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Originally Posted by Fuzzy
How hard is it to reset the field? I'm imagine those softball stacks to be troublesome, especially if they rolled into other stacks and start a chain reaction.
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I'm sure Joe and others that were in DE can give you more detailed information, but I will say that the GDC did discuss field reset and it's one of the reasons this configuration was picked.
Last year it was possible that 100 balls had to be reset and those pesky lines were troublesome. We also lost time between matches last year with robots "slipping" down the hill from their starting positions.
This year we have the potential to reset 40 balls in piles of four on the field with six balls for preloading. While it might not be obvious to you, every place where a pile of four softballs starts is at an intersection of tiles (and most are also marked by the white tape). Also note that the bottom three softballs in a stack are set in "random orientation" so we take out the need for an overly precise reset position. After that, all that needs to be reset are the atlas ball, and a quick rotation of the platform.
I can only speak for the Delaware event with certainty, but DE and many others will use two fields. This means that one match will run while the other field is being reset.
So, if you factor in the folks we needed last year on the autonomous field that no longer exists, our prediction is that these events should be able to have a quicker reset between matches and use the same number of reset volunteers as were used last year.