Re: What do you think will be important this year?
 

If you ask me, having a handle, or some other convenient way for your comrades to hang onto your robot will be almost as important as the ability to hang in general. Being easy to grab and hang from will be a great advantage for an alliance.
Seems like it'd be slow and slightly dangerous (a fall might leave a big mark). Also, if I understand <G44> [BALL CARRYING – ROBOTS may not CARRY BALLS. Violation: 2 PENALTIES for each CARRIED BALL.] you wouldn't be able to bring any balls with you, so I'm not sure what the advantage of that would be as opposed to just trying to make it over the walls.

Re: What do you think will be important this year?
 

I think a tunnel-dependent robot will be easily shut down. If the opposing alliance's star robot is tunnel-dependent, then your alliance can just take your weakest robot and stick it in a tunnel.

Also, I think pushing in the tunnel will be difficult with the high-up bumper positions. The force of pushing will be acting on your robot horizontally, and most likely above your robot's centre of gravity. So your robot will tend to lift the side it is pushing with, and may very well flip.

Re: What do you think will be important this year?
 

On one hand, herding a ball in any controlled manner would be very hard to do if you are going over the bump. On the other, going under means having to fight the 36inx18in space of the tunnel (29inx18in after you've factored out bumpers on the sides).

Re: What do you think will be important this year?
 

The advantage is that unless another robot is also swinging, you cannot be blocked. You can be pinned or completely blocked in the tunnel, and you can be blocked or flipped going over the bumps. Of course you can't take a ball with you, but the only way to reliably travel zone-to-zone with a ball is through the tunnel anyway.

Re: What do you think will be important this year?
 

Don't forget about defense. You can stay in your starting zone and block the opposing alliance. And, you can block opposing alliance robots from traversing the tunnels and bumps in the center field to buy time. Then, when it comes to the finale, hanging is key earn some extra points at the end of the match. I mean, scoring the soccer balls is 1 point each. At the minimum, you'll probably be able to score 2-3 balls, given the circumstance. So, defense, as much as offense, and hanging will be a key role in this year's game.

Re: What do you think will be important this year?
 

Sorry to burst your bubbles but how are you going to swing from a bar that his higher than the 60 in height limit? To swing from it you would have to climb up the bump and if your doing that you might as well just go over the bump instead of wasting time to swing ....

Re: What do you think will be important this year?
 

I think tunnels will at least be an option for many teams, and a preferred one to the risky bumps for many. Not necessarily mandatory but they'll be used.

Balls also roll through sometimes.

Re: What do you think will be important this year?
 

Vision / camera systems may be critical: We've started wondering (and won't know until we either build a Bump or CAD out the dimensions) if soccer balls will be easily visible across in the far zones because of the Bumps. If not, the ability for a robot to "see" will be critical, both on offense and defense.

Re: What do you think will be important this year?
 

Touch the tower. You can adopt Finale configuration any time you are touching the tower under <G30-C>.

Of course, if I was a ref, I might call an <S01> violation if you were swinging, depending on the manner of swinging. Definitely if a tower came down.

Re: What do you think will be important this year?
 

I doubt hanging will be that important within game play because a team that can score effectively and get the balls back out will be able to make up those points quickly. Personally I still want to hang, but more for political reasons within the regional, being able to hang well and have other robots hang from you can be something that will help set you apart from the rest of the competition.

Also on that note I think were going to see another competition where the human player will be a big part of things. The coralers won't need to do much, but they can ruin things if they're not paying attention to what's going on, but as we saw in the kickoff demonstrations with Dean, Woodie, and Lavery the trident holder, the more important of the positions, needs to work fast and avoid getting the ball stuck in the trident, from pushing it in to hard, and getting it stuck on the track, by spreading the track and having it close in on the ball.

Don I think there is some truth to what your saying because robots could become easily blocked if only able to move through the tunnel, but teams that can go through the tunnel will be able to move much faster than those who can only go over the ramp, if the tunnel isn't blocked. In my opinion the teams your going to see trying to move from zone to zone will try and go through the tunnel first, but have the capability to go over the ramps. Also I think a trend will start to develop where you'll see teams that don't hang during the endgame will be these bots that can go through the tunnel.

Re: What do you think will be important this year?
 

Neither the tunnel or bump will be an effective mode of traveling from one zone to another. How do we move from zone to zone? You don't, at least, once you get your robot where you want it - you keep it there, and let your mechanisms do the scoring for you. One robot moves balls from the midzone to the alliance zone, and a second moves balls of the alliance zone to the goal. It's that simple.

Why you would need extra robots in a zone is, currently, beyond me.

Re: What do you think will be important this year?
 

I'm wondering how these teams plan to shrink back to standard configuration before letting go. That's also rather important.

Re: What do you think will be important this year?
 

It all depends on how each teams strategy plays out in my opinion it would be best to stay in your area and be able to score effectively from there, but it's one of those things where you want the option to be able to travel from zone to zone.

Re: What do you think will be important this year?
 

For a robot in the opposing alliance's zone, getting back to the middle section might be important, depending on their goal.

Also, if there is only one robot working a zone, it might be quite easy to block balls from being passed from one zone to another.

Re: What do you think will be important this year?
 

As the balls are reintroduced at midfield, it could be advantageous to bring the third robot from the opponent's end to midfield. That would give you an edge in gaining possession of reintroduced balls.