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Unread 06-04-2014, 09:54
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Michael Corsetto Michael Corsetto is offline
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FRC #1678 (Citrus Circuits)
Team Role: Mentor
 
Join Date: May 2004
Rookie Year: 2002
Location: Davis, CA
Posts: 1,140
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Re: 1000 assist points and we could have done more

Quote:
Originally Posted by Adam Freeman View Post
When you guys were doing your pre-match work with your alliance partners, were you modifying their robot or just detailing exactly how you wanted to execute the assists? Sometimes I feel like I am speaking another language during strategy sessions, based on in-match results. Just trying to understand what else might work to ensure we can involve all alliance members and still succeed on the field.

Could just be that I am not patient enough during the match.

-Adam
Adam,

Definitely both. Some machines come ready to create assists, some take slight tweaks to make their robot assist-ready, and others require a completely new mechanism to make assists happen. We spent many hours in our lab developing an effective assist-maker to implement on many different styles of robots. After installing the device, a completely passive system, we get our partner re-inspected before our match. We used this in one of our qualification matches at SVR to get 80 assist points in what would have been a 50-60 point assist match if we were rocking 10 assist points a cycle.

I find myself explaining the seeding system often, but it's definitely worth it. Teams get on board with making assists when you explain that is in their best interest to get assist points and rank high (many teams wants to rank high even if they won't be in the top 8).

Many assist-ready robots still need to be taught how exactly to make assists happen. My biggest pet peeve is when an inbounder passes to the second bot in the first zone, and the second robot trusses to the third robot before driving completely into the white zone.

Also, I hardly ever coach my own drive team in qualifications

-Mike

Edit: Also, it is worth noting that all of this is possible because the students on 1678 went through many iterations of our passive assist-maker before the event. Additionally, I never have to worry about our robot because the students in our pit diligently prepare/fix/systems check the robot between every match. To top it off, like Jake said, we have a team of mentors and students dedicated to robot modifications/alliance member support. Reaching 1000 assist points truly was a team effort, I couldn't be more proud.
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Last edited by Michael Corsetto : 06-04-2014 at 10:00. Reason: Credit where credit is due.
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