Re: Week 2: Any new lessons learned?
 

From a volunteer point of view:

-If your minibot doesn't come down at the end of the match, you need to get to the pole right away as soon as you're given the okay to get your robots. While most minibots can be easily taken down by setting the hook on top of it and pulling down, there were a few teams who told us to pull on the wheels instead, or some other part. Until you tell us how to take your minibot down - at least the first time it happens - we can't do anything. We don't want to break your minibot, but we also can't spend forever standing next to the tower.

-Tubes can be popped by pushing them really hard into the tower, or a wall, or another robot. Avoid crushing them.

-It only takes a tiny tiny tiny hole to pop a tube. You would be very surprised. I'm going to echo every inspector and volunteer out there when I say PLEASE do not have ANY sharp edges on your robot.

-Regarding tube inflation: it seemed that the tubes deflated slightly with use. They may have been placed on the field initially as brand new and fully inflated (using the guide), but after a few matches, they will be slightly smaller. Keep in mind that the crew simply doesn't have enough time between matches to re-pump all 42 tubes on the field, and that you may get ones that are up to an inch smaller.

-There were a lot of minibots that fell off of robots during teleop. Make sure they're secure until deployment!


EDIT: FIRST (or maybe FiM, but I assume it was from the folks in Manchester) sent us a nice package of parts and instructions to fix the tower triggering problem. It works very nicely. There weren't any false triggers at Waterford, to my knowledge.

Re: Week 2: Any new lessons learned?
 

Clean your minibot's wheels between matches. We used Clorox disposable wipes (because that's what we had lying around in the shop, and it evaporates very quickly. Also disinfects as it cleans!).

The difference in grip between dirty and clean wheels is substantial.

Re: Week 2: Any new lessons learned?
 

More of a reminder for the next few weeks, but make sure that everything on your robot and minibot is secured and tightened (batteries secured, bolts tightened, minibot correctly attached to the mounting pegs, etc.). Our last qualification match, we would have won and possibly been in the top 8 had the rubber bands holding the minibot battery been attached. The battery fell out, and even though we climbed the tower, we broke the 12"x12"x12" rule, and our tower points were not counted.

Re: Week 2: Any new lessons learned?
 

In San Diego, we DQed in the Semifinals because we were repeatedly being pushing into the opponent's scoring zone because we only used 2 CIMs. I had warned of this from the beginning of the build season and that we had to use 4 CIMs. We made it to Semis with only a working minibot. My mentor said not to use the arm at all because the drivers never practiced with it. We had great drivers, I believe that our code was next to undrivable but my mentor did not authorize uploading of new code. We knew the problem and fixed it in a minute, but we never uploaded it because the drivers were on a roll. I was very very surprised we made it this far with a dysfunctional robot. At first, we were even worried that we would be even able to put the robot in the field.


We learned that speed of the minibot has to be upped. We left our fast motors at the shop because our mentors and the team captain did not want to "cheat" (they still believe it is illegal... Even though I disproved it weeks ago)

So in other words, no one ever listened to me because they thought I had no idea what I was talking about because all I do is program. NOW they believe me and we will dominate in LA

Listen to David, he may not seem to know what he is talking about when he criticizes the robot, but he is doing it for the good of the team and to improve the robot.

Re: Week 2: Any new lessons learned?
 

I'm not sure any of this is really news, but here I go...

Wall loaders are at a disadvantage because there are almost always tubes in the lane that make it hard to reach the feeding slot.

A premature minibot deployment will ruin your whole match.

The lanes are really hard to avoid when you have two or three hangers trying to pick tubes off the floor just outside your zone.

Re: Week 2: Any new lessons learned?
 

Watching week one (GSR) tubes were flooding the field. 90% thrown. Week two (WPI) the field was starved of tubes. The tubes that were delivered were thrown.

Starving the field of tubes made the mini-bot super important.

Bottom line...mini-bot makes or breaks the match.

Re: Week 2: Any new lessons learned?
 

Strategy is the key to the game. You could have the best robot out there, but if your strategy does not hold up you will lose. No one has the ability to keep focus on everything needed to survive, use your analyst well. Make sure you have some good scouting information. 1114 knew that starving the other alliance of tubes would work because their alliance could get across the field quicker. When they know the other team lost the race they let loose.

Re: Week 2: Any new lessons learned?
 

At Pittsburgh most of the mini-bot races went off without a hitch with a few hitting the target but not registering with the FMS. Then we had three extreme cases where the mini-bot would hit one of the bolts holding the target together, make an audible thud and slide back a few inches. During qualifications these were counted as a finished race and went up for an alliance score.

During the Elims this rule was subject to a phone call from the top and was changed so that if your mini-bot doesn't press plastic you don't get points regardless of how many refs are watching to back up/confirm the race and the FMS.

Lesson learned: Don't have large flat spots on the contacting face of your mini-bot that could stop progress on the head of a bolt. Redesign if needed to adapt to something that was changed as of last Wednesday. Add a random pin or something to counteract the randomness the GDC just added to the mini-bot race.

Re: Week 2: Any new lessons learned?
 

One team at our regional had 42 points then canceled them all pout with 16 penalties. It helped us win but it sucked for the team. Most of them are also lane incursions. At our regional we had some extra fabric on our bumper and it slightly touched the red tape and we received a penalty.

Re: Week 2: Any new lessons learned?
 

Two of those penalties (possibly three) were red cards.

Re: Week 2: Any new lessons learned?
 

How did you make "fast motors?" You are using the Tetrix motors, aren't you?

Re: Week 2: Any new lessons learned?
 

Maybe he was talking about motors without their gearboxes.

Re: Week 2: Any new lessons learned?
 

Gearbox modifications. Our minibot guy said it was "too fast" and that we would get "caught"... :( Only if we had used it, we might have survived till the finals

Re: Week 2: Any new lessons learned?
 

"So in other words, no one ever listened to me because they thought I had no idea what I was talking about because all I do is program. NOW they believe me and we will dominate in LA"

Learn to spend the effort to quote the actual manual and the Q&A with actual links and citations.
(Mentors have more trouble arguing against undeniable documentation from accepted experts as compared to just the easy oratory of "just programmers" that sound confident. )
;)

Re: Week 2: Any new lessons learned?
 

The irony is that is exactly what I did. :confused: I have no idea why anyone would still not see the point. In fact, the one in charge of the minibot actually modified the gearbox, he was on my side. But the team captain said no because it is "illegal". He just personally hates me though; he actually told me "Stop telling me these thing David, you know whatever you say to me come out my other ear."

I can't do much but just say "I told you so..."