Re: Lessons learned for Week 2 Regionals?
 

I dont know if the GDC can actually truly anticipate exactly how the game will be played. I have had the honor of speaking to some of the greats Woodie Dave and the like and they always say. Well certaintly didnt anticipate that or didnt think of this solution. I think they make a huge effort to anticipate some general engineering hurdles but they are human and cant anticipate everything. I also think the game evolves over time. This game in that sense is like every other. I think over time the logo scoring will become more important as teams figure out the minibot. It will be intresting to see.

Re: Lessons learned for Week 2 Regionals?
 

At FLR, the dominant robots could score logo pieces quickly, consistently, and often.

Minibots are important. Autonomous is important. Logo pieces are important.

Do all three well, and you've got yourself a highly competitive robot. Don't, and you've got yourself a robot that might have a place on the right alliance. There's a difference, methinks.

Re: Lessons learned for Week 2 Regionals?
 

I think this was the opinion I expected to see, but what I wasn't seeing on the rest of this thread. I assumed the autonomous would be least important, probably because that was how it was in the past. I didn't think about the amount of points you could get from that.

Re: Lessons learned for Week 2 Regionals?
 

Scoring an Ubertube on the top row in auton is worth 12 points for your alliance if you are scoring your logo pieces is teleop correctly.

6 points for the ubertube in auton + 3 additional points for placing a logo piece on that ubertube + 3 additional points for the complete logo doubler. Bascially, a 3 point logo piece on the top row is now worth 6 when placed on an ubertube and worth 12 when it is also part of a completed logo.

For those counting, a single completed logo on the top row is worth the following taking ubertubes (and their auton points) into account:

0 UT - 18 points
1 UT - 30 points
2 UT - 42 points
3 UT - 54 points


I am sure the teams that can do 2 UT figured this out long before the rest of us.

Re: Lessons learned for Week 2 Regionals?
 

There is the JVN guy that keeps a blog during the build season. He had a really good post about this exact subject a long time ago.
http://blog.iamjvn.com/2011/02/this-...e-do-math.html
;)

While we didn't make a nice table like John did, we did pull up the 910 IRI video during week 1. Thanks again Foley for proving it could be done back in 2007.

Re: Lessons learned for Week 2 Regionals?
 

I sort of disagree... I think it was the newness of the drivers getting used to how crowded the field was, and even through week 3 & 4 you will have plenty of teams that have never driven on a full size field with 6 robots & tons of tubes. My suggestion was simply because I believe the INTENT of the rule was to keep you from interfering with robots in the lane, but even when there is no robot, there are penalties, and there are just SOOOO many penalties this year.

At FLR one of them RUNG one of the towers with a white tube!!

They were giving out yellow cards for humans throwing tubes... ours unfortunately got one, as he was trying to throw across the field and accidentally hit a nearby robot trying to score in its zone :(

I believe its just that in week 1 logos did not score as much as minibots because sooo many teams had so much trouble with scoring logo pieces. Whether it was driver inexperience, robot issues, design flaws, or just shear field traffic, many teams chased tubes around the field and spent so much time just trying to score a single tube. My guess is that many of them drastically underestimated the difficulty of scoring on the high pegs, and went for "doing everything", rather than just getting good at the middle or lower pegs. Granted the really good robots could do it all, but I think too many tried to do it all, so logos were just not as common as originally intended perhaps. I think this will improve as drivers learn to drive their robots and teams fix all the bugs/tolerance issues. But it was very clear which teams either finished early or had second robots to get their drivers practicing on, and which teams didn't. I think there were maybe 5 robots that I would have called "good" at scoring logos at FLR.

Re: Lessons learned for Week 2 Regionals?
 

I know we, for example, had a design flaw on our manipulator -- the tubes were so inflated that our claw couldn't hold them properly, and had difficulty floor loading.

We finally had it fixed by the end of qualifiers, and then were assigned the role of "defense + minibot" for our tournament alliance.

Re: Lessons learned for Week 2 Regionals?
 

Observations:

• Logo formation is a must at 2x points, one team had 4.
• Don't be afraid to try autonomous, it is difficult and even the teams which appeared to have it down missed, but you never know.
• Try only 2 teams placing on the rack with one team retrieving tubes and placing them at your end so your scoring teams may use and harder for opponent. Some robots were wandering way too far to get tubes.
• 3 teams attempting to score appear to just get in each others way.
• If a team cannot score then block tubes, get in the other teams way but stay out of their end, penalty.
• Do not get a tube caught on the mini bot tower, penalty, found out hard way.
• If your alliance has a mini bot then make sure you attempt to get it up the tower as it is a tie breaker against a team with out a bot, we found out the hard way again with a 50-50 loss, ouch.
• Some teams "appear" to take too long trying to hook a poorly picked up tube instead of dropping it and picking the tube up properly.
• Practice throwing tubes! The round ones roll to your end if done properly and poorly thrown ones hit the judges on the sidelines and are dropped nice and close for the other side.
• SECURE BATTERY, often said but it happened again.
• Loose wires, secure so they won't come out when the robot is hit.

Re: Lessons learned for Week 2 Regionals?
 

Judges shouldn't be putting tubes back on the field. It might be OK for referees, but I'm pretty sure it is supposed to be the field reset people putting the tubes back into play.

Re: Lessons learned for Week 2 Regionals?
 

Make sure that your claw/grabber/manipulator is capable of taking overinflated tubes. We had to make some adjustments, since at FLR the tubes were properly (unlike how we had done them) inflated. IMO the issue with inflatable gamepieces.

On another note, atleast at FLR elims, the game was played the same way I think it will be in week 5. Alliances regularly scored 2+ logos (even at the quaterfinal levels) and then had a full (3 or 4) minibot race. I would watch videos from there, if anyone would upload them to look for strategy.

Re: Lessons learned for Week 2 Regionals?
 

I saw quite a few tubes fly off the field at Kettering, and I was only there for about 7 matches. It seemed like refs were putting quite a few back in, though I could tell that it was an inconvenience for them (they were blindly putting the tubes back in play while still keeping a close eye on the robots).

The tubes are light and easily float off the field if thrown in at the wrong angle and elevation.

Re: Lessons learned for Week 2 Regionals?
 

Did you see me get smacked in the face by a triangle?

Re: Lessons learned for Week 2 Regionals?
 

Is there a video???? :D

Re: Lessons learned for Week 2 Regionals?
 

There is only one case where this advice is useful - One of your alliance partners CAN score it on the top row if you leave it for them. Otherwise, it will be better to hang the yellow tube for some points than to leave it around to get in your way.

Re: Lessons learned for Week 2 Regionals?
 

I read the game rules pretty carefully. There don't seem to be points for that. You did have safety glasses on, din-chu? ;)