Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

At first I was sad because we weren't shooting anything. I really liked that aspect of the game last year and that it felt like a real sport. After thinking about strategies and game tactics more though, I am starting to like Rack and Roll a lot. I love the elevation of robots in the home zones and the different weight/height classes. They offer an interesting trade-off. It is nice to see something different, and I think it will be great to see how the game is played.

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

Be fast............................................?

This is exactly why I don't like the game design. The entire competition is 'in the moment'. Possibly the only strategy you can formulate now is the robot stacking.

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

you know what will be hard, if a robot is nearly six feet tall and it trys to climb a ramb onto another robot. The robot will probably fall over.

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

The bonus points seem to be harder to get then the game points.

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

That's far too broad a statement to be making. Lots of six-foot robots climbed the ramp in 2006, which was far steeper than teams have to make theirs this year.

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

but what if the ramb is steep and the robots center of gravity is above the center of the robot. Also, you wont have as good of a traction going up the ramp.

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

If I recall correctly, last year's height limit was 5ft.

[edit]

Darkember: that all depends on the robot's drivetrain, and the way the robot with the ramp builds it.

[/edit]

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

This year they are letting you go up to six feet but the robot has to be under 100 pounds.

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

A mentor on my team called the game a few days ago. He said inner tubes with something like tic-tac-toe or something. Also I do not like the game much. I have seen footages from previous robots from previous years that have been able to do this mission. (I Speculate that they have been able to do this mission because I have yet to see it for myself, but the idea in my opinion is a combination of old ones.) I hoped that FIRST had something a bit more challenging and maybe had thought of something that does not combine past ideas. Other organizations can do it, and first even has 6-7 months to think about what they want to do too.

I am dissatisfied very much with this game.

Pavan.

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

Yes! Definitely the 2001 Widlstang.

I just pulled the video out of my archives of wildstang executing the perfect ramp maneuver.

Back to the topic-
This years Rack & Roll...... (after more than 6 hours of thinking)...
I LIKE IT!
It is going to be FUN.

Now, I have to find a team to do my biddings! Ma ha ha.
;)

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

It does not matter what the weight of the robot is as if its center of gravity is high it may fall if it tries to go up a ramp at a high speed.

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

i said that earlier

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

very true....CG is very important when people are considering ramps on their robot.

Pavan.

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

Blue Tooth Wii-Mote anyone? Hook it up and away you go...

This will not be all about speed, mainly because the rack will be moving far too much not to stop and aim. One of our coaches saw a rig and it could not stay still enough to fire onto or to just quickly deposit. Plus the idea that you cannot place the Spoilers on the Keepers or that you can lock up a leg with a Spoiler then a ringer makes the game very strategy oriented. The programing team is going to have fun with the autonomous mode.

I am very happy with this years game, it has so many strategies!

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

Yep. I think we should start a (fake) rule that Dave can't reuse previous year's robots as we can't in the games. :p

Seeing the field in person changes that. Trust me. I thought it was like a normal coat rack at first and kinda had the same reaction (actually I thought the whole thing spun around - silly me), but I will post some video later I took of the whole thing moving around with one simple nudge into a diamond plate piece.
Movement of the scoring SPIDER LEGS will be interesting to overcome.

Indeed. :eek:

Uhh.. suuuree. .;)

Appearences are sometimes incorrect, but not this time. They are in fact very light (less than soccer balls of the past and waaaaay lighter than tetras) This is probably the lightest game element I have seen (member since 2001).

As far as durability, over a course of a regional they will become beat up and pop yes.. one KEEPER lost it's life today at the Manchester kickoff already.

BUT, the good news is they are very thick walled inner tubes as fas as being pool quality. They are no high quality truck inner tubes, but are pretty durable none-the-less.

Indeed. :D

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

You're right--my brain just clocked out at 1:00 today. (This is what happens when you stay up until midnight the night before, then wake up at 6:15 to get ready for presenting at your local Kickoff.)

Again, generalizations. Many things are possible in FRC, just with trade-offs of various sorts. It just takes thought and planning.

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

Why does everyone keep saying tic-tac-toe? My immediate reaction was connect four. Except this is more like connect 24!

At first I really wasn't a fan of the game. But now that I've given it a chance and read through the rules carefully, I think it will be a lot of fun and exciting!

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

Well, I'm still trying to decide whether I like this game or not. I think that it's going to be really tough on the rookies because to compete, they're really going to have to design some sort of an arm. I know our rookie year was tetras and we really had a difficult time. I think we capped one tetra the entire competition...

I'm also a bit concerned about the number of things to do. Everyone is doing one thing, putting on innertubes. I'm not sure I like that, I kinda enjoyed last year's variety.

Also, I'm exceptionally concerned that we will not be able to build a rack. That thing was pretty tall at the kickoff and frankly, I don't think the high school has ceilings that high. Where are we going to put it, where could we store it? Maybe our team is the only one with that issue, but it exists.

Like it or not, I would like to thank the GDC for working their posteriors off to make us a great game.

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

Now wait...if you make a 110 pount robot, it HAS to be between 4 and 5 feet?

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

We also have that problem. Our shop ceilings are around 8.5 feet tall. The only place we can store something like this is in a gym, and even then we need to schedule time to use it.

One thing about the rack, the talles spider is 7 feet 8 inches off the ground, which just gives you enough room for that. But if you want to use the vision system and targets, you need the 10 feet.

/dan

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

Unfortunately that is why this game is so hard. I keep coming up with designs in my head and then saying "No can't do that, everyone will do that."

Finding a niche will be very difficult.

On another note, just because the robots "look" the same doesn’t mean they will be the same. The crucial autonomous mode and the prospect of scoring on the other side of a goal where you can't see, present daunting programming challenges.

I think this will be a great year for software and sensor innovation.

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

No, the maximum height would then be 5 feet.

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

I'm very sorry to say this but although many people will design many new robots. The winning teams will do research with previous games that had similar concepts etc. and maybe pick and choose wisely from old robots and than make their own of those ideas. I do not think that this game is challenging because of this reason. Last year for instance we had not had a game similar to this but this year this is basically a FIRST KICK OFF '9? Version 2.

Pavan.

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

this game looks effin sweet to me. I like how we have an open field to collect or pick up a tube, and then we have the complicated, yet fairly compact scoring object considering that all the scoring besides lifting bots will be done within that center structure.

I think the GDC went with this game to show how much these robots have progressed over the years. Although its similary to 97, its no where near the same game play. This is our chance to show that our robots are getting smarter, and way more advanced as we go through the years.

rack and roll is fine with me!

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

My feeling toward this game, interesting. It doesn't seem to be a high scoring game, with 90 being the average I think. The strategy will be interesting as well. Can two teams carry a RINGER score while one just lifts and plays D, will the vision system be as integral of a part this year, will Human or floor be the main scoring mode, one last thing you cant own every goal which makes it interesting.

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

This game looks pretty cool. My first thought was "Crap...gotta get the camera to work this year"...though it does look like it will be a little bit easier to implement this year.

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

I'm thinking this game will be a crowd pleaser.
Easy to understand, wonderfully visual. Drama, excitement, collaboration oh my!

I think this will be a great year to invite folks to come see FIRST in action and share in the fun - the teams will be rocking. Go GDC!

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

Pavan, please consult my earlier post in this thread for differences between this and the 1997 game, Toroid Terror. Even though both game used inner tubes and placed them onto poles, the strategies and robots will not be similar. Because robots could hold multiple tubes in 97, and the human players were granted much more freedom to interact with the robots, manipulators will have to be different than most of them in 97. Many of the competitive teams in 1997 didn't even attempt to load directly from the floor to their robots, but would push the tubes to their HP and have them load the tubes. A couple teams couldn't even score on the center tower at all, and just pushed tubes to their HP to let them score on it (it was far easier to throw tubes onto that goal, as their was to player station wall like there is now). While these may sound like minor differences, they greatly impacted robot design.

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

Tomorrow I'd like to try this: stand near the Rack (e.g., at station 1) holding a Ringer. Have two students stand near other parts of the Rack (stations 4 and 6) and randomly bump the bottom or middle Spider Arm Plates, while I try to put the Ringer on a Spider Arm at my station, using one hand.

I'm thinking this is going to be a test of my reaction time. And I'm thinking it would also test a driver's reaction time to try the same feat using a robot. I'm thinking that the CMU camera will only be able to tell the robot the time-average location of the swinging Spider Arm Plates.

I'm thinking that Rack scoring will be hard.

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

my own personal opinion? that rack is VERY unstable. if 1-3 people can rotate it think what a full speed 120 lb robot can do if it rams the rack
***sees rack topple over on top another robot***:eek: :ahh:

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

Well, in regards to the complaints about the ease of scoring: I think this complaint comes up every year. That's most of the fun of FIRST- the games are complicated and dynamic, it's not like most traditional sports where you can easily keep track of goals scored. The scores go up as well as down, since there are usually ways for teams to "descore" the other alliance's points, plus the bonus points really make the last few seconds exciting. Also, the games only last a few minutes, so it's not like there's time to stop and explain and discuss the penalties and validity of the apparent scores as they happen (like when game pieces aren't fully within the goals or are touching other field elements and they aren't legally scored) So you know what? For better or for worse, I don't think there will ever be a FIRST game that's easy to score as a spectator.

I do agree, however, that the ability to only see one side of the rack during the match is going to make things very hard for everyone, and I'm not quite sure I like it. =/

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

I think this will be a higher scoring game with the opportunity to realistically score 8 tubes in one row for 256 points, I will bet that it will happen at least once. I say that 2 tube scoring robots could do it if they focus on placing them up there early, then protect the spoilers from being placed on the top row (by taking them off). Seeing that you can't score for your opponents, what are you going to do when you have scored more than enough to win the game... score more. It will be a high scoring game, you can write this down.. we will see scores over 250 this year.

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

That all depends on your opponents. All they need is to score 3 ringers, and theres no way you're getting a row of 8. In my opinion, the only way that'll happen is if the other alliance has no halfway decent tube scorers and no good defensive bots.

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

Don't count on high scores. I think defense is being underestimated. A simple KOP robot could cause a sophisticated robot a lot of trouble. A well build defensive robot could cause havoc for an entire alliance.

I can think of at least one defensive strategy that teams must be able to counter that may not be so obvious.

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

\

Scoring is horrible to keep up with.
Not that great since if you are lucky you can see 5 sides at most, there is NO drama or excitement because it is a quick game not enough time for anything to happen besides a few bumps with bots.. No tipping expected until bonus.

Pavan.
Honestly, it is not the fact that they changed a FEW concepts of the game. It is still the same game to a degree. No matter what you do you are still putting tubes on poles. The fact of the matter is that they had around seven months to develop a challenging UNIQUE game yet they chose to modify an old one. That is my "beef" with FIRST.

Pavan.

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

I'm willing to bet there's going to be a lot of tipping...more so than in previous years. If you have a 6 ft bot going to try to hang a Ringer from the top level of spider legs, and a little 4 ft bot trying to play defense...gravity will eventually take its course. Granted with no wedges and the bumper zone in effect it won't be ideal conditions for tipping (not that tipping is ever ideal) but still...expect tipping to occur.

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

Richard, I very much agree. Our remote rickoff only had a wood mockup of the rack but I have studied the drawings and think I am correct is saying the 4 green lights remain (more or less) stationary while the spiders are able to swing around quite a bit relative to the light position. Now the wood mockup we had at the remote kickoff seemed generally pretty unstable but I assume the real deal (metal rack) will be a more rigid frame. I understand the camera can now (supposedly) track multiple targets (green lights) but I don't think that means it can track the diamond plate circles can it? What I can't figure out is if the camera system can only help you find the relatively stationary green light(s) how is it supposed to be able to track the moving spiders at all and get your ring delivery mechanism within +/- 1.5" of being on target. I derive the +/- 1.5" simply by subtracting the 10" diameter diamond plate circle from the 13" center hole of the pool ring and dividing by 2. Since the rule apparently do not allow you to hold the spider steady to allow easier placement of the rings I believe scoring the rings might be more difficult than first glance.

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

To me that seems like saying that American football is the same game as rugby or Aussie rules, because in all three games the ball is oblong, you throw, catch, kick, and run with it while slamming and getting slammed, and you get points for putting it over the the other team's end line.

The differences and the beauties lie in the details.

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

I'm not really sure if I like it. It will definately be an intense game. The only part I really don't like is how you can only control one tube at a time but I suppose that prevents domination. I knew I shoulad have got more of those pool noodles. They are hard to find for the bumpers.

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

You keep talking about being able to see across the Rack for driving...imagine the poor by play announcer who has to commentate on the action across the field...of course I kid, but still, I'm sure visibility will come into effect sooner or later.

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

I didn't like the game at first, but it's growing on me a lot. I am really starting to like it! This game will have a lot of strategy to it!
GOOD LUCK!
See you at FLR, or NATS!

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

To me it seems like the difference in basketball and street ball, because they are only changing rules and the layout not the game intentionally or anything like that in my opinion.

Pavan.

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

i dont think so detaching a mechanism of your robot is against the rules

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

all I had to say was oh crap over and over again...

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

I am still forming my opinion about whether or not I like the game but no matter what I know it is going to be fun to play and to watch.

Does anyone else get the feeling that the original plans for the game had each set of 3 vertical round diamond plate "feet" as a different color light as in a stop light? The top red, the middle yellow, and the bottom the good old green? This would have allowed teams to directly track the moving circle with the camera and more easily detect which spider leg they wanted to score during autonomous thus allowing the three alliance partners to coordinate their ring placement by switching autonomous modes just before the match. As it is now since they field crew will randomly rotate the rack prior to the start of the match it is very possible for alliance partners to lock on to the same green target and crash into each other while heading for the same spider leg. If each circle had been red, yellow, green like a stop light the alliance partners could say "Ok, you team A go for the low green one on the left, team B go for the high red one in the middle, and team C go for the middle yellow one on the right" or something like that. I was really expecting some sort of red, yellow, green or other multi-color light system this year after the multi-color stunt during the finals at the Championship last year. I don't know why but I get the feeling this may have been the original intent of the GDC but for some logistical reason they had to change the game and just go with round diamond plates. In any case, I sure wish they HAD gone with red, yellow, and green stop lights. It sure would have looked cool and added a whole new dimension to the game.

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

umm... R109 in th robot section states that you can have a wireless camera on your robot as long as it is cleared by FIRST engineers at the competition... so you can see beyond the rack.

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

Pavan,

I do not see how you are so quick to degrade FIRST if this past season was your rookie year. I wasn't around in '97, however, I've seen the games since 2000 and FIRST has yet to fully replicate the game 2 years in a row. YES, toroid terror had inner tubes and a center structure, but open your young eyes for a second and realize in '97 there was no camera, or fancy-schmancy sensors; not to mention the scoring system was COMPLETELY different. Yes, some teams may replicate other teams appendages, however I HIGHLY doubt FIRST made this game to be a copy-cat to toroid terror. I guess we'll see in 8 weeks at the regionals.

~Greg

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

This rule has been around for several years. While teams can't broadcast video direct to their operator stations, if approved, teams have had wireless camera feeds shown on the big viewscreen during matches (48 did this a few times in 2004) or have recorded the feed in their pits for future use.







<R110>

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

My first (<--pun, ha.) reaction when they unveiled the Rack, was something like "Noo! ahahaha!" This was because the crappy connection/laptop we had the stream running through decided to buffer at the exact moment the curtain began to fall. :ahh: But my first reaction after watching the whole thing was something like "Woah... wow.......woah....."

The game this year actually reminded me most of Triple Play (my rookie year), with the whole "putting an oddly shaped thing up on that thing," and the "get behind the line" at the end. I actually came up with a design for a very simple arm, using the arm from that year's robot with some pvc ducktaped to it. Stupid human loading thingy....ruined the whole thing. :(

This year will be very interesting to watch unfold. There will be some crazy designs (some of my friends decided they are going to try to use all 3 cameras that we've gotten so far, all on the same robot :eek: )

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

the limit was five feet last year

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

i personally LOVE it. soooo much strategy. it's amazing!

n the game is simple, but u can do a lot with it. so i think it's good.

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

My reaction...
Not as good as my favorite year (2000), but I like it. Apparently FIRST threw out that whole philosophy that the game should be easily scored/explained to your grandmother.

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

At first (heheh) i'm like... whoa thats wierd... then i started to like it... now i love it. :D

Just got back from our first meeting of the season and we have our robot design completely roughed out, drive sys, manipulator, and end effector. (whoo hoo we did it without pneumatics :cool: gotta love the weight savings)

ALSO I would like to congratulate FIRST on a great challenge design, I think that it does an awesome job of providing an attainable goal to all levels of teams, from rookie to your single and double digit teams. And, all scoring and defensive opportunities are about balanced for their weight in the overall score outcome of the match. Good job game design! :D

Good luck everybody... i'm sure in a few day's time i'll be posting like mad... think i'll give my fingers a rest for the moment... :yikes:

-Q

EDIT:
p.s. expect a very interesting scoring feature on our robot this year... and there might be two of them... hint hint...

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

So I read through the whole thread and I keep seeing people going back on forth on "its torroid terror" or "its not torroid terror".

Now perhaps I'm not in the ranks of the great strategists of Wildstang or Simbotics, but I think part of the issue with this game is that the robots really could be exactly the same as old robots. For me, at this point, I like to be excited about designing something new, after we ship, I want to be excited about more detailed strategy. Yes I know there is more in it, but our first step is always to come up with the basic ways to do the game challenges...

You could take designs from a robot that could lift big balls, or from a torroid terror robot, and use it, exactly as it was. Therefor the challenge only lies in the strategy.... and the whole reason I love FIRST is for the engineering, not for the game (then I would have been a football coach)... as a systems engineer, we look at something a customer wants and if there is already something to do it, then we just buy it off the shelf (COTS). If there isnt, then we have to engineer something new. Its the smartest thing to do... if you know something works well, use it, don't reinvent the wheel.

That said, obviously FIRST is really about the students, so this will be a challenge for all my students. I look forward to seeing their ideas, but personally, this game doesn't excite me that much because I know I could just research old robots or use our torroid terror design, combined with our camera from 2005, and have a robot that easily scores.

I dunno... thats just my thoughts now. And my first thought was ARGH we have to buy new batteries again (just stocked up last year)! lol.

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

<R109> Any decorations that involve broadcasting a signal to/from the ROBOT, such as remote cameras, must be cleared with FIRST Engineering prior to the event and tested for communications interference at the venue. This is the one permissible exception to Rule

this rule is in the
8.3.11 Non-Functional Decoration Rules

i dont know if they will allow you to use the camera as a way to see beyond the rack, that seems kind of functional to me.

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

Thanks for mentioning that. You may think I am quick to judge, and that is because I am, just because I think that they did not think hard enough on this one. Sure they may change certain rules and aspects but the point is different. To be honest this is how I first saw it.

In 97
* No Camera
* No Sensors
* Different Scoring

In 07
* Similar Structure
* Few obstacles for getting tube on the pipe.

Changes made were not enough to combat the simplicities with that technology has gifted us with. In my opinion I think the game would have been better if the Green Light was Different for each of the 4 Sides, and it changed every 15-30 seconds (after Autonomous). I also think that they could have stuck with the height rule from previous years so we would have to think outside the box and instead of changing our bot vertically maybe even let us change it horizontally for less weight. Also if the chains were a bit more sensitive and flimsy I would think of it as a greater challenge, but as it stands I think it is way too easy for rate technology has evolved in 10 years.

Pavan.

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

Reaction you ask? My reaction... "Interesting....very very interesting...i would have preferred a water event...but heres to next year...and this year should be mighty fun."

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There are not going to be any Niagara FIRST triplets this year. They are still going to collaborate together, but they are not going to have identical robots. Karthik posted this here. :)

http://robotics.arc.nasa.gov/events/2007_kickoff.php

This can happen for nearly any game. Last year teams around from 2000-2002 could look back at their ball gathering systems to use similar ideas for picking up Poof balls. 2005 unique only in manipulator design, otherwise teams could go back at look at previous arm and elevator designs. In 2004, hanging on the bar was new (unless you count the really short bar in 2000), but manipulating big balls could use the same designs as 2001.

I personally believe 256 point rows will occur about as frequently this year as having all goals capped in 2005 or having four hanging robots in 2004. It will happen, probably about once or twice per competition, but it sure should be exciting!

This year there are 24 places to score inner tubes. Last year, the majority of defense played was on teams trying to shoot into a single goal. It will be much harder to block all eight vertical columns at once, and with the huge rack in the center of the field it will prevent teams from barreling across the field to push you out of the way.

Is the 2004 game FIRST Frenzy just a reiteration of the 2001 Diabolical Dynamics game, where robots scored small balls into mobile goals, and could cap them with large 30" balls? No. Is the 2007 game Rack 'n Roll just a reiteration of the 1997 game where teams inner tubes onto a rack in the center of the field? No.

You will not see many unique games very often. Balls (of some type) are used on average ever other year. So at some point, you're bound to reuse some game elements like mobile goals, ramps, steps, hanging bars, playing field parts, etc. But does it really matter? 1997 was 10 years ago. If you were a freshman on a team in 1997, you would have graduated high school in 2000, graduated with a 4 yr. bachelor's degree in 2004, and by now you might be considering marriage, buying a house, and/or settling down into your life.

If you think about games on the term of a high school 'generation', 10 years is a long time, and there are not that many people in the program today who were involved with FIRST in 1997.

Think about 2005, the year of nine-pound tetras atop huge arms and elevators as high as 12-14 feet above the ground. This year, you won't have to go much above 9 feet with a playing field object that weighs virtually nothing when compared to a tetra.

Just because games involve high objects does not necessarily mean there will be a lot of tipping. (Who would have thought that 2006, the year of no extensions above 5 feet, would be the year of massive tipping - even more so that 2004 or 2005?)

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

Similar to how the scoring screen has been shown on a LCD/Plasma TV near the drivers station of the team who cannot see it, I think FIRST may do something like broadcast a feed of the opposite side of the field for your use. It would be very nice, but I can't say I see it happening...but this is FIRST...so you never know what they will do!

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

I'm no Car Nack but if 1/10 of the teams at any regional can place a keeper with 75% reliability, I'd eat my scouting notebook. You have a relatively small target which must be hit with a high degree of accuracy, on which you must really completely (or nearly completely) on your camera.

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

That view on the big screen can certainly help a driver

Kim, I'm going to have to disagree. I've already mentioned how a majority of teams relied heavily on their human play in 97, and how that will dramatically alter robot manipulator designs, so I'll demonstrate how other features will change it this year. The primary physical differences are the spiders, specifically their ability to move. In 1997 the tower could freely rotate in place, but in 2007 the spiders have the ability for slight rotation, rocking, shaking, and elevation changes. At the top level, the effect is not terribly dramatic, but in the middle, and specifically in the lowest spider, it can be problematic. Additionally, the fact that the "Chute" is vertical is going to cause all sorts of issues with the acquisition of inner tubes (at least when acquiring them directly from the HP), something that I don't think ANY 1997 robot could have done. In 1997, teams could place tubes horizontally on the top of the tower (provided space remained), which allowed for manipulators that could only control tubes horizontally, but in this game, all the tubes must be manipulated vertically (or close to it).
There are also additional engineering challenges presented by the other aspects of the game. No game have essentially forced this much interaction between alliance partners since 2001. The bonus points will be a very interesting and dramatic ending to the matches this year, requiring a great deal of engineering though and cooperation and collaboration between alliance partners to figure out how to go about it. There are limitless options as to how a team may attempt to try and elevate robots.
If you're still not satisfied, you can always pioneer in the other aspects of the robot, namely the drive and control aspects. FIRST is providing us with more power and chances to pioneer in robot design than they ever have before. Two more pneumatic tanks, more motors, more KoP features, more sensors etc. will all allow for more development in the robot.
And finally, strategy is important in Systems Engineering. As a Systems Engineer, you would have to try and find the BEST solution to a problem, not just a solution. While adopting a 1997 design may be a solution, finding the best would be investigating the game strategy and coming up with an ideal design to fit the solution that 1511 (or any team) feels best fits the 2007 game.

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

:ahh:

I think you will end up eating those words my friend. :)

The Spider Legs are going to be moving all over the place and a lot of us have already discovered there is an easy way and a hard way to load the whole rack up just by putting some on and trying to take some off and putting them on in the same places.

I won't give away that secret just yet, but I'm sure you will learn if and when you build a rack assembly and have at least 4 tubes.

Bottom line, it's not as easy as you think and will be hard in operator controlled periods and then even harder by a huge factor in autonomous.
(And this is a non-watered down opinion from a member of a team who sucessfully capped a vision tetra on a STATIONARY goal in autonomous mode in 2005.)

You think that was hard to attempt and ultimately accomplish??
Try working with something that is going to be constantly changing direction and wiggling all over the place!!

:ahh: :ahh: :ahh:

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

and 2003.

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

Trust me, you will see within a week from this post what I am talking about. I will already link you to a picture of a past bot which only needs a few Modifications before it is ready for this game (after they build a new one).

**************************** DISCLAIMER******************************

NO I am not accusing them of cheating. I am saying that their robot could be used if they re-made it and modified it to the rules. I am talking from the design point of view that if you design a similar robot that it is less effort. I am not implying anything, but rather proving my point that within 10 hours of the animation video that 10+ teams from the past have pulled out their old robots to try this, (them being one of them), and could possibly with some tweaks make a new one for competition this year.

NO CHEATING IMPLIED.

************************************************** *****************

If this team wishes that I take down this picture, than I will. Until than I am just proving my point with picture evidence that ROBOT DESIGN for this competition was completed without much effort rather a stroll down memory lane.



Pavan.

For some reason I am unable to communicate today so I apologize if anyone finds this post disturbing or offensive.

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You are practically accusing team 254 of cheating, and I don't know if you mean to or not but it's not very nice to even imply it. Especially since you are representing your team on CD, whether your know it or not.

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This is true for a zone defence, but not necessarily for a man-to-man style one. If you have grippy wheels like 306 and 217 have or high traction, reliable treads like 180 and 753 I'm pretty confident that you could effectively remove two robots from the equation or at least heavily reduce their capability to score. Another effective defensive maneuver might just be shaking the spiders, which is pretty easy. That said, we're probably going to abandon our defensive tradition this year in favor of offence. Or, at least focus on offence and if a little defensive capability finds its way in, hey, thats all the better.

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All i can say is that someone is going to get hurt with a mobile 24 armed cage :yikes: :) !! Personally i love it but it does seem like just a very large tic-tac-toe board.

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// Sorry about the double post, but I wanted to keep all my replies to previous posts and my game opinions separate.

I swear, the first thought that popped into my head after I saw them release the playing field at the Manchester, NH Kickoff was "where's the power source for the lights?". Then again, maybe I think too much about technical details... :yikes:

Then about four seconds later I decided I liked the game. It would be fast-paced, fun to drive and compete in, and very fun to watch, film, and photograph. I liked the inner tubes, the introduction of nice strategy on where to place tubes, the huge structure in the middle of the field. (Actually, I think I was more overjoyed at being able to use arms and elevators again more than anything else!)

Back in September, something went off in my head that told me 2007 was going to be a great year. And so it has become! :D

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NO I am not accusing them of cheating. I am saying that their robot could be used if they re-made it and modified it to the rules. I am talking from the design point of view that if you design a similar robot that it is less effort. I am not implying anything, but rather proving my point that within 10 hours of the animation video that 10+ teams from the past have pulled out their old robots to try this, (them being one of them), and could possibly with some tweaks make a new one for competition this year.

NO CHEATING IMPLIED.

Pavan.

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Okay... my like-dislike of the game: none, at the present. I'm going to wait and see.The field does look very bare, but I think once a few tubes fall or what have you, that could cause some major obstructions. On that note, a team fully extended, going for and 8-foot-tall goal, that tips WILL be a major obstruction. I'll be excited to see how that plays out. I'm disappointed with the human player role- seems slightly useless to me. I like the new end-of-match bonus. Gives a whole lot of questions and strategizing to the game. I also think that a large degree of adaptability, on the fly changes and strategical freedom will be ESSENTIAL to any team that wishes to suceed. When I say adaptability, I saw this idea in last year's game, and it made sense then and it makes sense now: removable, interchangeable scoring structures. Say a team makes a base drive train that weighs x pounds. Depending on the strategy they have decided upon, with their alliance, based on the opposing alliance, they swap out their mechanism to fit the game. They have something that adds up to a total of four feet and 120 pounds, 5 and 110, 6 and 100. With the variability of the matches, I predict having one strategy that you do every time will not give you a successful robot. I'll use 25 as a guinea pig here. They had a very well-built, successful robot last year, and a strategy they could execute with a high degree of success every match. We tried to stop them, and still couldn't do it sometimes. That won't work. Depending on the strategy, and the fact that once even a ringer has been placed, the only way to negate it is with a spoiler, if one ringer is hung out of place, your strategy could go out the window. And since I'm really tired, I'll begin to wrap up my speech. Now for my reactions to other's posts.

May I ask how you believe (and I'm not trying to be critical here) how a human player will score? I think it'll be pretty hard, even if you can still throw them over [side note]one of our members suggested we find someone really good at throwing frisbees and put them up on stilts. They never said anything about how tall the human players could be...:D)

I graciously disagree. I think the game may be hard to understand at first, and with the possible mess of inner tubes, never mind not being able to see half of the scoring structure, this game could be not as crowd-intense as last year. C'mon, who doesn't like shooting poof balls that could fly into the crowd???

That's one of my questions (I'm not a programmer). Could the CMU cam be used to track the diamondplate circles? Give it an autonomous function to lock on to the nearest circle? And how would that be useful...I honestly haven't worked it out yet. My other idea was a range sensor placed strategically so that when the plate moved in front of it, if the function was activated, the arm would autonomously move out and put the tube on- ???

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I know exactly what you mean. We are in the same situation. 2005 robot that needs few modifications before it can compete in this game.

But there are some things that we weren't satisfied with in 2005, so we'd choose not to make the same exact design as then.

Maybe 254's 2004 robot had some features that didn't exactly satisfy what they were looking for.

I don't get why you are complaining so much. It's not going to change the game, and it's not going to change our opinions so much.

If you don't like it, why are you involving yourself in it so much more than you have to?

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That is exactly what I am saying.
ALTHOUGH some teams could rebuild a bot from previous years they would rather just improve on the stuff they didn't like while they were bringing their new creation to life. Although this idea is not in the first spirit it is not breaking rules either. It is not said that I can not use a similar robot design in this competition.

Pavan.

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i think this is going to be the most intense and fun game. FIRST really did an amazing job this year and topped last year. How do they keep it so much fun. lol

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At first I knew this was going to be a complicated game and after a strategy meeting I understand it better and it still is complicated so I now know I'm not insane. I think it will be fast-paced and exciting just like any good sport. This is what Dean wants FRC to display with gracious professionalism. How American is an exciting sport? Nice game, great work Game Design Committee.

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As long as your actions on and off the field still make your Grandma proud, we'll keep scoring calculations up to awesome software.
(And yes, it IS awesome this year. So simple to use.)
We talked with the guy at the scoring software table for about 15 minutes or more up in Manchester and learned so much about the game from him. It's always good to have an insiders view on stuff.

Yeah.. that's not very nice. :(


It's not that mobile. It may move (very slightly) during competition but it's not on wheels or anything but the spider legs will whip around a lot so there IS a safety concern that's for sure.

Think the middle platform in 2004. heavy as all heck, and it only moved when someone rammed it full speed and it was mere inches... if ever over 2" in any direction on the floor.

I thought that too.. and then first thought a battery was mounted in the diamond plate covered box above everything but then asked "How would you change that out?" "How the heck are you going to climb this rack safely?? :ahh:
And then my focus saw the cable coming down and realized it was hardwired.
(Made me feel much better about not having a target light get dimmer as the day went on. lol)

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Quote:Originally Posted by Pavan
(IF AND ONLY IF after they build a new one).
Pavan.

Quote:Originally Posted by MissInformation
You are practically accusing team 254 of cheating, and I don't know if you mean to or not but it's not very nice to even imply it. Especially since you are representing your team on CD, whether your know it or not.


Yeah.. that's not very nice.


I didn't mean it like that. I will edit it sorry. I meant that if they wanted to use the robot for competition they would have to build another one.

Pavan.

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On the topic of the autonomous scoring and the CMU Cam:
I don't believe that the CMU cam can track diamond plate (and even if it could, how would it differentiate the circles from the rest of the rack, alliance stations, and even potentially other robots). The lights serve as a reference to where the goal and approximate location of the spider legs are, but for more specific targeting, you will probably have to use additional sensors to identify the exact location of the legs.

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Those were robot-unfriendly ramps in 2003.

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....if they are actually showing your robot at the time you're trying to score on the opposite side of the field....

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Regarding our posts, we might just want to take a minute here and breathe.
Let's take some time to study the game challenge and the manual and then post.

Whether we realize it consciously or not, we have all been on a huge build up for this game reveal and now it is here and oh, a surprise, unexpected, not what I was thinking, not what I wanted - kind of thoughts can enter in, esp. when we are already sleep deprived from this week.

I would also like to suggest that 2nd year team members are definitely not rookies and have been through most of the cycle, however 2nd year team members haven't been through the 2nd game challenge and balancing their thoughts and feelings with that experience. It might be wise to discuss some of these feelings and thoughts with our teams and with individuals via PM but, learning and growing together on CD is fine with me as long as we keep respect in the center of the growth and communication, all of us.

Trusting/learning to trust the GDC is a part of being a participant in FIRST.

Just some thoughts.
Jane

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

Im kind of confused, they said the higher the robot, the bigger the bonus, with a few designs I came up with, our robot would be able to lift robots a few feet into the air, doesn't safety come into factor here? Also, will we be allowed to touch the spiders intentionally, also, can we just have a robot drive to the other side, expand, and drop a big black curtain down so the other team cant see?!:ahh:

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I'd rather not remember anything from 2003.

On topic: I guess the game has warmed up to me because of the possible game play, but I still don't like the design. Something seems missing to make me feel wow-ed.

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We had that idea Stack Attack year, we even called it the Iron Curtain. But when we contacted FIRST about it, they said it was against Gracious Professionalism and strongly suggested we didn't make it.

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This years challenge will be really intresting to watch. especialy the robot stacking. you have only 15 seconds to do it in. you can earn penelties really easly. why does the structure have to move???

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to make us mad :)

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So it is a bit more challenging and you have to use your brains and think outside of the box. Otherwise FIRST would be no fun :p !

Pavan.

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It is absolutely mind blowing how dynamically the strategies are going to change.

If you have a 6 ringer row worth 64 points and the opponent puts a spoiler, then you immediately will drop everything you are doing and try to remove it. Otherwise, you lose 32 points!

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

This competition should be great, and the autonomous should be really interesting to watch with the random starting position of the center goal. :D

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Please understand I have a great deal of respect for how difficult it must be to make a new and challenging game every year and that I know no game will please everybody.

With that said I will also say I think this game did an absolutely terrible job considering several importaint needs (mainly those of rookie and low-budget teams.)

Many previous games have had real time scoring systems which for whatever reason do not have a great history of working. I think that a game like this (where human drivers and players won't be able to even clearly see nearly half the scoring zone and there is so much counting) simply isn't reasonable without an absolutely bulletproof real-time scoring system. Teams often miscounted last year when all they were doing was counting balls through a hoop...how are we going to keep track of rows in two dimensions...plus spoilers? What a mess.

I think the tubes will pop and people will get spider legs in the face.

I think we will see a decent-sized population of rookie teams and low-budget teams get to competition only to realize the model they were practicing scoring on is not an realistic representation of the one on the field. Teams are going to need to build the entire scoring structure to simulate the balance and momentum of the swinging parts. That is no small structure and many teams do not have the storage space to keep such an object together. If they had made the object smaller and put more of them on the field it would have been more reasonable.

I can't believe we are still using that green light. I think that is simply inviting old teams to dust off their code for tracking and make a new autonomous mode. At least vary the sensor...autonomous is hard enough for rookie teams without having all the older teams already know the sensor.

I am worried that some hard feelings may occur when headstrong drivers cause uninvited robots attempt to climb on other robots and things break. I suppose that is not FIRST's concern but it is still a potential problem.

I think this is not a crowd friendly game. Yes it is "shiny" but the general crowd of people who watch competitive robotics are either generally the sort of people who like to know what is going on or friends/family of people competing. Both groups care about the score and I do not think this will be an easy game for an audience to score in real-time.

With all that said this is still the game we are playing and I wish you all the best of luck.

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SO?
Again; Pavan, I'm going to have to interject once more. In the REAL-WORLD when you're involved with a project (similar to FIRST) you'll QUICKLY come to the realization of design iteration and how much easier (to a degree) to improve a design rather than start from scratch. 254, 60, and 968 are some of the teams that I can put my finger on who've used that chassis desgin for the past 2 seasons (all while being legal). Is this wrong? Absolutley not, it's merely a smart way to manage you're resources; resources I.E.- money, time, and labor.

Why spend 200+ hours desiging a new frame, one thats untested and unproven. When all that needs to be done is to double-click a few times on the computer and bam-bam a print comes out. It's such a smart way to run effiecently, I'm suprised more teams don't lean on this idea more often (I understand it may start to get "boring" after a while, but hey, boredom=cheap).

This is no way anti-GP or against FIRST's code of ethics, it's merely a smart business strategy that happens everyday in the world. Please I don't really see your point in the arguement (if you're even trying to insinuate an arguement, it's got no credibility), are you trying to make us all believe that it's not FAIR to reuse ideas or designs? Or are you just trying to create attention, whatever the case may be, I'm done arguing about it. I don't know 'bout the rest of us, but this is pretty well beaten down...move on allready.

~Greg

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Oh may!!! This year is going to be amazing!

Is everyone as excited about this game as I am?

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Another concern with the rack is that it's expensive to build. Somewhere on chiefdelphi someone said that the wooden version of it costs around $500 to build, and it's still not going to be the same as the competition model. Even if you have the money and space for a rack, your next problem is time, especially on smaller teams. Rookies are going to have a pretty hard time this year I feel...

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It's still better than last year, when the scoring system went down (and even often when it was up) there was little indicator of the exact score as the game pieces were recycled back into play. After seeing pictures taken from the alliance stations in New Hampshire, it isn't quite as hard to see the other side as one might imagine.

I people got shot with poof balls, tetras broke, balls popped, and just about all that stuff before too...


How would rookies learn to program better if older teams had to learn a new sensor? That makes no sense to me. If anything, it's easier on the rookies, because mentoring teams can help them with far more expertise than if they were learning new technology as well.
It's no worse than defense in a game like last years (especially considering the autonomous interaction last year). Also consider, for "climbing" on other robots, it is most likely going to be essential they have some device to help you get atop of them, so it is going to have to be consentual.

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I think you underestimate what rookie teams and low budget teams can produce. Rookie teams can be powerful for the reason they don't have background knowledge and can work with a greater number of possibilities than teams who know what works and what doesn't.

My team I'm mentoring is a low budget team. It's different from 174 which had money to spend as needed. I actually found it slightly easier to design with simple materials and cheap design than get into lots of mechanisms.

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Correct me if I'm wrong...but I've read and reread Section 7 of the game manual and I haven't found where it sayd you only have 15 seconds to stack robots. It says that for the final 15 seconds a robot can't be in an opposing home zone.

No where does it say, that I can find, that teams may only stack robots during the final 15 seconds.

If someone can clarify this I'd appreciate it.

The rule I'm referencing is:

"<G56> ROBOTS score bonus points at the end of the match if they are entirely in their HOME ZONE, not in contact with any element of the field (carpet, allaince station, goal etc.) and the lowest point of the ROBOT is higher than 4 inches and/or 10 (although I think that's a typo) inches above the carpeted field surface. The number of bonus points an ALLAINCE recieves is bases on the total number of ROBOTS satisfying these conditions. Each ALLAINCE ROBOT entirely in their HOME ZONE at the end of the match is eligible to recieve the following bonus points."

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An observation about game complaints: Speaking as a 4th-year FRC programmer, I would say that the differences between the competence of programming teams will be more related to the programming skill, enthusiasm, and awareness of good development practice of the team members more than a particular familiarity with a specific component.

So I don't think the arguments about cameras being easier for veterans that have been presented in this thread hold much water. Teams with quality robot code will have good programming as long as they can retain their skilled members and good practices (e.g. use revision control, sub-divide tasks, test at every step, etc.). The best way to improve your programming team is by having members become passionate about computer science in their own time and investing some effort to go read a few books and papers (and you certainly can't level that out with rules).

I'm not a big fan of the CMUCam's capabilities either. However, it's certainly a relevant technology for us roboticians. Guess what Stanford used on their winning DARPA autonomous vehicle? A camera augmented with laser range finders. This stuff will be important, even though we won't get to play with bayesian inference engines on our dinky PICs.

Finally, perhaps it's valuable to see the wide range of opinions that exist about this year's game, but I think some people are being unnecessarily negative in this thread ("hate" is a strong word and all that). Maybe we should reserve some judgement on whether the game design was good or bad until we actually get some robots built and see some competition. Sorry for adding another rant to this thread (meta-rant though). :p

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

My pre-build / competition reaction to the game: I like it. 2 thumbs up game design committee, you created a game that's not only challenging but allows for multiple strategies and styles of play, and continues to build on using the camera while making autonomous mode more important this year more than ever as well.

This is going to be one interesting year.

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I'm on mechanical team and all I want to say is...

I Want Some Obstacles On The Field!

Seriously, they could have placed a 4 by 4 piece of pine on the gound at the very least. Imagine how much harder THAT would have been to navigate. Imagine the difficulty in accounting for unpredictable obstacles that block your robot while trying to track an unpredictably moving light.

Actually, I can imagine what 2008 will be like... ;)

Re: RACK & ROLL Reaction
 

Im sorry for this earlier comment.:( i didnt mean to cause so much arguing.

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It is unquestionably better than last year but last year was not very good and so that is not a particularly narrow category. I'd rather talk in terms of "good enough" and "not good enough" and I am afraid this may eventually fall into the latter.

I was thinking on the order of magnitude of stack attack bins...basically enough that it could possibly be a reasonably sized additional cost to running a regional. Also it I assume it is probably more difficult by a significant margin to injure yourself with a poof ball than a large chunk of swinging metal.
Wow that is even worse than I had imagined! Can anybody confirm the source/provide a link?

The the benefit that somebody can teach you the system is small compared to the advantage the teaching team has. Many teams are kind and generous to all in need this is true but I do not think FIRST should be banking on the good will of the teams in the league to ensure a level playing field. I think the game design itself should cause a level playing field. I think things would be a lot more even if every team was struggling to learn the new sensor.

That said I can respect the fact that FIRST has perfected the use of the camera and they know this one works. There is a lot to be said for having working parts. If somebody can show me that the lack of resources to test and debug new sensors is why we do not have new sensors I will respect that. I'll also gladly offer to help test and debug new sensors myself.

I know rookie teams are powerful. I mentored one last year that went to semifinals in Boston and I spent highschool on a low budget team in WA which did well on several occasions. If they were hopeless cases there wouldn't be much point in attempting to look out for them because they'd be well...hopeless. It is out of a deep respect for rookie and low budget teams that I attempt to speak out for their interests.

Speaking as a 6th-year FRC participant who happens to be majoring in computer science I can agree with you that there are obviously more important things that determine the difference between a competent programming team and an incompetent one. I consider the things you listed to be basic requirements to a functioning programming team. However once you have those basics, having somebody who has done the task before (in this case finding a green light and steering with it) it a tremendous advantage. Your argument strikes me to work along the same lines as if I said, "we shouldn't worry about having programmers who can code or not because nobody will have a working anything without oxygen." While the logic is absolutely true it is rather irrelevant. I am assuming already that most teams which would gain a competitive edge from being in the same starting place as older teams on a sensor have programmers who know how to program with common sense, communicate with the rest of the team and teach themselves more. This is probably the same way that you assume a competent programming team will be programming in a setting with oxygen.

I can't tell you how comforting it is to see you guys argue with me. I really want to be wrong on all of this.