Re: FVC GDC wants your feedback
 

not necessarly, you just need to learn to do it right:
http://pic1.picturetrail.com/VOL1182.../208020713.jpg
http://pic1.picturetrail.com/VOL1182.../141017530.jpg
http://pic1.picturetrail.com/VOL1182.../141017524.jpg

Re: FVC GDC wants your feedback
 

Not true.

FVC competition crystals are different channels from the ten commercially available. This is done so that the commercial crystals can not interfere with FVC competitions. There are enough channels to run two fields simultaneously, with a small amount of expansion, too. If no one's noticed, the field controls are designed and built to be used by three teams per alliance.

Vex uses the standard hobby ground frequency of 75 MHz, channels 61-90. That's 30 total channels, minus 10 commercial channels, leaves 20 FVC competition channels. Fine for 2 vs. 2, but a little tight for 3 vs. 3.

If running two fields simultaneously, I would still recommend staggering the fields so only one field is active at a time to eliminate any possibility of interference between the two fields. It would still be faster than what was being run in Atlanta. If you have a 30 second window before and after the match to get radios turned on and off, you should be able to run on a 4-5 minute match cycle. We ran on a 5 minute match cycle at the Hartford regional with only one field, so two fields running staggered on a 5 minute cycle is within reason.

I understand a team's concerns. Paying a large amount of money to compete at Championships, then only getting 4 qualification matches, doesn't seem justified. It also left large blocks of teams with similar win-loss records. I would like to see the Championships split into 2 divisions of 50 teams which play to divisional winners. Then the two divisional winners could play for the overall title. Even with the extra matches needed for the elimination rounds, a faster field cycle should be able to get teams up to at least 6 qualification matches. :cool:

GDC This years game was great! Especially the atlas ball. I'll agree with previous posts, time for a new game piece. Give balls a rest for a year or two.

Also..... 3 vs. 3! :yikes:

Re: FVC GDC wants your feedback
 

I only attended one FVC event this year, although I think it counts for something that the one event was the Championship. Here's what I thought:

Autonomous mode: VASTLY improved upon Half-Pipe Hustle. I didn't see much line-following, but the field was configured to provide plenty of dead-reckoning or encoder-based possibilities. Lots of great plays to run.

Teleoperated mode: No complaints here. Good clean fun.

Game Objects: Perhaps balls are becoming a bit too common in FVC--I know a few teams essentially showed up with their center-goal Half-Pipe Hustle robot. (That's an exaggeration.) Let's see something a little different next season--maybe still balls, but make them particularly different in use or nature from past seasons' balls.

Oh, and the Atlas Ball did sometimes make following the action a bit tricky...but such is the case with any large opaque object.

Goals/Scoring: The Atlas Ball, in the end, seemed a bit too weighty--pin that with one robot, have the other score some in the high goal, you win. Throwing the ball out was a tricky but big move, one slightly hampered by the driver placement. (I would frequently find myself waving back drivers so the ball could go either in or out.) It was nice to have the high goal be significantly higher than the Half-Pipe Hustle goal, but something different might be nice for next season. The platform and bar were a nice setup. I wish the turntable was a little bit crazier, but it was still a neat change.

Tournament Structure: Championship match thinness aside, I've got nothing much. I do prefer this ranking structure over the Autonomous-mixed-in arrangement of Half-Pipe Hustle.

Other Ideas: One I've been jonesing to see in FVC: robot-actuated field elements. We saw a bit of this in the high-level play of Half-Pipe Hustle, where teams would use their robots to empty the auto-loaders of the loader-dependent opponents. I'm envisioning some sort of lift or conveyor driven by a small Vex wheel, just to ensure maximum replication ability.

I'd also like to see some electronic scoring--the bumper switches in the Vex kit seem to be perfect as a target for teams to hit either with robots or game pieces.

Lastly, the robot-as-scoring-object approach of Rack 'N Roll was just good clean fun. If that can be integrated into an FVC game without coming off as a total rip-off, I imagine it'd be fun.

Re: FVC GDC wants your feedback
 

Yes! - Similar ideas here. Jim Koca and I had fun discussing similar possibilities for an off-season exhibition event last summer. The plan didn't get implemented because our "customers" for the event were properly reluctant to use a field that might require expert assembly and trouble-shooting when reused by them for other exhibitions in the future.

An effective compromise between field complexity and the rewards of having an "active" field is bound to exist. The idea just needs some testing and refinement so that we can identify where that compromise lies.

It will be easy to prove that there is no "rip-off" by referring to this message that was posted well before Rack-N-Roll was announced.
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...3&postcount=24

Dave Lavery's speeches to the regional audiences about FRC teams having to get "into the heads of" the other FRC teams this year was one that I could have written myself. I look forward to seeing more of these sorts of opportunities woven into the FIRST FVC and FRC games.

Blake
PS: Last year, for Aim High, I urged our FRC team to build a mobile pillbox/tank that lumbered out into position on the field with a slow; but nearly impossible to dislodge or block high-traction, high-torque drive train; and then opened a hole(s) that looked like a low goal.

For the rest of the game it would just sit at its money-spot and accurately fire 3-point balls into the high goal. Allies would only need to harvest the balls that littered the game fields and deliver them to the pillbox bot's low goal(s). I suspect that we would have consistently gotten very high scores from the strategy.

I would love to see future FVC and FRC games have clear/obvious opportunities for alliances to create this sort of division of labor. Perhaps even carried to the extent of having robots declare whether they will be a hunter or a gatherer (or an autonomous vs teleoperated, or a ___ vs a ___) at the beginning of each event. Then the match schedule would explicitly put one bot of each type into each alliance for each match.

See these also:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...2&postcount=15
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...3&postcount=16

Re: FVC GDC wants your feedback
 

Well, "Yes" and "No".

"Yes" because we are specifically discussing FIRST events at the moment.

"No" because VexLabs and FIRST appear to be collaboratively attempting to keep the genie in the bottle by only offering 10 crystals for sale to anyone who doesn't know the secret handshake (a bit annoying - especially for organizers of large practices and scrimmages that use VexLabs equipment and/or FIRST's games; and for users who want to do multi-robot experiments or games that aren't related to FIRST's competition games. Formal FIRST events are not the only activities that use Vex equipment....).

You mean commercially available to ordinary buyers through VexLAbs. The crystals for the other channels are commercially available from plenty of other sources (I now need to look for the right connectors from other vendors....). See your and my further comments below.

This genie will be out of the bottle very soon. In an odd case of serendipity, I had this same "conversation" with my hobby shop team sponsor last Monday and with Chuck Harris at a PVL-sponsored FVC scrimmage yesterday.

So, I doubt I will be the first person to take a crack at figureing out how to adapt commercially available crystals from sources other than VexLabs for use in VexLabs Tx/Rx equipment. Hopefully it won't be any harder than finding a source that uses the same two pronged plugs.

Thanks for the reinforcing info Skimoose!

Blake
PS: Is anyone able to recommend a suitable vendor already?

Re: FVC GDC wants your feedback
 

Thanks for all of your feedback over the past two years. Look for the 2007 FTC game to be released in mid-Sept.