Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

Car Nack Predicts

The scoring of keepers will be a relative rarity. In fact there will be at least one Regional where there will be a total of less than five keepers scored for the entire competition.

Car Nack has spoken

Re: Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

Agreed. I believe that scoring keepers is like scoring tetras in the center row in 2005, It gives you an advantage but not many teams were able to do it. The great car nack has a good prediction here.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

I disagree with this one.
While an alliance scoring 3 keepers may be rare I think most matches will have 1 or 2 scored.
Scoring keepers will be more like scoring tetras on your home row in 2005.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

I too disagree, now that the camera has become so common in the last few years, I expect that teams more teams will be able to use it effectively.

I predict that in at least one competition, there will be five or less robots that score the keepers not using dead reckoning.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

I think the Great and Wise Car Nack has the gist of it, but I believe that the first robot to get a keeper on the rack will be the only robot to get a keeper on the rack for a given match. After that, there's gonna be wiggleville.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

Are you sure about this? The fabrication rules have been tightened up so that you cannot do any SW work at all after ship, except for the fix-it windows.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

I concur.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

I agree somewhere between the great Car Nack and what Billfred said (hehe, say that five times fast). I do think teams have been able to develop better code for the camera, but I think it's going to be very similar to capping the center goal, like Greg suggested. Plus, in my opinion, there's only a SMALL emphasis on scoring in autonomous, so I can't imagine that many teams are going to "go for the gold" so to speak.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

It's not similar to the center goal in '05 at all. Now we have lighted targets, so we can actually see where we are going. I wouldn't be surprised if several teams score keepers, just not at the same time.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

I partly agree with car nack. I think there will be keepers scored in auto but not using the camera.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

To add my own prediction, most of the keepers ever scored will be along the bottom row of the rack.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

Why? It's much harder to score them there than at the top.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

I partly agree with this, and Carnack will be right for one regional (it might only be one, but it'll still be true). Although teams have gotten the camera working last year, I don't think using the camera to find the goal will be the hard part; I think making sure you're at the right angle to put a keeper on one of the legs will be.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

Bingo.
I also don't think there will be alot of scoring with the rack swinging all match long unless there are particualrly skilled teams involved.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

While I agree that scoring of keepers will be rare, I don't think it will be as rare as scoring a vision tetra was in 2005. To me, the autonomous problem this year seems an order of magnitude simpler: you start out with the scoring item which means you only have to find and drive to the goal. That doesn't mean it's going to be easy, just a lot simpler than that year.

Matt

Re: Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

Car Nack can predict, but that doesn't mean we won't try. However by making such a statement, the strategic value of the Keepers are much greater than the points they earn.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

How so?

With the lower racks you can pre-align the robot up positioned with the keeper to run into a bottom rack scorring spider leg and you will be golden.
The only thing you have to worry about is the "slight adjustment" after you set up your robot, but I don't think that will make much of a difference.

What is your reasoning Cory? I'm guessing less leg shake up above, and the target to help you? Maybe, but it also constitutes actuating an arm or something to reach that high as well.

I know from past experience it takes quite a while to drop a tetra on a goal in autonomous mode. The only advantage this year is you start with the game piece in your possession.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

I strongly disagree with Billfred. I predict that in _very_ few matches will less than one keeper per team be scored. The spiders are nigh impossible to shake without a running start, and barring collisions any team with halfway competent programmers (a group among which I count myself) should be able to score underneath a light.
In short, IMHO Car Nack is dead wrong. But I've been wrong many times before.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

The leg shake is very dramatic at the bottom, and any dead reckoning autonomous is surely to be interfered with if it's not the first bot there and it's aiming for the bottom.
In terms of coding difficulty, if the team is using closed loop control (or has done enough testing to know how long to run the motors to get their manipulator to the right height), it should be no more difficult to score on the higher spiders during autonomous (in fact easier due to the lesser shaking) than down low.


As for Car-Nack. It really depends on how good 383 and the rest of the Brazilian teams are this year, because that's the only regional I could see less than 5 keepers scored. Not knocking the Brazilians in any way, it's just a much smaller and younger event (even than Israel).

Re: Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

Oh great and knowledgeable Car Nack, you have spoken and your words are true.
Finding a hole in a wall (a fixed plane) set under one light is not the same as multiple lights above multiple moving objects on a moving assembly for potentially only 2 points. If there is any successes, it will be late in the season.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

I believe Car Nacks vision is getting blurry -

I think many teams will score in auto, using the camera.

Regarding the low vs. high - there is a distinct advantage to scoring on the lower level - but i wont divuldge my strategy :)

Re: Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

I'm not sure how many will get lucky.
I do know that we won't. 1213 doesn't do high-risk for low-pay.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

Re: Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

Well, was Car Nack right yet? It certainly appeared that the prediction was very close to true (not many keepers were scored anywhere), but did any of the 1st week regionals have less than 5 keepers scored?

Re: Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

That took you 16 seconds ;)

Re: Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

In New Jersey, 237 scored four keepers. 25 scored two or three I believe. 375 also scored two?

Certainly not as much as I thought would be scored.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

Seemed to be quite a few blind squirrels finding nuts in Florida. I lost count.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

Only one keeper was scored at the Southern California regional (by 330). Many close calls, but only one found its mark.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

Car Nack was correct in his prediction. (By the way, no camera on our robot--and we came the closest to having more than one (or zero)).

Re: Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

In Flordia the refs barly moved the rack. If that happened in nj we would have hit it every time.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

At Great Lakes ther were a number of keepers were scored in multiple matches - some teams
(1114, 67, others) had it down pat - congrats to them, they made good use of the camera

Re: Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

At FLR 1126 and 354 scored quite a few times. 73 and 639 also were able to score as well but since it was only worth 2 points it was hardly worth the effort. Keepers should have been worth more.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

But they were the exceptons that prove the rule. Not many keepers will be scored.

I too congratulate them. But had scoring ringers been worth doing, then we would be doing it too.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

At Florida, if keepers were the question, the answer was either 233 or 1902. I don't recall anybody else successfully hanging them.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

Only one keeper was scored ever in LA and that was by 330. However there were several teams (330 and 1388 were the only ones who were consistently close) that would have score keepers, but the refs moved the rack before every match after teams were off the field and behind the player stations.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

No buts about it... that's the way it's supposed to be. See <G07>.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

I thought that was the case but I wasn't paying very close attention.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

At Boiler -

1730, 45 and 234 all scored keepers in Auto.
Possibly others as well/

Re: Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

At Midwest, 648 was the only team to score in auton. That happened six times. Three in a row. And the first was a funny little bounce off of a miss.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

I believe UTC had the highest amount of keepers scored, thus far. Every 2-3 matches another team would get one scored. There were also a few matches that had two keepers scored for the same alliance! Very impressive. There was one round where 4 keepers (2 red, 2 blue) were almost scored, but one robot missed, so autonomous ended with three keepers on the rack.. again, very impressive!

Re: Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

It took a lot with programming for the success with autonomous part. It was great to see other teams place ringers as well. Thanks for the complement.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

A more important question at this point, is how many robots went on to win the match in which they scored autonomously?

Re: Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

I know we did. A row of six in that round clinched it.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

At Boilermaker, 931 attempted auto several times and succeeded twice, I think. The first time we ended up on the losing side when our robot (or the supporting robot) was ruled to be supported by a ringer that was compressed between the robots and the alliance station wall. The second time we were on the winning side.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

Al, team 648 won every match but the first one in which we scored autonomous. Just be thankful that we missed 4 of 5 times in the finals. LOL... just kidding, you probably would have beaten us anyways.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

I have to admit that 648 did perform well and I found myself cheering for you, even in the finals. Having missed the top spider and then falling off the middle spider but finally scoring on the bottom is one of those matches that we all live for.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

Um Ed, I think you missed a team. 424 had it down. They scored in auton all but 1 qualification match on Saturday and all of their elim matches.

From what I hear our crazy programmers are using their 5 hours this weekend to adapt the code to the 340 bot.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 01/08/07
 

Of course you were! Did you happen to catch the first (and only?) qualification match that we scored in auton? The robot dropped it just short but caught a perfect bounce and hopped right onto the bottom rung. The entire stadium erupted. When that happened, the student programmers got the recognition they so deserve... those two kids are dedicated individuals.