What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

All who attended scrimmages or watched webcasts/videos of them this past weekend:

What did you learn about this year's game?

Please share.

Thanks!

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

Fans can be very effective for propulsion. When trying to evade a potential scorer, being able to kick on your fan can be a great advantage. It is also very helpful for pinning.

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

Shorting outyour cRIO right before competing is bad. :mad:

From hte bit I saw before we left, dumpers and human players seemed to be scoring more than shooter robots.

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

If you don't move from the get go you are good as dead.
Super Cells are important and a good Payload Specialist is vital. If they can't hit the broad side of the Regolith it might be a good idea to have them take a seat and get someone in there who can shoot straight.

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

It took a couple of hours for the officials to actually get the game up and running. They had a problem with the field not "talking" back to them. Whenever they would try to start they would get no response. This new electronics system is causing a lot of problems.

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

we HAD a shooter robot when we went to our scrimmage on saturday. today, we do not. that's what we learned from the scrimmage :D

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

six robots and trailers on the field equal traffic jam most of the time. No robot is going to set the robot land speed record this year. With all the congestion long range shooting is not very effective or even practical. Dumpers are a threat, but some dumper are a lot better than others. The payload specialist shooting are more effective than robots shooting. A super cell in the hands of the 'right person' at the end of the match is a game changer. Getting empty cells to airlocks takes a strategy and the right robot. I was amazed how many robots had trouble just driving around pulling the trailer. Some just sat spining their wheels. Like others have said 'no autonomous' equal 'dead duck'. I have some video of the Colorado scrimmage I'll post later today with our robot in action.

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

from the couple of practice hours with other teams its looking like there will be quite a few traffic jams and struggles to either pin or avoid getting pinned. Im not sure if shooting or dumping is better but both have their flaws that came into play.

I just hope everyone has good traction control systems and a strong drive team because this year is tough to get your robot into postion while simultaneously trying to hurt the other robots position.

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

It takes patience and tactical driving (and maybe a bit of luck) to score many rocks from your robot. There's one jackknifed configuration where you push on the side of your opponent with your shooter/dumper positioned on their trailer that seemed to work, but any other attempts to score while moving were rather dodgy (meaning they usually dumped on the floor). Better to try to pin your opponent's trailer first and then score, but watch out for your opponent's partner that's trying to do the same thing to you! In the elimination rounds I expect to see the best robots dancing for position until the right opportunity presents itself.

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

Just my personal opinion, but it looked like a FIRST robotics competition, only played at half-speed...very slow-going. Also, six robots plus six trailers made for a VERY congested field, making things worse.

I'm curious to hear from those at the event as to watching a day's worth of matches staring at that highly-reflective white surface. It seems like it could be hard on the eyes--kind of like getting "snow blindness" on a sunny winter day.

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

In about 4 out of 5 matches I saw, there was a big mosh pit in the middle of the field where the dumpers seemed to do better. I realized one important thing, and that was to keep moving at all times and if you're tryingto pin somebody, watch out because someone is probably doing the same to you. Feild awareness is very important.

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

Oh whats the big plans? I saw some troubles with your shooter but I thought the nimbleness of the drive was fantastic.

For us we learned a little on how to control the bot, pinning tactics, I got some real driving experience, and we got to optomize our dumper so balls don't get stuck.....and rs545's don't spontaneously combust giving off monstrous amounts of blue smoke.

I can't wait to see your plans at palmetto MiM

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

yeah, from two feet down, the robot worked beautifully... but two feet up, it honestly stunk. so our engineers toiled this weekend, and it is done now. the final producted will be posted up by yours truly tonight :D

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

We discovered that our 8 wheel drive system gives us an advantage over 4 wheel drive robots in that in a pushing war, we generally bullied them around. Also, a robot pushing at our side had little luck moving us, whereas we could push the 4 wheelers around like a bulldozer. Our design is a collector/ejector with a large hopper on top. The initial thought was to feed the human players at the corners, but the short shooting/dumping robots can catch you there and fill your trailer if you're not watching closely. We were partnered with a shooter/dumper and found we could collect and fill them up in the center of the court while moving along "face to face". That worked pretty well...

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

Just as a heads up for everyone, this is in reference to the Scrimmage in CT with the official FIRST field in use.

The problem was something that FIRST had planned for, but not tested fully previous to the event.
We were the guinea pigs for this test in CT so to speak.
The issue was that when a robot did not show up, in hopes of still running a full field at the scrimmage, other robots were put in the missing robot's places.

Come to find out, the system had BIG issues in dealing with robot's not originally assigned to the team numbers/IP Adresses & other electronics connection issues I didn't completely understand. lol

The reason was explained, the 1st match was scrapped, & the subsequent matches were played with either all the robots that were in the Scoring Software present for that particular match, or if they were not there, the rover wheel attached to the missing teams' trailers were used.

End of problems.

There were some typical field breakdowns near the end of the event that would require a restart, but that's nothing out of the ordinary for all those familiar with the IFI field conrol systems of days gone by.

All in all, the 2 hours the field wasn't working "wasted" in CT this weekend was in fact not a waste after all, & proved to be very valuable to the field operators & I don't expect this same problem to be an issue in the future. (knock on wood)

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

Our shooter had some success this weekend, and with the control loop finally added to it, it would be a deadly combination.

In general though, some things learned:

if you stay still you lose
autonomous is the human player's dream when a robot gets caught in front of them
watch those super-cell penalties
dont throw the empty cell over the wall! (one team threw all 4 over)
the carpet doesnt help much in getting away from the wall; likewise it also makes getting balls right up against the wall very difficult
g14 is a killer.
typically only 1-2 super cells were scored per match, but i guess this will change after a couple weeks of regionals
empty cells get lost on the field
the middle of the field is where you want to be to avoid super cells and robot scoring. placing moon rocks in the center is insanely difficult
its very hard to keep track of the score, especially in those close-scoring matches
the super cell makes the difference (we went from 14 pts down to 1 pt up in the last second of the match)


those are my observations. I wouldnt give up on the shooter bots just yet, especially considering that if they are done right they have near 100% accuracy in those awkward situations.
(then again wouldnt anything done right have 100% accuracy?)

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

The watchdog is BAD. We got there at 7:30, and didn't have a robot that would run on the field until 5 that afternoon, during the last run of the day before the field was torn down.

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

Thanks for sharing everyone!!! Great learings we all will use. :)

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

We learned that KISS is IN this year! (well it was Valentine's day after all...)

Some means of maximizing your manuverability is also a good thing, it not only helps you comlete your tasks but makes it harder for opponents to score in your trailer.

Even if all you do is pick up balls and deliver them to the human player you can be a very effective machine this year.

Good luck everyone!

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

I did notice that trying to keep score was very difficult unless one alliance is completely blowing out another. The one thing that I did find, as most of you did, was that dumpers play a big role in this game. That's not to say that shooters can't do the same, they just will have to shoot while moving, which makes it difficult. Anyhow, you will find a video of the Crenshaw Scrimmage below for your enjoyment:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciR6aziPLQQ

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

The DiscoBots learned that # of Balls on Impact and last second super cell shots are keys to victory !

The seven balls in your robot at the start are the most important to dump quickly and accurately. From then on stay away from your opponents shooting stations and try to get all the empty cells in the fueling stations ASAP.

Our media team posted a few pictures of the Houston Scrimmage on the DiscoBots website. http://2009.discobots.org/node/34

Thanks to teams 441, 624, 1480, 2585, 2587 and 2664 for showing up.

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

There is no question that simple robots will be extremely competetive this year. Many of the top teams have very simple robots.

In order of abillity to score it goes Robots that can dump alot quickly> Human Players> Robots that shoot one ball at a time.

A good traction control system is a huge advantage. Robots scoring in autonomous doesn't seem like it will be common.

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

This is somewhat true....

Delay was...

The issue was the WPA keys were added after inserting teams in random matches in practice was tested (a typical thing on practice day as most bots aren't ready in the morning). So what happened is the network configured right for this, but kept the orginal WPA key from the schedule. One code line fix, being tested now.

End of day issue was the team kicking the gigabit trunk line jigging the connectors, steps being taken now to remedy that.

Two very complex systems put together for the first time in a real world environment, I thought it did well overall....

More info soon.

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

I learned that small robots that only pick up moon rocks/empty cells and dump them to the payload specialists can be very important, because with the 6 bots and trailers on the field the human players have somewhat easy targets for tossing.

Like others I think that dumpers are better than shooters; however if the camera programming is good enough on the shooting teams I may be wrong.

Could some people post videos of scrimmages? I'd love to see some more around and I had trouble finding them through youtube.

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

We held an unofficial scrimmage with 5 other teams this weekend, and our drivers and human players learned many valuable lessons. I would agree with previous posts, that this will be a slow moving game with many robots playing slow motion bumper cars.

The human player will be very important along with the empty cell and super cell. We didn't try to access any violations or take away any empty cells. I also agree that dumper robots were more effective then shooters.

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

I hear all this talk about how team's are scoring but nothing on frequency and the success rate of human player's.
What's a typical score look like?

Anyone score 100+?

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

from what i heard, yes... someone scored 101...

i havent been able to watch the scrimmage myself, (stupid school filters), but, ill watch later...

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

Elgin, can you explain what you mean by "rover wheel"? Is this something that goes onto he front of the trailer somehow?

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

Yes. If a robot does not show up a rover wheel is attached to the end of the tongue of the trailer in a perpendicular orientation to the tongue.

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

Yep. Don, you might want to check Bill's Blog.

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

This was posted a while back:

http://frcdirector.blogspot.com/2009...-trailers.html

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

Well, we learned that alllll your electronics and pneumatics fails just before you test.... then you get no practice, aaand then you have a massive relief at the school when you rebuild the electronics board and see everything work..even your "secret weapon" :)

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

We hit 101 at the Suffield Scrimmage in CT with the official FIRST field w/FIRST running the electronics. Yes there were problems with the electronics & yes they did find a solution. With the rover wheel on the trailer tongue, it can be pushed very easily. There was confusion as to when & whom could load the trailer after the moon rocks were counted. This caused us to hunt down each payload specialist station & count what was in each bin. The solution was to have ONLY the payload specialist load from their own station after the bins were returned to that location after counting. Hopefully there will be changes.

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

human loading is a nice option this year

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

Boy, they sure didn't have match excitement in mind when designing this game. I think teams are going to accomplish much less in any given match than they planned in build. Getting around the field is like trying to maneuver a 747 in downtown New York. With so little traction, its very difficult to push people out of your way, and the bulky trailers only add to the congestion.

One positive thing that may come out of this chaos is that pretty much anybody can beat anyone else given a fortuitous position in the inevitable pile-up.

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

From sunday and monday's practice at Penfield's (1511) Ra Cha Cha Rally a lot of team's Payload Specialists aren't scoring very high, from counting one payloads specialists score count 2 moonrocks out of 18 and 1 of the moon rock actually managed to bounce on the regolith into his own alliances trailer. The main point of this is to help encourage you guys to have your Payload Specialist practice more. Those of us going to the RIT regional have shipped, but you can still have Payload Specialists practice.

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

Great discussion, thanks for the input.

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

I learned that it's not as spectator friendly as previous years.

The game resembles a cross between a poorly choreographed ballet and (as said by a parent of a student on the team) 6 year olds playing soccer.

Most robots and trailers seemed to get stuck in a giant rotating lump in the middle of the field, making it very hard for human players to score accurately after the start of the match. (The first 15 seconds seemed VERY important for the human player this year).
The huge lump tends to make it hard to figure out who has what in who's trailer.

I'm hoping for at least one waltz to be played this year for comic effect. I'm thinking The Blue Danube :D :P

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

We started the weekend with a shooter and ended up with a power dumper.

We were only hitting one out of 7 shots fired at the goals. (not to good)

Analyzing the game play we found that you could pin or come in close contact with a goal for about 3 seconds on average. It was a no brainier to go to plan B the Power Dumper that can fire 6 to 8 Orbit Balls in under 2 seconds with great accuracy. IMO the Good dumpers will be a force to be reckoned with at most events. Poor moving Bots will be a sitting ducks.........So keep moving if you can do nothing else to keep from being pinned! It will become a game of cat and Mouse or a Dog fight to get position on your opponent to score big for the high profile bots that can fill a trailer with their large loads. The Championship will be a wild one !

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

Oh, please nooooooo!!!!!

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

Here's what I saw while on a practice field yesterday. (disclaimers: We only had 4 robots on the field at once. There were only about 60 balls on the field)

1. Robots are going to have to score from close range (1-3 feet). Long range shooting does not look feasible.

2. Human players are not as effective as I thought past 10 feet or so.

3. The match looks like a soccer game played by 6 year olds at the beginning. If you've seen one, you know what I mean.

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

"Herd ball" with robots! This should be fun! Maybe by the later tournaments we will figure out how to call plays!

... I coached my son's team - from 6 years old, all the way to High School. They eventually learned how to play the game. I hope our teams learn how to play this game in weeks and not months!

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

Here's a small piece one of our mentors took at our local scrimmage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bryo8...e=channel_page

It ends right before our lovely blue smoke ordeal :P

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

Does anyone have links to videos or a website where there are videos from the weekend scrimmages?

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

We had never been to a scrimage before, and what a valuable experience it was. With respect to our specific bot, we were able to see how our dumper mechanism (which we just put on that morning) worked, and figure out how to get the kinks out regarding balls jamming in the hopper. With respect to the game in general, I agree the moving in autonomous is vital. I also think that scouting will be difficult, as you essentially need two scouts per team: one to watch the human player and one to watch the robot. Strategy regarding who picks up the empty cells and where to deliver them to will also be important, I think. Finally, a fast, efficient dumper can be an effective weapon. Shooters may become more important as the weeks go by, but at the scrimage we attended they were not, on the whole, very effective.

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

Thank you. [Adding "sunglasses" to the "earplugs" and "Advil" in my scorekeeper's kit...]

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

You know those midget hockey games they put on during intermission at an NHL arena?

It looks a lot like that.

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

That urethane drive rollers can melt rover wheels. :confused:

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

Surely it should be...the Skater's Waltz? :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzBiFZSPM_M

(somehow I don't think the robots will be that coordinated...)

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

I gotta say - its kinda scary seeing a bunch of little kids in this video so close to the robot by the sides of the field and reaching in to grab balls from the trailer. We have safety rules that get us DQ'd if a team member does that. Even if it is just with the tongs.

Re: What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?
 

yeah, i was screaming about how crazy it was while i was driving... it was terrible.