Re: Advantage given by succesful autonomous mode
 

I think the major difference between this year and other years is that the auto mode is a lot more strategical, rather than skill involved. This year requires a collaboration of all the robots on the alliance, whether it be for position or the placing of tubes. Individual robots will not be able to accomplish that much by theirselves. Last year, teams could shoot 10 balls into the ring, and grab 40 points. This year, the most any single robot can get is 2 points. Sure, its an advantage to have evena single keeper, but for auto-mode to be in any way advantageous, there must be multiple robots involved. This means a much more flexible automode, to ensure that your robot doesn't lock on to the same sensor as your alliance member. Strategy this year will be huge.

Re: Advantage given by succesful autonomous mode
 

Exactly what I was thinking... Although it is very unlikely it will happen during any elimination matches I suspect we'll see a few 8 in a rows.

Re: Advantage given by succesful autonomous mode
 

I cant wait to see a defensive autonomous that comes around the rack and gets in the way of a team attempting to get a tube on :eek:

Re: Advantage given by succesful autonomous mode
 

autonomis period this year is a real part of strategy

you get three unspoilable places and if your team is quicke you can get 5 in a row fairly quickly, thats 32 points and after that its a good idea to get another one on there, with 6 pieces on all you pretty much have to do is gaurd the center

Re: Advantage given by succesful autonomous mode
 

I still reall think that alliances that plan well can make great things out of auto this year. Compatible alliances could, for example, get both the top and middle locations in one colum, esatablish a row of 2 (or maybe even 3...) on any row, and do much other craziness. It might be a bit less important than Aim High, but I still like it.

-Guy

Re: Advantage given by succesful autonomous mode
 

This weekend our team finished a full rack. Then we put it into the middle of the street and formed teams of human robots and played the game. It was a real blast, all of us loved it, plus everyone learned the game and it gave us ideas.

Human robots were blind folded and received instructions from their yelling drivers. We didn't have enough tubes yet so we used colored poster board. We had a 15 second auto mode where robots had to do it on their own and had the end game, which was the funiest to watch them clmb on each other.

Observations from the game:

1. rack was almost totally filled.
2. reaching the top was important because some of our human robots couldn't.
3. Each side tended to fill up their side first before going to other side.
4. There were 5 in row but I don't think more than that.
5. Blockers were seldom used, but I think because of inexperienced teams.
6. Ramping tended to be equal thus nulifying it as significant, unless they didn't do it. Therefore putting up tubes was the game.

Auto mode was important not so much not being able to be taken away as a keeper but giving you a head start.

Re: Advantage given by succesful autonomous mode
 

You are overlooking a few things, it is true the camera can track two targets, but how do you know WHICH of the two targets your ally will go for???

The rack is rotated randomly and there is no reliance on what the other teams program might do,
and while I agree, it is certainly possible and not even ridiculously hard to figure out a way to work this out. I just don't see many teams doing it. You talk about implementing vision like it is a very simple task, but realistically it is not.

Last year I saw about 50-60% of teams do something in autonomous mode (at our regionals) most teams were unable to accomplish anything other than defense. If only 15-20% of teams can program a robot to go in a straight line and dump balls in a goal efficiently what do you think that says about implementing a succesful working vision system?

Lastly you said that if you "do the math" the ringers have only 6 inches of play in each direction.
Do you know how incredibly much that is? you are attempting to put a ring with a hole of 13-14" (?) diameter onto a rack whose cap is 10" in diameter.
I don't think 6" is "very little".
Robots that cannot score in autonomous will move the rack and make it incredibly difficult if not impossible to score.

Lastly, experience does have something to do with it. I'm not saying a rookie team can't pull it off because you're right skill and knowledge will result in sucess. However the vision system is one of those things where it is of great benefit to teams who have the resources to have a practice robot to test code on and prototype. Most rookies scramble to get the bots together, and don't have time. I'm not saying vision is a bad thing but I think more options for play during autonomous would be better (other than just defense) ... I think 2006 was a great example: You could score in side goals, block or score in the center goal

Re: Advantage given by succesful autonomous mode
 

I agree.

Most teams don't do auto mode because usually the hardware isn't finished until the last day or worse on the practice day. A good auto mode just takes time to perfect. You can not usually get auto mode done on practice day at a regional, we were able to pull it off twice but barely and that because I have done a lot with autonomous. 2006 we had a simple auo mode that delivered 10 balls every time because it was simpe but that took a day and half non-stop to make that happen.

Few people are going to do a good auto mode this year unless they have several days to work on it.

Re: Advantage given by succesful autonomous mode
 

I believe that:

• There will be at least one match where there will be an alliance that places all three keepers in a row/collumn.
• There will be at least one match where an alliance will have a row of eight.

I'm not going to say these will be in the same match, but it will happen.

Then again, I also think a hoverbot is a feasible and effective idea.

Re: Advantage given by succesful autonomous mode
 

Ok. Let me take these arguments one at a time...

First...
Ask them of course! Which of the two? There may well be three visible to the team...

Secondly...
Nothing is necessarily easy, but everything is possible...Like my dad and grandpa always tell me, "There's no such thing as impossible, just harder."

The rack is rotated randomly, however, why does the orientation matter? If you know that the lights are 90 degrees apart and if you find out at what distance you can only see one, then you can find out exactly where you are in relation to the spider legs. You could even set it up to make itself drive until it is equidistant between two lights, then you're aimed at a leg in between two lights. Remember that scoring is not dependant on the rack's orientation on the field, it's dependant on the rack existing at all!

Next...
I think it says that teams should overlap their jobs. On my team, we have the programmers playing with the vision system attached to an old robot, even though this years robot is still being built and the design isn't anything near being finalized yet. Therefore the program team can have several weeks to practice while waiting on a robot to program.

And on to the math...

Ok, here is how I reached the conclusion of about 6 inches. Try and follow me here... If the inside diameter of the tube(the hole) is 13 inches, and it is being put on a target 10 inches in diameter, then there is 3 inches(1 1/2 in any direction) right there. Now, take into acount that the tube is beveled or curved. If you attempt to push it onto the target, even if it is not exactly on target, the spider leg(which hangs from chains) will move so that it fits into the hole. Soooooo...if the diameter of the tube(cross section) is 9 inches, then there is about 4 1/2 inches where it will be pushed onto the leg, now if we tone it down a little so that you are more likely to be on target, then we'll call it 3 1/2 inches added to the 1 1/2 originally is equal to 5 inches of play in any direction. Understand? If not, say so and I'll try to explain it better...

And Lastly...

Please don't compare the game from this year to the one last year. They are very differant. The cams are, however, extremely similar. So yes, experiance will help veteran teams. But, like I said before, if the programmers/electrical team put together the camera and two motors with the electronics, then they can play with the code until they have an actual robot to program. Always remember that you don't have to wait to test something like that! As a matter of fact, if teams havn't started putting together the camera and playing with the code by now, then I don't know what to think. Remeber there is a time limit, so get what you can done while you can!

Ok, sorry it was a little long winded...

Re: Advantage given by succesful autonomous mode
 

In my original post, I said it took 1-2 minutes to score a ringer, well we got it down now to 2 ringers in 30-40 seconds (top and middle, picking up off the floor each time). It's all about technique and orientation. Whether that can be duplicated in auto mode, we'll see. The chances that we'll be coordinating which spider leg each alliance member will go for in auto mode is very slim. I also know that our experiences at our regional may be much different than other regionals where there are more veteran teams.

Re: Advantage given by succesful autonomous mode
 

Well my point was because of the difficulty of actually doing anything in autonomous (the necessity of vision) Autonomous won't play as big a role as in previous years.

Re: Advantage given by succesful autonomous mode
 

I'm not so sure that because its hard that it will be less influential. If you are one of few teams that can score an uncounterable keeper then if you aren't already in the top 8 you are very likely to be picked up.

Re: Advantage given by succesful autonomous mode
 

especially if you are good at scoring during teleoperated mode or are really good at defense...

Re: Advantage given by succesful autonomous mode
 

well of course it will always be helpful to score in autonomous, i'm just saying... how many people in 2005 scored a vision tetra??? Imagine if that was the only scoring method available during autonomous, on average autonomous would become much less influential to the outcome