic pressure and out main arm gear down sprocket broke in half :mad: Well anyway we were team 195... "The Ghetto Bot" (the one with PVC arms, orange gloves, and a zip tied on sign from our pits at nats)

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Ok this is great and all, but what did you you learn about the dynamics of the game? Not to whine, but this thread has gotten a bit of topic, and us teams who weren't able to make it to a practice scrimish would really like some insight into things.

How big of a hazard were the small balls?
How did autonomous go?
How much contact was there?
What strategies were sucessful?
What strategies weren't?
Was hanging big?
How important were the smalls balls and the big balls?
What sorts of mehcanisms proved effective and inneffective?
What were the common characteristics of high scorign robots?
What were the biggest challenges for most bots?
How important was speed? Torque? Control?
Were alot of people able to get up the ramp?
.......... etc, etc, etc.....

Re: Pre-Ship Scrimage Results
 

ok pretty much what it came down to was....

1) Gathering balls takes too much time and proved not to be worth it
2)who ever hangs wins

then again, most teams didnt have new bots or didnt have their new ones worked out, so we still have to wait and see

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At DC I pretty much got the impression that the balls are actually very small, cuddly landmines. When all of them are dumped, all hell breaks loose on the playing field. It doesn't matter if you have a little ground clearance or a lot of ground clearance, you start riding up on balls simply because they're so grippy on aluminum. Teams were being dissuaded from hanging or grabbing yellow balls simply because a little red ball was smack dab in their way. This has gotten so bad that I've told my autonomous guys to work out a "ball-bocker" program that doesn't allow the bonus point balls to be hit!

Hanging looks to be the major issue. Teams simply couldn't pick up the yellow multiplier balls (thought that has to do with the fact that the balls weren't exactly to spec), and very few could hang. Those that could hang generally went from the very top platform. Very few teams at DC were doing much of anything.

Nobody at DC had an autonomous, and it didn't seem to matter.

Re: Pre-Ship Scrimage Results
 

How did autonomous go?
Although some teams had a semi-working autonomous mode, most didn't have anything yet.

How much contact was there?
meh, not too much, especially compared to previous years.

What strategies were sucessful?
if you can shoot, and you can hang, you can win.

What strategies weren't?
pushing balls wasn't as big as I though it would be.

Was hanging big?
Oh yeah. When my team hung, we won (haighest score of the day! w00t!). Those 50 points add up.

How important were the smalls balls and the big balls?
Not as much as I thought, but still very important, particularly the small.

What sorts of mehcanisms proved effective and inneffective?
lots of the big ball grabbers weren't working right (ours wasn't even attached yet) however I think it'll have to wait until the first regionals.

What were the common characteristics of high scorign robots?
hang, climb, and not break.

What were the biggest challenges for most bots?
Getting the robot to work. Not many autonomous modes worked, and there was a lot of unfinished robots.

How important was speed? Torque? Control?
I guess it all depends on the strategy involved. Balls were everywhere, so speed wasn't a big deal there because you didn't really have to fight for them. Most robots kept to their own side.

Were alot of people able to get up the ramp?
I didn't see that many doing it.


One thing that I noticed that was majorly different from last year was the penalty system. It killed a lot of teams (we were penalized for part of our robot entering the corral, buzz had part of its bot out of the field and was penalized, lots of teams got into some trouble)




My team will be putting up information for individual teams (with their permission, of course) that we gathered at the scrimmage on our website (http://www.team96.org is the main site, and out scouting database is http://www.team96.org/scouting/) and some teams have already registered and put their information up themselves. It;ll give you a better idea about what other teams are doing.

Re: Pre-Ship Scrimage Results
 

No, sorry. I didn't see the practice rounds. I showed up at about 1pm. Team 839 did it a couple times, and buzz (175) did it once.

How did autonomous go?
Seems like most teams were making sure they could move in auto mode. Not much was programed. Buzz went forward a little and spun once. Other teams went forward also.
How much contact was there?
The contact happened when another team was blocking ball chutes, or keeping another bot from getting on top of the platform. Not nearly as much contact as the previous 2 years.
What strategies were sucessful?
One bot corals small balls, while the other hangs. Or the non-hanger keeps opposing robots from hanging.
What strategies weren't?
Well, alot of teams pushed small balls, but not very well. Very few teams did anything with the large ball.
Was hanging big?
The biggest deciding factor.
How important were the smalls balls and the big balls?
If you can get 10+ small balls your in good shape to win. If you can add a large ball to that they you're golden. A large ball with few small balls may not cut it.
What sorts of mehcanisms proved effective and inneffective?
Quality over quantity. Stick to one task and do it well. More specificlly for you: A simple hook to grab the bar works like a charm. A simple pincher for the large ball works well.
What were the common characteristics of high scorign robots?
They could hang. Or they could hold 5+ small balls.
What were the biggest challenges for most bots?
Geting up the 6" step. Alot tried, few succeeded.
How important was speed? Torque? Control?
1) Control
2) Speed
3) Torque
Were alot of people able to get up the ramp?
By ramp, I assume you mean the tiny stairs. Only if they're robot was narrow enough to get around the staionary goal.



Hope that answers your questions.

Re: Pre-Ship Scrimage Results
 

In DC we didn't keep score....it was just 5 min practices in front of the huge crowd at the Engineering Week festivites in the National Building Museum

*None of us had effective autonomous (we're working on it tomorrow!)

*The red balls were a problem..........even a movable GOAL got up on one!

*Since it was practice rather than matches -- there wasn't really any game strategy revealed.....everyone was just troubleshooting their own bots.

Lisa T :)

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I am very interested in small ball handling 'bots. How did they do? How did they do it? Were there any notable ball handling 'bots?

Also, out of curoisity, did any teams have a good way of getting the yellow balls on to the field instead of just nocking them off the tee?

-Andy A.

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A few questions:
How effective were wings for aidiing in pushing balls into the corral?
What did bots with many capabilities focus on?
Did people push balls out of the ring on purpose and to what effect?
Were goal grabbers necessary for pulling goals out of corners?
Were robots that were holding a big ball attacked because they were valuble?

~Ian

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Do you mean to tell me that the teams who got up on the platforms were only the ones who went up the tiny steps and were small enough to go around the stationary goal?? None came in from the sides??

How did the hangers hang??? Did they go up the platform(s) and then hang or just reach in for the bar from the carpeted level?

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no one at utc grabbed the bar from the ground. There were only a few teams that could hang succesfully EVERY round. Aces high's bot was insane. Look out for them this year.

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Another bot to look out for this year is 782. They hang like crazy and they are good at it. They are able to get around the stationary or go up the big step.

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Most attempts to push balls into the coral with wings or just with the robot weren't very sucessful at UTC. From my observation, the only teams that got more than a couple balls in were those who picked up the balls then spit them out to the human player. Also, a lot of teams got 10 point penalties for breaking the plane of the ball shute so I think that discouraged teams from trying to push in balls.

Most of the teams at UTC only moved the goals by pushing them. However, since so many teams were trying to block the human player shutes with the movable goals, I think it would be very benificial to have a goal grabber so you can reopen your ball coral.

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No. There were a few teams that went up the 6" step, but it was much slower than the tiny stairs. Ther were also alot of teams that attempted going up the 6" step but didn't make it.

All the hanging bots had some sort of arm that extended up with a hook on the end. Like this and this. Both of those were on the platform when they reached for the bar.
There was one robot that tried reaching from the carpet (178). When then hooked the bar and started putting weight on their hook, it snapped off.

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just curious, did any of the other scrimmages besides DC have the evil small balls of doom? or were they closer to the official size that FIRST put out?
because in DC that seemed to be one of the biggest problems for everyone... running over the majorly deflated evilness

Did any of the other scrimmage groups have that problem too, or are we just 'special'?

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at AZ we had what I think are the standard size balls, but I did not see a team that did not have trouble herding them due to how easy it is to ride up on them.

I know that a few teams were able to handle the 2x ball, but that did them very little good without any balls....

the thing that i learned most from the invitational this year was that we, and most other teams mis judged the importance of the different ways of playing the game. We thought that anyone with a moving base would be able to herd balls, but that is defently not true. the only ones that will be succesfull at it is those that actually gather them. These teams will be the ones to go far in the alliance pickings because the teams that went all out will be able to hang and cap, and do all that, but wont dominate like they thought without at bot that gathers.

so the way i se things working out is this:
the teams that do everything will end up doing one thing (befor the alliance picking), wich will probubly be hanging, because that is the only thing that you can do by yoursealf without a gathering alliance partner. and when the gather bots pick them because they can cap, and hang well, then they will cap when the big goal is full, and then go to hang. This is the alliance them that will win in every reagenal i bet.

furthermore I am predicting that all of the bots that gather balls will be picked, or picking. This is because that robot design was considers less ambitious by most teams, and they decided to build a hanging-2x handling bot.

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The highest scoring bot I saw was one that parked under the ball dumb got ALL the balls, drove over to the ball chute, and deposited them all.

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Thanks Ogre!!

Re: Pre-Ship Scrimage Results
 

Got any pics? I would love to see that!

PS. Sorry we werent there.. i wanted to see what you guys have been up to!

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We (#1463) went to the DC afternoon session. We mainly went for the learning experience. This is our first year so it was quite helpful. Although we didn't manage to do much because of poor decisions caused by lack of experience, we managed to get a good idea of what we need to do to fix our issues.

DC had some arena controller issues, so there radio channel conflicts because not many teams brought thier own compitition simulating control box thingy (us included). Also most teams didn't have autonomous code yet (we didn't, I just did all that today after school). The few that did, did barely anything, #225 drove forward like 5 feet and stopped, another team just spun in circles.

Those balls at DC were really messed up, they were smaller and heavier than the regulation ones. So alot of ppl's shots went right between the PVCs because of the reduced size and added mass. We kept rolling right over them....our bot is about 2 inches off the ground....

When we were there, 2 teams managed to hang...1 team took over 4 mins to do it tho, but #225 did it quite fast (1 min or so for the whole process), so they are a team to watch out for. There were many other teams that tried to hang, but either broke or just couldn't do it. From reports of the mourning session only 1 team managed to hang then.

About capping those big double point balls. Most teams had issues getting them. 1 team who used a suction cup jammed the ball all the way down into the mobile goal, another team with a giant metal bowl like suction cup managed to pick it up but held on only for about 2 secs. A few other teams tried to get it, but failed.

While we were there, a team tried that catch all the balls as they fall strategy...only once did they manage to catch more than 2/3 balls.

Our bot is a ball gatherer. We were way too fast (First round I hit the side gate and knocked it off lol, in the process getting our bot stuck on the side lip thing), and had ball control issues (being fixed tommorrow). Second round....we rammed a ball sooooo hard it flew out and hit some ppl in the crowd, lol. We also had some control issues...high speed turning was backwards (right was left, left was right). Even with these issues, we managed to gather a few balls each time, and with our good shooter we managed 35-50 points a couple of rounds.

For those at DC that might not remember who we are...we are the bot that start standing and then proceed to fall over...

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Well we attended the Peachtree regional at SciTrek this past Saturday. We along with the majority of teams there had their share of mechanical problems, but we thought it well worth the trip out to see our defiencies on a playing field.

1. Small balls were no hazard.... not sure what hazards you might be thinking of other that maybe excessive bouncing around the field or maybe a bot running over one.

2. The scrimmage was not setup to replicate the conditions conducive to good autonomous operation, but several teams did take a stab at it. I don't believe anyone was able to effectively track the line, or IR beacon.

3. As it turned out, there wasn't very much contact for the bots that made it to the field. Most ended up concentrationg on doing their own thing. The majority of contact was made between bots and walls, bots and platforms, bots and the floor, bots and mobile goals, etc.

4. I believe that the key question is which bots were successful in their strategy, as a consequence of a good design and implementation. There were some that were built primarily to herd the balls, others that went straight for the bar, one that focused on manipulating the 2X ball, and one that was very good at grabbing the mobile goal and ball herding. All could be effective given the complexity and dynamics of the game.

5. The converse holds true for ineffective strategies. For us, we never got a fully trial of our strategy since we were one amongs the many that had mechanical problems. We did manage one scrimmage round where we fielded 4 of the 10 pt balls. However our competitors managed 1 of the 10 pt balls plus hung from the bar for 60 points. It will pay to scout out the strengths and weaknesses of your opponents to be flexible in your competitions strategy.

6. Out of the approx 8 bots there, about 3 had mechanisms to do bar hanging, but only one did it at all and did it more than once.

7. Big balls are only as effective as the small balls in the goal. 2x ball times zero small balls is still zero.

8. For us our 4 wheel drive train was modified when we returned from the scrimmage. Too much side friction to over come, so we have the pneumatic tires for drive on the rear and casters on the front now. (All that wasted time :mad: ). One team had similar problems with treads, the side friction was causing their treads to disengage. I was surprised to NOT see an effective ball hearding design, including ours. It was good to see however that the use of pneumatics was good for most teams.

9. Too few functional bots at the time and too few scrimmage sessions to make the determination as to common characteristics of high scoring bots.

10. Biggest challenge was manuvering/negoating the field to get up on the platform, or grab the mobile goal, or herd those rubbery/bouncy balls to the corral.

11. A good balance of speed and torque is always good. Of course if your goal is to heard the 10 pt balls, you can't do that with too much speed. They go all over the place. I would give up some speed and torque to get better control for our strategy.

12. Ramp...? What ramp...LOL. No need to get up the platform unless you plan to hang from the bar, or block another bot from hanging from the bar. I guess if a 10 pt ball ended up there you could be going after that, but most remained on the main playing field since their strategy required that.

Hope that helps...... We missed you guys at the regional. See ya on the 18th - 20th.

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Rickertson, Why didn't you guys come to the Georgia Tech-hosted scrimmage at Scitrek? It was loads of fun. :D

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"When we were there, 2 teams managed to hang...1 team took over 4 mins to do it tho, but #225 did it quite fast (1 min or so for the whole process), so they are a team to watch out for. There were many other teams that tried to hang, but either broke or just couldn't do it. From reports of the (*)mourning session(*) only 1 team managed to hang then."


(*)mourning session = session after the morning session where people mourned the loss of their bots and the destruction of their strategy ideas?(*)


Just so everyone knows, i haven't seen any other robots work well on our arena, but ours can herd balls with short wings, and control 2 of the 2x balls, we scored 210 points in 2 mins by ourselves.
We can remove a 2x ball from it's spot on the mobile goal and place it on the tall stationary goal in 11 seconds, assuming the mobile goal is in its starting position, we can grab it off the ground, out of other teams hands. I hope we are not the only teams not having that serious of design flaws

That is weird that so many people are having such trouble getting a high score.

We'll see at regionals how everyone does


Cya there


Dave "seeker of yoda!"

p.s. "hmmm Yoooda?, you seek yooooda?,hmmm"

TEAM 931 "Perpetual Chaos"
Our monster = "GearMO III"
Picture of our bot here!!!

http://www.slps.org/SLPS_Update/curr...ompetition.htm