[tkwetzel]

"1. its all or nothing - if it fails to work you get none of them - if you are tying to get the balls in auton mode, and something goes wrong, the balls will be all over the field, and you will have no way to collect them."

This is all part of the strategy. This is true, but it is not a big enough reason to eliminate the use of this strategy. If your alliance member (or opponent) fails to hit one of your bonus balls in the auton mode, you can wait the extra 30 seconds and then give all the balls to your player, you can try to get small balls from your opponents side, or you can attempt to control a 2x ball or the goals. Another thing about this is that you don't have to be one of the top teams to be in the finals. If your robot can reliably collect the balls and deliver them to your player station effectively, then you will most likely be picked by one of the top teams who did well being able to control the goals and 2x balls.


"3. as the game is being played you need to keep the HP supplied with a steady stream of balls - this approach would dump all the balls on one human player all at once, and your bot would probabally have to stay there for a while - 18 balls wont fit in the corral all at one time, so your bot is not free to go do a different task. we decided it would be more time effecient to gather a few balls, deliver them, then gather a few more.... or go after the 2X ball in between gathering."

This is false logic, because if the robot supplies all the balls to the player station in the first 45 seconds of teh match (including auton), the human player can then have the rest of the match to be throwing all the balls and the robot can focus on one other task, instead of having to interrupt the 2x ball manipulation or bar hanging to get more small balls to the human player. And if you are efficient about collecting the balls in the beginning, it will ultimately give your human player more balls in a shorter period of time then collecting them across the field. Your human player does not need a steady stream of balls, if he can get them all in the beginning. When the robot delivers all the balls, the human player and coach and possibly one of the drivers can help remove all the balls from the corral as they quickly come in. Then there are plenty of balls for your alliance players throughout the match. It will also free up your alliances robot to concentrate on other tasks, such as goal manipulation, 2x ball control, and/or bar hanging, so they will be able to more effectively perform whatever tasks possible.

I believe I have worked through all the negatives of this strategy and found that it will be more effective than any other strategy, as long as the robot is reliable. The reliability all depends on the team, the design, and the auton coding, which is all dependent on the team. I welcome any other suggestions for or against this strategy as I try to look at every aspect of it.