Quote:
Originally Posted by ThirteenOfTwo
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This sounds like sketchy logic. Did your simulating players try bouncing the ball from the inbounder station? What about dedicating one robot on the other side of the field to play defense AND to return scored balls? In your simulations, did you ever come across a situation where more than one robot needed to use a bridge at a time? "We'd be screwed if our partner breaks down loses some validity because if your partner breaks down on the bridge (thus rendering it unbalanceable) it's probably already over. The flaw here is "for some reason". Think about the reasons this would happen.
Q1) Why do they have a lot of balls?
A1) There are two possibilities.
P1) They are receiving a lot of balls.
P2) They are not scoring any balls.
C1) If P2 is true, they are losing.
Q2) From where are they receiving these balls?
A2) There are several possibilities.
P3) They are receiving them from their feeder station faster than they can score them.
P4) They are receiving them from the ground on your side of the field faster than they can score them.
P5) Some combination of P3 and P4
C2) If P3 is true, you are scoring at a faster rate than they are and therefore winning.
C3) If P4 is true, your aim is bad and their defensive robot is amazing at stealing rebounds.
C4) If P5 is true, the result is likely a combination of C2 and C3.
O1) If P4 is true, stop that defensive robot! (Or, alternately, build a robot that is accurate.)
O2) If P5 is true, stop that defensive robot! (Or, alternately, build a robot that is accurate.) (Or, if P3 > P4, don't worry!)
C4) If they have a lot of balls on their side of the field, either you are winning or one robot is responsible for their success or your alliance is so wildly inaccurate that you have no hope of winning anyways.
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Since we did not have a full field we did a table top simulation. I also got a chance to play with the field that morning. Our simulation assumed that no balls would be thrown or bounced over the field (we may play around with this but unless you have an inbound station, bridge, and bump you can't rule it possible).
While it may seem like, "sketchy logic" it is perfectly resonable to me. We participate in a week one regional where many teams are just getting up and running and driver skill is on the lower side unless they have practiced. All you need is one robot to have a hard time going over the bridge and you have yourself a mess. I never assume that my robot or the robots at my event will be stellar at one thing or doing something will be easy like crossing the bump or even driving. That isn't mean or saying everyone else is horrible, I'm just saying that I'm not going to assume my regional has 50 robots that can cross a bridge in 2 seconds. Following that same train of though while having one robot to funnel balls across the field is a good partner, I'm not going to assume that robot will be at my regional or in my matches. If I designed around this what am I going to do when I'm stuck with 2 other robots just like me or can't do anything?
If a partner breaks down on the ramp/is hanging off the side I'm not going to touch it unless it is absolutaly necessary out of respect for that teams robot. I will however design to go over the bump so I don't have to worry about the bridge until the end. Our design should take around 1 second to cross the bump, unless I can make a bridge cross that fast including dropping the bridge I'd do it. Again I'm not going to assume the bridge is open the entire match. To say my partners are going to stay in one zone is out there because I can't control what they do.
Assuming you are correct and they are outscoring me does that mean I stop scoring? The way I see this game is that there are 18 balls which equates to 3 per robot which is all I can have. Each inbounder can hold 2 balls which means up to 6 on each side. If you take a moment and think that over and over you'll realize that there aren't going to be a lot of balls on the field (I'm not saying 3 balls will be in each robot at all times and each inbounder will have 2 at all times). Collecting the few balls that are on the field will be a huge factor in this years game which is another reason why we see the bump as a strategic point. If it is faster to cross the bump then the bridge we will cross the bump as much as we can.
In short I'm not assuming the bridge is open all the time and I'm not going design my robot around what I think other teams can do.