Should You Get Totes From Landfill

[Robot Sans]

Is it worth making a robot that can get totes from the landfill or just go to the tote chute and have your human player pass totes. I think the human player option is a bit easier but could the landfill robots be a valuable resource? Thoughts.

[IronicDeadBird]

Its a key part of our robot design so I hope so...

[Robot Sans]

Originally Posted by IronicDeadBird

Its a key part of our robot design so I hope so...

How many totes do you think you could acquire from the landfill, i ask because there are more totes in the human player area

[Taylor]

Originally Posted by Robot Sans

How many totes do you think you could acquire from the landfill, i ask because there are more totes in the human player area

I disagree.
There are 28 totes in the landfill area, plus 12 more are 'shared' on the step. So from a we've-got-them-and-they-don't standpoint, there are delta-52 totes in the "landfill area."
In the HP area there are 30 totes total.

[Caleb Sykes]

Originally Posted by Taylor

I disagree.
There are 28 totes in the landfill area, plus 12 more are 'shared' on the step. So from a we've-got-them-and-they-don't standpoint, there are delta-52 totes in the "landfill area."

Why do you care about how many totes you take away from the opposing alliance?

[JamesCH95]

Originally Posted by Caleb Sykes

How fast do you think a well-trained HP can get the totes into play? Ours can get under 5 seconds without any serious practice, and I expect he will be down in the 3 second range in the near future once our robot gets more together. As for fouls, trained human players could generally go the whole season last year without getting a foul, and since there were 10x more silly ways to get a foul last year than this year, I expect that our HP will be foul-less this season.

There are a couple of good reasons to choose landfill over HP station, but I don't think that speed is a good one at all. Only a handful of very good teams will be able to collect totes from the floor and add them to stacks in under 3 seconds. Most teams that go for ground pick-up will take around 10 seconds to line up with a tote even if it is out in the open, and grabbing from the landfill will at least double that.

I strongly disagree. I think that having totes that are largely restrained from movement, in a known orientation, with a back-stop on at least two sides, will be much easier to pick up that a lose tote at an arbitrary orientation on the field. It all depends on how the pick-up mechanism is designed.

[Caleb Sykes]

Originally Posted by JamesCH95

I strongly disagree. I think that having totes that are largely restrained from movement, in a known orientation, with a back-stop on at least two sides, will be much easier to pick up that a lose tote at an arbitrary orientation on the field. It all depends on how the pick-up mechanism is designed.

It took teams at least that long to pick up game pieces in the last 4 FRC games, I don't see why it would be significantly different this year.

[nicholsjj]

I want to add that the visual restrictions of the drivers will be more impacted for the Step totes than the driver station totes. I know with just a single stack made getting the step totes exponentially harder during our practice session due to sight restrictions, note we haven't put on a camera yet. I think a good alliance will probably have robots get the step totes enough to clear the RC's and then focus on the driver station totes for scoring purposes. The bigger question is do you believe that you need more than 20-30 totes per match at a regional/district level. If so then the step totes are a must, but they almost have to be done first.

[pandamonium]

Originally Posted by nicholsjj

The bigger question is do you believe that you need more than 20-30 totes per match at a regional/district level.

Yes i do believe so. Lets estimate that there is room for 9 totes to be comfortably scored on each platform. 4 stacks of 5 = 20 totes 14 stacks of 2 = 28 totes. 48 totes.

[JamesCH95]

Originally Posted by Caleb Sykes

It took teams at least that long to pick up game pieces in the last 4 FRC games, I don't see why it would be significantly different this year.

You think it took 20s to pick up game pieces in the last 4 years? Really?

What leads you to believe that picking up landfill totes will take twice as long as free totes? This is what I'm really curious to know.

[IndySam]

The landfill totes are in the same location every time. A driver can drill over and over and over again on getting these totes to the point where it can become almost automatic. Don't bet on the human load to be consistently faster.

[g_sawchuk]

It's really a debatable matter, and how your robot does the task is what really defines the best strategy. Landfill is such a risky move. Look at the field spacing. If you have 3 robots going to the landfill, it's going to be a tight squeeze. If you have some robots that place stacks on the step closest to the landfill, you could get trapped in and then knock over the stacks. I personally feel that the best strategy would be to have 3 robots, each who can perform one of these 3 tasks:
-One robot taking totes from the landfill, and making large stacks of 4-6
-Another making stacks from the totes at the HP station
-One robot taking RC to the HP station, getting a noodle in them, and stacking them

That would essentially be the ideal alliance. I'm hoping to compose a strategy book, detailing our possible match paths to best cooperate with your alliance members and ensure that you won't be in their way.

Your worst enemy this year will be your own alliance.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Caleb Sykes

It took teams at least that long to pick up game pieces in the last 4 FRC games, I don't see why it would be significantly different this year.

Maybe in Minnesota.

I know for a fact our robot could complete a cycle from grabbing a loose ball to scoring it in 20s. Heck, I saw Bomb Squad acquire, truss to HP, inbound, and score under heavy defense in sub 20 seconds. So, no, it most certainly doesn't take teams that long.

[Laaba 80]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

Maybe in Minnesota.

I know for a fact our robot could complete a cycle from grabbing a loose ball to scoring it in 20s. Heck, I saw Bomb Squad acquire, truss to HP, inbound, and score under heavy defense in sub 20 seconds. So, no, it most certainly doesn't take teams that long.

Bomb Squad isn't most teams. They fall in the "handful of very good teams" he mentioned.

[IndySam]

Originally Posted by Laaba 80

Bomb Squad isn't most teams. They fall in the "handful of very good teams" he mentioned.

If it would have taken my driver 10 seconds to acquire a ball last year he would have been fired. Heck if it took more than a couple seconds he would have been fired.

This year without defense he/she will need to be able to line up and acquire within a couple seconds and that's without an active grabber.